Pakistan’s upcoming general elections on July 25 may be the most tense and fraught in the country’s brief period of democracy, and there are lingering doubts about whether they will even be held on time. In Pakistan, the political establishment appears to be following the example of Turkey and Egypt, where those in power clamped down on the media and intimidated civil society just before holding a vote.
Imran Khan thought he was there in 2013, but it was not to be. He claimed the elections were stolen. He won’t accept defeat and was willing to go to any extent to force mid-term polls. He failed. He was a man in a hurry, yet the ‘umpire’ would not come to his help. It’s 2018 now and back to the hustings. Has IK’s moment finally arrived?
China’s control of public discourse about the trade war, an issue too big to be ignored completely, has gone beyond a white-or-black approach and aims to be more subtle…State media outlets with a higher political ranking are allowed to publish news and editorials about the trade war, while local media and internet news portals are often told to republish what state media have already published and not to overplay the issue.
Historically, Pakistan’s private sector, projecting a neutral image, preferred to watch electoral politics from a safe distance. This is not the case anymore. In these changing times, as the country prepares for general elections next week, the business class, much like other segments of society, is engaged in the process.
At this time last year, the global economy was experiencing strong, widespread growth, with even the long-stagnant European Union staging a robust recovery. But with key indicators of trade and investment now weakening, a new crisis – not least a global trade war – could quickly bring the global upturn to a halt.
China’s US imports aren’t large enough to match Trump’s tariffs dollar for dollar, but there are other levers available, such as taxes and added regulation on US companies, slowing deal approvals, or boycotts of American products.
Poppy cultivation, heroin production, terrorist attacks and territory controlled by the Taliban are now at or near record highs. President Ashraf Ghani said recently that Afghanistan’s military — and the government itself — would be in danger of imminent collapse, perhaps within days, if U.S. assistance stops.
With a China-US trade war under way, both parties are adopting a no-insult strategy, choosing to remain muted in their rhetoric about the opposing side’s leader. After answering Washington’s 25 per cent levy on US$34 billion of Chinese goods with equivalent tariffs on US products, Beijing has directed state media to watch how they report on US President Donald Trump, mainland media sources said.
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The trade dispute between China and the US could be the biggest challenge Chinese President Xi Jinping has faced since coming to power in 2012, analysts said. During his first term of office, a period Beijing described as a time when “the West is chaotic and China is prosperous”, Xi accomplished many of the goals on his to-do list, both at home and abroad…But a so-called trade war with the United States is a whole new ball game.
Disqualified from holding public office, disqualified from holding party office and now, sentenced to 10 years in jail by an accountability court — it has been a year of massive political and personal setbacks for Nawaz Sharif. The legal dimensions of the accountability court judgement will be pored over by independent analysts and can be assessed at a later date. The political fallout of the judgement, however, begins immediately and there are pressing questions for the PML-N.
