2025 WAS the year of tall claims by our inept hybrid set-up based on actions it said would aid progress, but that, in fact, aided its own survival. Courts were defanged, risky deals struck with old patrons of autocracies and political foes jailed, all in the name of national progress.

Since the claims are tall and mass misery great, public hopes are high about delivery, which is crucial for the government, too, to help mask its dubious mandate. So, 2026 must be the year of growth. But herein lies the rub. This set of rulers has more autocratic powers than all set-ups after Gen Musharraf’s, but they only help it to survive; its ability to use them to usher progress is weak. Painful IMF medicine was unleashed as well. It lowered inflation, but undercut growth. A recent national household survey shows that to recover from the cost of past inflation, strong growth is needed, which the IMF says may remain elusive even next year.

To spur growth, while also cutting our ever-rising external deficit, the set-up must raise investment and exports. Its best idea on exports so far seems to have been to set up committees of clueless people, while the best one on investments is to dash to Gulf states. But despite dozens of........

© Dawn