17
OVER a period in which the sacking of the finance minister, the PPP reaction to the tightening of the ‘accountability noose’, and finally ‘slips of tongue’ by the prime minister dominated the news, another vital issue did not get the attention it warranted.
With the PML-N giving the silent treatment to every questioner asking whether a deal had been struck and the Shahbaz Sharif school of conciliatory (read surrender) politics gaining the upper hand within the party, the media attention turned elsewhere.
As the ‘fake accounts’ inquiry was said to have entered a decisive phase amid reports that some of the cogs in that vast machine were in custody and singing like canaries, it was clear that PPP leader Asif Zardari and his politically powerful sister Faryal Talpur were in for a rocky ride.
But, no matter how different today’s PPP may be from the one founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or the one led by Benazir Bhutto, defiance and fight remain in its DNA. As the leadership perceived itself being pushed against the wall, it came out fighting.
When the governing PTI felt the heat the PPP was turning on inside and outside parliament, it felt it was necessary to react. It reacted rashly. Rashly, because as the party in power, it has the most to lose by a dramatic rise in political temperatures and the consequent instability.
Winning an election on an anti-corruption platform, along with other decisive factors, may have been the easy part.
Political stability is one of the prerequisites for economic revival, even stabilisation. And, at least, on the face of it, economic stabilisation was the altar at which the prime minister sacrificed his key lieutenant, the finance minister.
Once that happened, it was a given that the media, particularly the electronic media, would focus on the move and try and outdo each other in speculation and analyses of why the key cabinet member lost his slot and what options were available to his imported successor.
Interestingly, none of the four known TV faces, who had been invited to Rawalpindi to break bread with the most powerful figure in the country, mentioned in their programmes either the dinner or that they’d been told of the fate of the finance minister several days ahead of his sacking.
While addressing an ‘election’ rally in the erstwhile tribal region where provincial assembly elections are due in a few weeks, the prime minister took it upon himself to respond to PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s frontal attack on his government.
But his use of the honorific ‘sahiba’, reserved for women, for the PPP leader was found by so many to be in bad taste and utterly derogatory to women and to him that many PTI loyalists again took the path of attributing it to a ‘slip of the tongue’. Replays of the rally address made clear it was not.
Where the other slip of the tongue actually seemed to have happened was during a visit to Iran. The prime minister cited the example of ‘Germany and Japan’. Despite two wars and killing ‘millions’ of each other’s citizens, they set up an industrial zone on their common border post-Second World War and never looked back, he said.
Here the criticism was unkind to say the least as it was abundantly clear he meant to say Germany and France. Unforgiving social media critics found an earlier clip of Mr Khan mentioning the same countries (Germany and Japan) in a similar context. Even then one can say these were slips of the tongue.
The Tehran visit also witnessed the prime minister making a courageous televised statement where he conceded that terror attacks in Iran had also been carried out by groups from “within Pakistan”. He said each country in the region needed to stop this as Pakistan was also a victim of such attacks by terrorists operating from across its borders.
Even as the prime minister was being lauded for making this address which would place the burden of responsibility on each nation in the region to stop cross-border attacks being launched from its soil, a Prime Minister House statement clarified his remarks.
It was not a clarification but a retraction. Its wording was so convoluted it was impossible to decipher what it was trying to say. However, given the ground reality and guessing who might have asked for it, it was not surprising to see the media carrying the ‘clarification’ prominently.
While these issues continued to dominate the headlines, newly appointed Interior Minister Ijaz Shah’s statement to a Senate standing committee did not see the sort of prominence it merited. The minister conceded that Pakistan was a security state and not a welfare state.
It was a pity this admission and its consequences were not discussed threadbare. The PTI came to power pledging to wage a war against corruption. Equally, it committed itself to a social welfare agenda as a top priority. It must also understand that the 18th Amendment and the provinces’ share in resources needed to be safeguarded as these strengthen the federation.
Given the slowdown in economic growth and unchecked rise in population every year, the demands of the security state will often need to be met at the expense of social welfare goals. With the region showing no signs of a cooling down, these demands are unlikely to taper off.
This, coupled with galloping inflation and high unemployment, will create a challenging scenario for the PTI. Winning an election on an anti-corruption platform, along with some other equally decisive favourable factors, may have been the easy part.
Going forward, the voter will be more mindful of the PTI performance. Criticism in the media on this count has already started and is stinging the PTI. It will be a tall order to manage the public perception if the government is found short to be on delivery.
The prime minister is said to be extremely sensitive to criticism but should heed wiser counsel not to respond aggressively. He would do well to calmly focus on finding space for his social welfare agenda rollout rather than give cause for speculation about frayed nerves.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2019
