Confrontation with PTI should end before it gets too late
Governing the Khyber Pakthunkhwa (KP) is turning out to be harder than the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) thought. Resolving the security situation – an issue over which the PTI Chairman Imran Khan had sloganeered a lot – is proving almost impossible with the province facing a new Taliban onslaught. The consequences of the DI Khan jailbreak are continuing to unfold, perhaps of no fault of the PTI itself. Nonetheless it has meant that the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) has spiked up the pressure it was putting on the PTI before the May 11th elections. After the JUI-F went on the offensive, it is the PTI’s Chief Minister for the KP, Pervez Khattak, that engaged in accusing the JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman of “corruption”.
That the chief minister has responded to the Maulana’s chants is beneath the dignity of his office and it opened him up to counter offensives. Perhaps Pervez Khattak would do well to take cue from Punjab, where the triads between Law Minister Rana Sanaullah and Opposition Leader Raja Riaz were the order of the day, without getting the Punjab chief minister’s office involved. With the KP CM involved in the slandering match, the JUI-F went a step further and warned that “Khattak was paving the way for governor’s rule in the province by creating a governance crisis”. They warned that a jailbreak in Peshawar would trigger the breakdown of governance and continued to say, “A remote-controlled chief minister can’t bring peace to KP. It is a government of excuses, scapegoats and whining.”
Such pressure should not be imposed on a fledgling government as it is to the detriment of the people of the province. The real issue of course appears to be the upcoming by-elections, where the PTI has the support of the Jamaat-e-Islami, and the JUI-F has the support of the PML-N. The attitude of the PML-N itself appears to need redressal as it appears to be actively trying to destabilise the governments of both Balochistan and Khyber Pakthunkhwa by announcing that these were “bestowed” by the PML-N. The PTI-led coalition government in the KP must be allowed to do its job and it is hoped that the current mudslinging shall only last till the August 22 by-elections. If not, it could set a dangerous precedent. Yes, democratic political parties are free to make and break alliances. But they should also respect a mandate once it has been given. In this respect, it is the JUI-F’s manner that must be reproached. And yet the chief minister of a province must not get involved in mudslinging matches and focus on governance. Destabilising the KP government is to no one’s advantage, especially with the Taliban watching and waiting for any signs of weakness from mainstream political parties that could allow them to pounce. At that point, not even governor’s rule could save the KP.
