OUR lawmakers’ sense of entitlement is jarring. Through a set of three laws, the MPAs of KP have quietly granted themselves and their spouses official passports for life, along with access to VIP airport lounges across the country, club memberships at heavily subsidised rates and eased gun licences. The laws were passed in late April and just as quietly assented to by the KP governor in May; neither the laws nor their gazette notifications have yet appeared on the assembly’s website. The reticence is understandable. That such self-serving legislation should be pushed through by a party that has built its brand on anti-corruption sloganeering and a ‘mission for justice’ is nothing short of a political scandal. To be fair, KP’s legislators have merely followed the example set in Islamabad, where full-term parliamentarians already keep their official passports for life, and a bill to extend the privilege further is winding its way through the Senate.

The nature of these privileges speaks volumes about the mentality of our ruling elite, who seem determined to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the common man. While ordinary citizens struggle for visas and can be denied boarding at the whim of an immigration official, official passports guarantee fast-track processing at airports and visa-free or on-arrival entry to a host of countries. The VIP lounges insulate the privileged further from the hoi polloi, and the clubs remain closed to all but a tiny elite. That such perks are a priority for our rulers even as the state preaches ‘austerity’ tells us everything about the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots of this country. The very notion of a ‘lifetime’ of anything should be repugnant to the moral mind. The wild grab for national resources, it seems, continues unabated. The institutional checks on power are falling away fast, and if this continues, the line between right and wrong may soon blur beyond recognition.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2026