PMLN's 2024 manifesto is the most detailed of the three, and its power plan is the weakest part

A status quo document worth reading

This is the third episode in Muzamil’s series on the 2024 election manifestos. He had already reviewed the PTI and People’s Party documents. Now he turns to PMLN, and he explains why this one matters most. In his reading, PMLN was going to form the government “one way or the other.” So whatever is written here is the best guide to what Pakistan will try over the next one or two years.

He also sees a link to the caretaker period. In his view, the previous six months were more than an election caretaker. A power center had decided Pakistan’s direction was wrong and set out to redesign it, with the SIFC, a focus on agriculture and a push into mining. Much of PMLN’s manifesto, he argues, echoes that same direction. He sets the politics aside on purpose. “When you disconnect the politics out of it,” he says, you can judge the policies on their merits.

The manifesto lists PMLN’s 2013 to 2018 record, then its 2022 to 2023 record, then its promises, with more detail than the bullet points suggest.

The big promises on the first page

The opening page carries the headline numbers. Muzamil reads them out and calls most of them unrealistic.

• GDP growth of 4% by the end of 2025, 5% by 2026, and 6% in 2027, 2028 and 2029.
• Agriculture growth of 5% and industry growth of 7% by 2029.
• Inflation down to single digits by the end of 2025, and then into a 4 to 6% range.
• Per capita income of $2,000 by 2029, against about $1,400 now.
• Tax to GDP raised from 10% to 13.5%.
• A current account deficit below 1.5% of GDP.
• Exports above $58 billion and worker remittances above $40 billion, up from $27.3 billion.
• Poverty cut from the World Bank’s 39.5% to under 25% in five years, 10 million jobs, and unemployment below 5%.

On growth, he is direct. The targets are “completely unrealistic, disconnected” from World Bank, IMF and other projections. “Maybe these guys know something that the rest of the world doesn’t.”

He gives a fair hearing to privatization. PMLN, in his description, is a purely capitalist party that wants state enterprises sold. He does not think that is a bad idea in itself, and he thinks private management is good. On PIA he raises one concern. The debt has been split off and kept by the state, while the profitable airline is sold. In his view a public-private partnership might have been more useful. He also credits it for detailing CPEC, which the People’s Party manifesto did not mention.

Four tools for every problem

Across the document, Muzamil sees the same pattern. Wherever PMLN finds a weak sector, it offers a loan, a tax change, a subsidy or a piece of infrastructure. “Majority of the reforms you can close inside these four things,” he says. “We will build a road, we will give a cheap loan, we will cut a tax, we will give a subsidy.”

He is skeptical of this kind of intervention. In his reading, past attempts to steer the economy through dollar controls and import curbs failed, and such schemes often send money to well-connected people instead of the best operators. He adds a fair caveat: China does this and has been successful with it.

Agriculture shows the pattern: subsidies to solarize tube wells, farm-to-market roads and digitized land records. He likes the land records and the promise to drop the NOC for importing drones. He is less impressed by “tech driven storage solutions” and 5G, which in his view Pakistan’s market cannot yet pay for.

Credit where it is due on IT

The IT section gets his strongest praise. “I have to give them credit for where it’s due.” The plan runs over two or three pages and reads, in his view, like experience-driven policy.

• The Ministry of IT becomes a Ministry of Digital Economy, run as an autonomous agency by subject experts, working on digital public infrastructure.
• A single unified digital ID across services, which he compares to India’s system.
• A one-window operation through the SIFC and special technology zones, plus reform of telecom licences, competition rules and spectrum.
• Data protection laws, 5 million freelancers in five years, and Raast-based instant payments to bring at least 25% of informal remittances into formal channels.

The part he likes most is the gender target. Women’s ownership of phones and SIMs goes from 50% to 70%, smartphone use from 20% to 50%, and bank account use from 13% to 50%. “This point is actually very, very good,” he says. Financial inclusion of women, in his reading, is barely mentioned elsewhere.

He has three objections. First, the promise of low-cost internet through low earth orbit satellites, meaning services like Starlink. Satellite internet can extend coverage, he says, but it will not be cheap. “Who in a rural area is going to buy internet that costs 40,000 rupees a month?” Fiber, in his view, is the answer. Second, the national tech fund for startups. “Government should not be investing in startups,” he says. “This is again a subsidy. This is not an investment.” He notes the government does not even take equity. Third, the IT export target of $20 billion. He says it cannot happen, and he points to an internal conflict. Total exports are meant to rise from $35 billion to $58 billion. If IT supplies most of that rise, nothing else grows.

The power plan worries him most

Electricity is where Muzamil is harshest. The manifesto promises to cut bills by 20 to 30%. It also promises new capacity: solar in villages and to replace fossil fuels, and 15,000 megawatts of Thar coal and hydro.

His objection is about demand. By his figures, about 45,000 megawatts is installed, about 35,000 is usable, summer peak reaches 22,000 to 25,000, and average use is 16,000 to 20,000. The grid already cannot use what it has. At the same time, the manifesto pushes export industries to set up captive power, which takes the biggest users off the grid. “Where is that electricity going to go? Who is going to use it?” More plants mean more capacity payments. He also doubts the bill cut, since in his view the IMF will push tariffs up, not down. His verdict: “The energy policy here is full of populism and stupidity.”

There is a second problem. The manifesto dedicates domestic gas to power generation and moves other gas users to a weighted average price. In his reading, that means households pay more for both gas and electricity, local buying power falls, and domestic consumption weakens. He fears a repeat of the past: many power plants, then capacity payments through the roof, “and for the next 20 years we will be humiliated again.” He asks people who know the energy sector to study this part closely.

Two points in this section he likes. The plan moves to hybrids by 2035 and full electric vehicle adoption by 2040, which helps the climate and would use spare grid capacity. It also privatizes the distribution companies. The wider energy section on oil and gas, with a Saudi refinery, TAPI, an energy trading firm and green hydrogen, he calls very ambitious. “Energy policy I actually really liked.”

Courts, cities, schools and roads

Most of the governance chapters, in Muzamil’s reading, promise to do existing things better. A few points stand out to him.

On justice, PMLN would abolish NAB, revise the procedure codes, livestream Supreme Judicial Council proceedings and add e-courts. It would also make defamation laws stricter, which he calls a scary prospect. In his view, authoritarianism is rising worldwide and will rise in Pakistan too, whichever government comes.

On local government, he likes the plan to devolve primary health, schooling and other services, and to merge parallel bodies such as development authorities into one city or district government. He finds the climate chapter thin, mostly smog, brick kilns, a plastic bag ban and solar panels everywhere. On youth, PMLN promises to revive student unions, start evening schools in existing buildings, provide student transport and fund young athletes. He likes those. He cannot see the logic of a new tier of Danish schools when the state could improve its own schools or fund children in private ones.

Transport is the most comprehensive plan of any party, and the only one with exact projects. It names mass transit for Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi, including the Karachi Circular Railway, and BRTs for Hyderabad, Bahawalpur, Faisalabad and Quetta. It covers railway upgrades, a Quetta to Gwadar link, outsourced airport management and a coastal plan for Karachi. “I don’t know if we have the money for it,” he says, but infrastructure combined with everything else does good things for an economy.

He keeps count of the new bodies: five IT cities, a medical city in every province, and three new federal ministries for digital economy, youth and transport.

Foreign policy, overseas seats and women

The foreign policy chapter mentions almost everyone, from Russia and the US to Africa and the SCO. Muzamil’s reading is that PTI leans toward the global South, the People’s Party toward the Western order, and PMLN toward neutrality. The focus is geo-economics: open trade with India, cheap gas from Russia, a knowledge corridor with the US, and GSP status with the EU and UK.

One proposal he flags is reserved seats for overseas Pakistanis, so they vote for separate seats instead of their home constituencies. In his reading, this is a calculated move by a party that does not expect much overseas support.

On women, he notes that PMLN repeats a People’s Party promise: reserved seats for women up from 17% to 33% for the next six general elections, and at least 30% women in cabinets. Because both parties propose it, he expects it to happen.

His verdict

Muzamil sums up in three points. This is a status quo manifesto from the party he expected to govern, so it is the one to read. It is also “the most extensive manifesto that I have read across all three.” He calls PTI’s the most radical and the People’s Party’s thin, a “ChatGPT manifesto.”

He disagrees with much of the policy, including dollar controls, which he says reduced exports in the past. But he respects the effort. “This is actually a good document because you can disagree with it,” he says. The party has written down what it wants to do, and that lets critics argue with the policy itself. He asks PMLN supporters to take policy critique in that spirit.

His ranking: for the immediate term, PMLN’s manifesto comes first. For the longer term, PTI’s. The People’s Party’s comes third. PMLN, he concludes, offers management more than radical reform, with the message that experienced people will handle it.