KP government finds itself in hot waters, again
While it is easier to criticise government when you are not a part of it, leading by example is not that easy, as the Pakistan Teheek-i-Insaf (PTI) government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is finding out, the hard way. Their good intentions aside, handling a coalition government is not a walk in the park; one has to accede to coalition partners’ demands every now and then, jeopardising the functioning of a government. How the PPP managed to last five years, with coalition governments in three provinces and at the centre, should give a hint or two to the PTI about what to expect and probably on how to handle it.
Even though 11 new ministers have taken oath, bringing the total to 13, the new cabinet that has been mired in controversies from the beginning, from PTI’s intra-party tussles on who will get the coveted ministries to its coalition partners’ demands of having specific ministries, seems all set to face another one. After the debacle of PTI’s decision to hand over Education Ministry to Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and then wrestling for almost two weeks getting it back, an achievement in itself, the PTI seems to be headed to another pitfall of the same nature with its decision to remerge the Social Welfare and Women Development Ministry with Zakat and Ushr Ministry, a decision that has met with strong opposition from both its party workers and leaders, and from the civil society. The decision is exactly the kind that the critics of the party have been raising their fingers on: regressive and deeply unsettling one. If this re-merging of ministries goes ahead, it would become impossible to convince the very electorate of PTI that it is fighting against the status quo, much less convincing anyone else.
What could the provincial government gain from this step is only a bit of financial benefit but it would also put the same government in a negative light before the civil society, proponents of civil liberties, women equality activists and the international community at large, which is already skeptical of PTI leaders’ statements on the war on terror, drone strikes and Taliban. Adding salt to the proverbial injury is the reported handing over of the new combined ministry to the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) whose track record on women rights has always represented what’s wrong with religious right-wing political parties: a repressive ideology with zero to little room for personal freedoms. If Imran Khan allows this to happen, his credentials as a leader to stand up for the oppressed and weak, for justice and equality, will surely become tainted, nay dubious. His so-called tsunami revolution wasn’t supposed to put women back hundreds of years, it was supposed to bring them to the very forefront of progress and moderation. He better make sure it does so.
