- Sawing off the branch one is sitting on
Nine months after the assumption of power by the PTI, opposition leaders are talking about fresh elections. This is unusual in a democracy where the elected government is allowed to complete its tenure. Unfortunately, the PTI is itself responsible for the calls for an early removal of its government
Within a week of Nawaz Sharif’s assumption of PM’s post, an impatient PTI leadership threatened to take to the streets. The PTI chairman presented a nine-point agenda demanding an end to inflation, unemployment and corruption at a massive rally on the Mall in December 2013.
What the PTI got in the National Assembly on Monday was thus a dose of its own medicine. The opposition castigated it for causing inflation and compromising the country’s economic sovereignty by handing over the portfolio of finance and the governorship of the SBP to IMF nominees.
There is a need to realise that continuity in the system is a basic requirement for its strength. The Parliament is the best forum to debate national issues and jointly find their solutions. The PML-N leadership, specially Nawaz Sharif, has been criticised in these columns for disregarding Parliament. Unfortunately the record of the PTI leadership is even worse, as it does not like to hear dissenting voices. The PM has kept himself absent from Parliament for most of the time during the last nine months.
Before walking out of the National Assembly, opposition speakers warned the government that they would bring people to the streets if they were barred from raising their voice in Parliament against the faulty economic policies of the government.
The government thinks that with the establishment on its side it can conveniently ignore Parliament. The establishment is with every ruling party after the elections, but as the people’s problems multiply forcing them to come out into the streets, the establishment invariably tells the government to fend for itself. Time for the PM to look over his shoulder. Meanwhile he would do well to develop rapport with Parliament and learn to be polite to the opposition. He should have realised by now that if anybody is to seek an NRO, the PM will be the last person he’ll approach.
