I broadly agree. I was actually defending the government post-2018 election on the economy and saying the steps being taken are necessary.
The only way it could have been better is if IK (perhaps unrealistically) made it clear to his voters of what would happen in 2018 and afterwards, instead of the unfulfillable promises of unrealistic proportions about employment, building homes etc. And secondly, I believe they should have been quicker to let on to the loans and IMF programmes, they seemed to procrastinate and hesitate too much which cost us, and it's yet to be seen what they'll do next, but it seemed for a small window between the first IMF review and covid that they now hesitated too much to loosen some austerity drive measures for the sake of the economy, they had options by then and things were not as dire as before but didn't really look to be exercising those options.
But as I said, this is small scale criticism, broadly speaking we're in agreement. The economic crisis wasn't caused by PTI or IK, they can't be blamed for it.
On the subject, I believe those can still be a baseline, I see that you take issue with them. But like I said, these claims can't be substantiated for now. Establishment has rigged plenty of elections in the past, take your pick, one of the elections in the 50s, 1964, 1990 etc.
The 1990 election for example was rigged in favour of Nawaz Sharif, and in the years leading up to it, the establishment was set against Benazir, they undertook operation midnight jackal to take her government down. The army leadership behind the scenes facilitated a vote of no-confidence in BB, subsequent electoral rigging (not so much by vote rigging but the plethora of other techniques), mehrangate scandal, and funding the opposition IDA and propping a Nawaz coalition. All of these claims that for two decades were as you said "unsubstantiated" were subsequently proven, it just took some time and the political atmosphere. Similarly, I believe time will tell what happened between 2014-present and the army's role in politics. You may disagree and say that it's unsubstantiated, you don't suspect these claims to be true at all. Fine, of course it's unsubstantiated... But nowhere did the article claim, nor did I claim that these were as yet verified accounts. But that won't stop me from discussing this in the interim, without waiting for some apex court a decade or two from now proving what's being said/alluded to. We can quite freely, and I can quite happily discuss and speculate these claims until the day that it is proven.
Secondly, on appointments and calling the shots, these things happen behind the scenes. Note the latter clause of the sentence: behind the scenes. Meaning they aren't for us to know, but we can infer, if we choose to believe that the establishment has sway over the government and helped bring them in to power (as I believe, and as you clearly don't believe yet). The disagreement is fine, we are all free to believe as we wish, but if previous examples of army influence are anything to go by, the people who filled the PTI's ranks coincided with the as yet unsubstantiated allegations of establishment influence around the time of the buildup to the 2014 dharna. Again, I hear your criticism, and it's stemmed directly in the issue of unsubstantiated base line. To that end, there's really not much to elaborate on, if like you, we believe that it's probably not true or unproven, then the whole article is a piece of hogwash, to be ignored or repudiated. If you indulge the speculation as I am, then to infer what the establishment is doing is not a far stretch at all. The appointment of ex-DG ISPR to SAPM is probably one such example of a less cautious episode of establishment influencing. But fine, let's agree to disagree since you are not willing to indulge any unsubstantiated claims until they are undoubtedly substantiated, which as I said might happen who knows how many years hence.
On an aisde, I fail to see what you mean by the article being poorly written per se. It's an editorial, of course they'll editorialise, I get that some people's issues with them, but besides that I don't see poor writing anywhere. Average and middling but not poor. Pakistan's political system has historically been some form a hybrid regime or outright dictatorship, the army has been in and out and around power, for decades now. I think it's naive to assume things have changed when a good proportion of the opposition, certain people in media and others are claiming foul play.
I don't think this debate will go anywhere, at least not until those claims are verified at some later date. But almost every case of alleged army involvement in politics has proven to be true given enough time has passed. History has proved journalists like this to be true in the past when it comes to the establishment in Pakistan.
