No one can deny the fact that 2022 was a tumultuous year in Pakistan. Politicians and institutions completely failed to address the country’s massive economic, political, social, and security issues. After the ouster of the PTI government and the failure of the PDM government, the image of the establishment has been badly damaged among the people.

No powerful, corrupt person has been punished under the prevailing legal system. As a result, the judiciary, FIA, NAB, police, and other institutions have lost public trust and respect. Every effort has been made to curtail the freedom of expression and thought, which is a basic pillar of a real democratic country. According to Reporters Without Borders, 93 journalists have been killed since 2003 in Pakistan. They have been killed by both unidentified state actors and militants. Arshad Sharif’s assassination in Kenya under suspicious circumstances highlights the terrible fact that Pakistani journalists are not safe even outside the country.

The greatest floods the nation has ever experienced affected over 33 million people, leading to significant displacement and devastation. More than 1,200 people died, while crops, houses, and infrastructure all sustained significant damage. Financial aid from abroad supplemented government efforts at relief and reconstruction, but it was obvious that recovery would need more labour and resources. Flood victims faced food shortages and the possibility of illness. The catastrophe put a significant financial strain on an already fragile economy. Moreover, Imran Khan’s call to dissolve the Punjab and KP assemblies in December increased political and economic instability and further dimmed the prospects for an economy that was already on the verge of bankruptcy.

It is also a fact that these overwhelming problems will not be solved in the year 2023. Economically, the country is about to default. Politically, the country is divided and facing instability. Society has lost its moral values and forgotten ethical teachings and principles. Leaked videos and audios of political leaders, including Imran Khan, Azam Sawtti, Maryam Nawaz etc., have not only unmasked their true faces but also cast pernicious effects on the morals of people. Terrorism has returned to KP and Balochistan with all of its ferocity and destruction.

Sadly, the ruling elite is totally indifferent to the suffering, pain and bleak economic situation of the poor people of Pakistan because it is still earning profits by hook or crook. The ruling elite is the real cause of all of Pakistan’s problems because the entire political, economic, and legal systems support the ruling elite.

Miftah Ismail, a former finance minister, writes: “Pakistan shouldn’t be called the Islamic Republic but rather the One Per Cent Republic. Opportunities, power and wealth here are limited to the top one per cent of the people. The rest are not provided opportunities to succeed. There are around 400,000 schools in Pakistan. Yet in some years half of our Supreme Court judges and members of the federal cabinet come from just one school: Aitchison College in Lahore. Karachi Grammar School provides an inordinate number of our top professionals and richest businessmen. If we add the three American schools, Cadet College Hasanabdal and a few expensive private schools, maybe graduating 10,000 kids in total, we can be sure that these few kids will be at the top of most fields in Pakistan in the future, just as their fathers are at the very top today. Five decades ago, Dr Mahbub ul Haq identified 22 families who controlled two-thirds of listed manufacturing and four-fifths of banking assets in Pakistan, showing an inordinate concentration of wealth. Today too we can identify as many families who control a high proportion of national wealth. A successful economy keeps giving rise to new entrepreneurs, representing newly emerging industries and technologies, becoming its richest people. But not here in Pakistan where wealth, power and opportunities are strictly limited to an unchanging elite. Look at the top businessmen in America like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, etc, none of whom owe their position to family wealth. The richest people of the earlier eras — the Carnegies, Rockefellers — don’t still dominate commerce. Among recent former US presidents, Ronald Reagan’s father was a salesman, Bill Clinton’s father was an alcoholic and Barack Obama was raised by a single mother. Here almost every successful Pakistani owes his success to his father’s position. According to UNICEF, 40pc of Pakistani children under the age of five are stunted (indicating persistent undernutrition); another 18pc are wasted (indicating recent severe weight loss due to undernutrition) and 28pc are underweight. This means 86pc of our kids go to sleep hungry most nights and have the highest likelihood in South Asia of dying before their fifth birthday. This is our reality…Pakistan’s elite compact allows wealth and power to perpetuate over generations and keeps everyone else out. This is what’s keeping Pakistanis poor and why it’s necessary to unravel the elite compact. We need a new social contract to unite and progress as a nation”.

Pakistan’s checkered political and economic history also shows that the ruling elite, including politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats and the judiciary, has not learned from its mistakes. If the ruling elite wants to save Pakistan from failure and civil war, it should abandon its old tactics and introduce people-friendly policies.