Islamabad, Nov 7 (IANS) Pakistan is going through a deepening national crisis as its self-serving ruling elite amasses wealth and prepares its escape abroad, while ordinary citizens face mounting economic hardship and a growing loss of hope, a report said.
“Beneath this growing exodus lies a deeper crisis of corruption, military dominance, and political misrule that has weakened state institutions, diverted national resources, and pushed Pakistan closer to a breaking point,” wrote Imran Khurshid, an Associate Research Fellow at the Centre for Peace Studies.
Official government figures presented to Pakistan’s National Assembly revealed that more than 317,000 Pakistanis left the country for employment abroad in the first half of 2026 alone, while over 1.87 million citizens migrated between 2024 and 2026, according to the report published by the Centre for Peace Studies.
According to federal audits reported on October 5, more than 2,500 active federal officers have obtained dual nationality, with hundreds of senior bureaucrats concealing their foreign assets. Portugal has emerged as a premier getaway for the elite through residency-by-investment schemes, the report noted.
“They [bureaucrats] prepared for this while they were employed by the Government of Pakistan, doing so under a deliberate plan. This raises questions about their commitment to their homeland and their jobs during their tenure,” Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had stated.
The report said that Pakistan’s Senate passed the Passports (Amendment) Bill, 2026, on October 19, permanently granting retired parliamentarians and senators the right to retain gratis official blue passports for life.
“Then comes their boss—the military—which actually runs the country. The military makes enormous amounts of money by running Pakistan like a real estate company,” Khurshid stated.
According to the report, the military under Gen Asim Munir is aggressively extracting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s rare-earth minerals and critical metals through the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) and the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO).
“This rapid resource exploitation allows the military to embezzle most of the profits, leaving the local population with nothing but environmental destruction, disease, and only a small fraction of the wealth,” the report stated.
It noted that the ruling elite repeatedly shifts the burden of IMF conditions onto ordinary people, while Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s government acquired a Gulfstream G500 private jet valued at between $38 million and $42 million.
According to the UNDP 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index, nearly 100 million Pakistanis are trapped in acute multidimensional poverty, while up to 7.5 million rural citizens are experiencing acute hunger, the report said.
“The army has kept the country’s most popular leader, Imran Khan, locked away in Adiala Jail, while violent insurgencies and rebellions tear across Pakistan—spanning from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) to Balochistan and Sindh,” Khurshid wrote.
The report also noted that Pakistan has topped the Global Terrorism Index 2026 for the first time, becoming the world’s most terrorism-affected country.
“A country cannot sustain itself indefinitely when its elite accumulates the means to escape while its citizens are denied the means to live with dignity,” the report stated.
–IANS
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