Introducing the election cabinet
The federal cabinet has been enlarged without any pressing administrative need, the last thing one could have expected during a period of the worst economic crunch in the country’s history. The cabinet size has now been expanded to 53 ministers and ministers of state. There are already four advisers, five special assistants and a score of personalities outside the cabinet enjoying the ministerial status. Earlier the size of the cabinet was reduced in the name of austerity which was followed by another cut required by the devolution of ministries to the provinces required after the passage of the 18th amendment. The only explanation for the bloated cabinet is the forthcoming elections. Whether the portfolios exist does not matter as the government can bifurcate the present ministries as it had done to accommodate allies after the departure of the PML(N). Politics has, thus, trumped economic realities.
The PPP has to satisfy the disgruntled elements in the party to ward off desertions. That a lot of grumbling is going on among party leaders and workers in Punjab must have become clear to President Zardari during his recent stay in Lahore. In the last elections, the PPP failed to muster majority in the province. Now the party faces tough competition in the numerically biggest province from the PML(N) and the PTI. This explains why with the exception of two new ministers all belong to Punjab. The party badly needs articulate speakers to defend party policies on media shows and public gatherings. To acquire their services, they have to be rewarded among other things by ministries.
The expansion, effected without taking the allies into confidence, is bound to lead to heart burning in the MQM and ANP. The re-induction of the former federal minister for power whose name figured in the list of those the Supreme Court had asked to be placed on the ECL in connection with the Rental Power Projects case, might not be taken lightly by the apex court. Coming as it does within a day of the appointment of the new Attorney General and Law Minister, the first removed at the orders of the apex court from the post of the NAB prosecutor general and the other removed as a PCO judge it could send the message that the government is in a defiant mode.