Here comes November

A lot is supposed to happen in November. A most anticipated change of guard in Rawalpindi, and an even more anticipated FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

I checked to see how Pakistan was doing the last time there were changes of this magnitude in the army leadership. In the November 2016 FIFA rankings, Pakistan was at 197th position out of 204 countries. In the most recent FIFA rankings, released in October 2022, Pakistan stands 194th out of 211 countries. Only the very clever among us will be able to reframe this as a win. But it would also be unfair and disingenuous to link the military to sports. Just ask poor General Arif Hassan, who has been forced to remain in charge of Pakistan’s pathetic Olympics showings now for 18 long years. Sports are an important marker of how a country is doing, but they are far from the most important ways to measure how a country is doing.

PwC, the firm that used to be known as Price Waterhouse Coopers, has offices in 152 countries and employs over 300,000 people. Its gross revenues in the year ending June 2022 were over $50 billion. One of PwC’s most interesting publicly available knowledge products is a 2017 report it published titled ‘The Long View: How will the global economic order change by 2050?’

The PwC report is exactly the kind of uplifting reading that many Pakistani elites love to cite because it generates a positive narrative about the future of the country. In the 2016 rankings, Pakistan was 24th in the world in GDP by purchasing power parity (PPP). In 2030, PwC expects Pakistan to rise to nearly double its GDP PPP, and climb to 20th position in the world. By 2050, PwC estimates that Pakistan will double its GDP PPP once again, and rise to 16th overall. I know I am especially susceptible to citing and celebrating such estimates – we need to be able to North Star a positive direction for ourselves and our fellow countrywomen and countrymen. The problem is that such optimism should not come through the erasure of other, materially relevant, less uplifting data points.

GDP PPP is a good metric for an economy writ large, but a much better measure of how the people in a country are doing is per capita GDP PPP. How does Pakistan fare on that front? For this, we have to turn to the IMF.

The IMF data on per capita GDP by PPP ranks Pakistan at 134th out of 192 economies. This massive fall off, of roughly 110 places, from the overall GDP by PPP versus per capita GDP by PPP is owed to the country’s large population. Note: expect every elite and elite-adjacent to perk up at this and make an important point about the perils of a high population. It is like clockwork.

How about other ways to compare the economy?

In 2008, when the 18th Amendment was being prepared, the country had a GDP of $170 billion. In 2021, this had more than doubled to $346 billion. Good enough? Let’s see.

In 2008, India’s GDP was $1.2 trillion. It has nearly tripled today to over $3.17 trillion. India wasn’t alone in tripling up since 2008. Vietnam started at $99 billion and has grown today to over $362 billion. Bangladesh in 2008 was at $91 billion. It has quadrupled now to over $416 billion. Pakistan has done okay, countries with similar problems and opportunities have done dramatically better.

There are other ways to measure how well or poorly a country is doing. In the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Global Gender Gap Report, Pakistan was ranked 143rd, second from the bottom, above Yemen and below war-torn Syria. In the WEF’s 2022 Global Gender Gap Report, Pakistan is now ranked 145th, again, second from the bottom, above only Afghanistan – Yemen and Syria have dropped out of the ranking altogether owing to a lack of data.

Is it possible for countries to make rapid progress in closing such gaps? If Bangladesh’s GDP and the unceasing Beltway romance for India aren’t enough, the Global Gender Gap report offers material evidence that it is. In the Global Gender Gap Report, Rwanda is ranked number five in the world – a country where a mass genocide took place less than three decades ago. The Philippines ranks seventh. Namibia too, clocks into the top twenty. And over in Riyadh, where Prime Minister Prince Mohammad Bin Salman has fast-tracked transformational change over the last few years, Saudi Arabia has moved up fourteen places from 141st in 2016, to 127th in 2022.

Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia are evidence that countries are not destined to be stuck in the same place. What is so unique about Pakistan that it keeps getting overtaken by every peer it has ever had?

There are no simple explanations. Some of us like to explain Pakistan through deficits – current, fiscal, or trade – but too much of one and not enough of the other is good math to help explain why Pakistan is so far behind where it should be. Others among us love ‘Islam’ – the Zia era did Pakistan in, and the country has never recovered. Conflict with India and the resultantly dominant military is another fan favourite. Of course, allegedly the most widely adhered to explanation today is ‘corruption’ – it is rent seeking politicians that have destroyed Pakistan’s ability to do well.

All of these are compelling explanations – but none really suffice. Plenty of countries run deficits, especially fiscal deficits. They don’t all find themselves getting turned into pretzels by mid-level IMF staffers. Lots of countries have extremism challenges, including at the top of the highest offices in those countries. None seem to be spinning their wheels on basic reforms to make businesses profitable and to draw talent in. Many countries are defined to a much greater degree by conflict with a neighbour than Pakistan – Israel, Singapore, Japan and Bangladesh all qualify. None have struggled as brutally to advance as Pakistan. And corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, judges and generals are baked into economies in Indonesia, Turkey, India, Malaysia, Turkey, China – not to mention the vast rent seeking infrastructure of Western financial institutions. Why then is it only Pakistan that seems to be completely paralysed by corruption?

Nothing is as overwhelming as the insistence of the Pakistani elite about Pakistani exceptionalism. But there is nothing exceptional about the problems that we so often attribute Pakistan’s dysfunction to. In all this however, there is one truly unique feature of the Pakistani system that is truly exceptional.

Almost nothing about Pakistan’s big questions can be taken for granted.

When will the next elections be held? Don’t know!

Till the government survive the next three months? Not according to this birdie I have!

Is there freedom of the press? There is. But there isn’t.

Are there dollars available in the open market? Maybe. But maybe not. But I know a guy. But he isn’t picking up.

Will polio be eradicated? Yes. Maybe. Not sure. Probably.

Can you buy Panadol at the pharmacy? No. Well, yes. Maybe.

How long is a prime minister’s term? Five years. Unless the PM is assassinated, or de-seated by the Supreme Court, or disqualified, or dismissed in a coup, or voted out through a vote of no-confidence.

Do officials retire when their tenure ends? Not the first time. Maybe the second time. Who knows? We’ll find out this month.

The writer is an analyst and commentator.