Govt has enough time to stage comeback: Dar

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WASHINGTON: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on Sunday that 10 months were long enough for the government to stage a political comeback.

“We had to choose between saving our politics or saving the state. And we chose to save the state,” Minister Dar said at a news conference at the Pakistan embassy. “We knew it will have consequences, but we opted for the state.”

The finance minister was in Washington to attend the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and almost all his meetings focused on the economy and the impact of the recent floods on the people and the infrastructure.

But several initial questions at the conference focused on the result of Sunday’s elections that gave an unprecedented victory to PTI. Commenting on the results, Mr Dar said that the parties now in the government were aware of “the consequences” of moving the vote of no confidence but they went for it because not doing so would have disastrous consequences for Pakistan. “Allowing the previous government to continue would have been worse than the floods,” he said.

Asked if President Biden’s remarks on Pakistan’s nuclear programme helped Imran Khan’s election campaign, the finance minister reiterated the prime minister’s assurance that the country had a robust command and control system and US officials often acknowledged it too. “But when a politician who has been a PM (Mr Khan) says the nuclear programme was good under me, but not now, this is how the world would react,” he added. “You should condemn him; he is doing petty politics.”

In his opening statement, the minister said during his four-day stay in Washington he had 58 meetings with the chiefs of international financial institutions and with US, Saudi and other officials. The World Bank and Britain, he said, also hosted a roundtable on floods, where UNDP, ADB and WB officials presented a joint report.

According to this report, the floods have caused a total loss of over $32.4 billion to the country. Pakistan needs more than $16 billion for immediate relief and rehabilitation works. The meeting, the minister said, made a strong appeal to the international community to help Pakistan.