Sleepwalking into a nightmare?
The first sin is to continue the absurd and utterly unfeasible style of governance that marred the PML-N’s performance in the ‘90s. Among other things it is violative of the spirit parliamentary democracy.
The cabinet system with collective responsibility has been rendered meaningless. The prime minister depends on his kitchen cabinet comprising mostly close relatives. Nawaz Sharif at the federal level and brother Shahbaz Sharif in Punjab try to micromanage the affairs of the country through handpicked bureaucrats. The ministers have no powers and consequently no responsibility. This partly explains why no action was taken against any of the ministers after the unprecedented petroleum crisis and the countrywide power shut downs. In case of any action, anyone of them could have maintained that they were not vested with decision making which was the purview of the PM and his kitchen cabinet.
Nawaz Sharif has aptly been called a part time prime minister as his love of foreign tours and spending weekends with family in Lahore consume a lot of his time. Despite this he has over-burdened himself with a number of portfolios, the most important being that of the foreign minister. It is not humanly impossible for a prime minister to deal justly with any other portfolio. The foreign minister is required to concentrate on vital issues; frequently call meetings of important FO officials, meet foreign diplomats and undertake numerous foreign tours. The fact that the PML-N has nominated neither Sartaj Aziz nor Tariq Fatemi to the Senate indicates that the country is not likely to get a full time foreign minister during the rest of his tenure.
Nawaz Sharif has aptly been called a part time prime minister as his love of foreign tours and spending weekends with family in Lahore consume a lot of his time
The second sin is treating parliament as a non-entity. The prime minister has treated the parliament in a cavalier like fashion. The attitude percolated to the federal ministers and the PML-N parliamentarians. The prime minister failed to put up a single appearance in the Senate for a whole year. He has generally avoided attending the National Assembly sittings. Suffering from short attention span, he has in fact little to contribute to parliamentary debates without prior advice. Posing as a Mr Know All he has little stomach for any advice. Crucial decisions are taken at the spur of the moment and in a whimsical manner. The decision to hold talks with the TTP is one such decision. Sharif had come prepared to announce military operation action but changed the view on way to parliament. He announced instead the formation of a government team to negotiate with the TTP. Even the people he nominated were surprised as none had been consulted before.
Among other things Sharif is allergic to criticism and is happy only in the company of sycophants. He looks glum and bored all the time he is listening to the parliamentary proceedings.
Nawaz Sharif retuned to parliament when the prime minister was besieged by PTI and PAT activists and the army cautioned him against use of force. He sat listening to the criticism from the opposition for days. At one point however the interior minister, who is intolerant of criticism, walked out. The moment the danger was over, the prime minster and his colleagues again started dodging the sittings.
The neglect of parliament convinced a section of the opposition to conclude that it was useless to raise vital issues or seek the redressal of their grievances through parliament. They reverted therefore to street agitation. This harmed the economy and gave a jolt to the system.
The third sin is Sharif’s absurdly wrong priorities. Many think the government’s priorities should be education and health. It is widely understood that power shortages can be considerably curtailed by improving the existing power system. What is required is to get rid of is the circular debt to enable power companies to work at full capacity. What is more, there is a dire need to .reduce line losses and recover unpaid power dues.
No special attention was paid to education and health, however, and no measures were taken to set the existing power system right.
Sharif put his dream projects at the top of the government’s agenda. Some of these had to be abandoned after widespread criticism. Others were taken up and implemented despite common disapproval. Among the abandoned (temporarily) projects was a twin capital across the Margalla Hills, connecting the physically divided centre with a tunnel. Another abandoned project was a road copying Dubai’s 8-lane Sheikh Zayed Road.
For quite some time it was a taboo for the PML-N to use the word “terrorist”. This changed only after the Saudis started using the term
Rs29,821.762 million were spent on the Lahore metro. The Rawalpindi metro, which is in progress, carries an estimated tag of at least Rs50 billion. The Green Line Bus Rapid Transit System for Karachi which is on the anvil is to cost about Rs38.3 billion. The dream projects could have waited and funds diverted to highly vital schemes without which neither short term nor long term development is possible.
During his address at Chiniot last week while inaugurating the iron, copper and gold project, Nawaz Sharif lamented the scarcity of resources. Had these been available, he could have spent them on education, health and power generation. “Owing to lack of resources, we have not been able to bring the power crisis to an end.” With the priorities Nawaz Sharif had he was asking for what happened.
Nawaz Sharif’s fourth sin is to continue to entertain a soft corner for extremism and for certain groups indulging in terrorism. This has .led to lack of seriousness in dealing with the twin threats.
For quite some time it was a taboo for the PML-N to use the word “terrorist”. This changed only after the Saudis started using the term. During the entire first year of the PML-N tenure, federal ministers shunned naming any terrorist network after a devastating attack even when the group itself claimed responsibility. The attempts to whitewash non-TTP terrorists still continue. Taking a cue from the government the Punjab Inspector General Police stated no seminary in Punjab was found to have been funded by foreign sympathisers of the extremists.
Another evidence of the PML-N government’s continuous tilt for the extremists and terrorists is its failure to include over a hundred organisations banned by the UN in its own incomplete list. This allows the Punjab government’s favourite ASWJ to continue to function.
This explains why, despite an avowedly intelligence guided action having been against the terrorists, attacks on Shi’a community continue unabated. The latest took place on Friday in a Peshawar Imambargah, preceded by similar attacks in Rawalpindi and Shikarpur last month. Interestingly, the prime minister was in Karachi when the attack took place in Shikarpur where many children were among the at least 60 dead. Sharif displayed no urgency to visit the place.