All change in Sindh

The resignation of Syed Qaim Ali Shah from the post of chief minister of Sindh really is the end of an era. He has been a PPP stalwart for decades and is going to be fondly remembered by some, less so by others. His replacement is both younger and less well-known, but a committed party man nonetheless, having given up his Canadian citizenship in order to hold office. Syed Murad Ali Shah is to be the new chief minister and he has a big job on his hands. He not only has to run the province, he is also by default point man for the repair of the fortunes of the PPP in broader terms, and a lot is going to ride on how he handles the provincial job in its entirety, not only the Karachi side of the job.

Minutes into his new role, the new chief minister in an interview with a private TV channel said that law and order was going to be the biggest challenge for his new government; and that he was going to declare a health and education emergency in order to raise the quality of social sector services.



He might like to add solid waste management and knocking the various mass transit proposals into shape as well. It is likely that there will be other changes in the cabinet and some old faces are due for replacement.

Such concern as there was about the appointment of Mr Shah was largely limited to that around how the PPP would do in the next election if he failed to deliver the goods over the next two years, but he now has to buckle down to what in many ways is a thankless task, one where he will be damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t — with the Karachi law and order problem top of the agenda and specifically the role of the Rangers within that.

For the PPP this is crunch time. A poor showing in the recent AJK polls may be a harbinger of worse to come, and much now rests on the shoulders of Syed Murad Ali Shah. Good luck!

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2016.

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