ISLAMABAD: Major political parties, on Friday, rejected the new cabinet saying that the change was cosmetic as the same people were taking oath as federal ministers.
PML-N Central Leader Khawaja Saad Rafique, terming the new cabinet as the same old medicine with new label said, “This medicine cannot cure the disease suffered by Pakistan.” He, however, congratulated those who had refused to become a part of the new cabinet. “Kaira, Gondal and Qureshi have proven to be prudent figures by staying away from the cabinet,” Saad Rafique said.
PML-Q Parliamentary Leader Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat stated that announcement of the new cabinet reflected government’s failure to discern the situation’s gravity. “The government had failed to even change the label of the bottle,” he said. He added that all tainted ministers, except Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, had been again made members of the new cabinet.
“A change is not possible when leader of the team – Prime Minister – is tainted and is alleged with charges of corruption and nepotism,” Faisal said. He further said that short-sightedness on the part of rulers had triggered disaster in the country.
Reacting to announcement of the new cabinet, MQM Spokesman Wasay Jalil said that it was unfortunate that personnel, carrying a corrupt reputation, had been inducted in the cabinet. He, however, said that his party hoped that the government would work to end corruption. He urged the government to undertake austerity measures which should be followed by the cabinet members in true spirit.
ANP Senator Haji Adeel said that cabinet dissolution was aimed at saving revenue and eliminating corruption. He said that absence of those two objectives meant that the whole exercise was meaningless. He hoped that the government would devise a mechanism which would end corruption in the country.
Meanwhile, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) also said that the new federal cabinet was not ‘new’ and changes were not convincing.
JI Senator Professor Khurshid Ahmad said that new inductions and allotment of portfolios was no change. He expressed disappointment and said that high hopes from the government had been shattered.
The JI senator termed cabinet’s dissolution as stupidity on part of the government and expressed dissatisfaction on induction of the same parliamentarians in the ‘new’ cabinet. He also expressed surprise over the dropping of Shah Mahmood Qureshi from the cabinet. “Qureshi has resisted the government’s move to release the US citizen, Raymond Davis, and had faced the consequences,” Khurshid believed. JUI-F Spokesman Maulana Amjad Khan maintained that the decision was an internal matter of the Pakistan Peoples Party, which, if analyzed in real sense, would yield no results for masses. He believed that change of faces would not help change the fate of the people of Pakistan.