Opposition’s Legal Win Fails to Topple Pakistani Government, Fitch Report

By DTD- On Jul 18, 2024

Imran Khan to Remain in Detention, Pakistani Government to Stay in Power for 18 Months:

ISLAMABAD (Mudassar Iqbal); Opposition’s Legal Win Fails to Topple Pakistani Government, Fitch Report , Fitch, the credit rating agency, predicts in its report on Pakistan that Imran Khan, the founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), will continue to be in detention in the near future.

On 12 July, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that parliamentarians supported by jailed opposition leader Imran Khan can sit in the national assembly under their own party name and are eligible for 22 seats reserved for women and minorities. This means that the ruling military-backed coalition government will retain its overall majority, but will lose the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution(Fitch)

Despite several successful legal appeals, opposition leader Imran Khan will remain imprisoned for the foreseeable future,” predicted BMI, in its Pakistan Country Risk Report for the fourth quarter of the calendar year 2024.

The risk evaluation company also painted a dire scenario for the ruling alliance, which is considering banning PTI as a political party over its alleged anti-state activities following a favourable verdict by the country’s top court in its reserved seats case.

“We expect that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-led government will remain in power over the coming 18 months and will succeed in pushing through with International Monetary Fund (IMF) mandated fiscal reforms.”

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Going a step further, the Fitch Solutions company also appears to have figured out who or what will fill the vacuum created by the anticipated ouster of the incumbent government.

Latest Supreme Court decision has been widely celebrated by Khan’s supporters, it does not change our view that coalition government led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) will remain in power over the coming 12-18 months. The coalition appears to enjoys the support of Pakistan’s military leadership, which we do not think would accept Khan returning to power. Indeed, if for any reason the coalition were unable to continue in office, we expect that it would be replaced by a military-backed technocratic government. This implies that Pakistan’s government will continue to implement IMF-mandated reforms, helping the economy to grow by 3.2% in 2024/25.(Fitch)