PDM’s march

Opposition has rightly called out the “hypocrisy” of appeals by pointing to PTI dharnas and the “losses they caused”.

Opposition parties appear set to hold an anti-inflation protest march on March 23, with PDM head Maulana Fazlur Rehman telling the media that the march would not overlap with Pakistan Day celebrations. Fazl said the marchers would not enter Islamabad till the late afternoon, well after the annual military parade would have wound up. The government has been throwing every excuse in the book to try to convince the opposition to call off the long march, including appeals to avoid creating a security situation as an OIC meeting is also scheduled for the same day.

Opposition leaders, however, have rightly called out the “hypocrisy” of such appeals by pointing to the PTI dharnas and the “economic and reputational losses they caused”. They also reminded Imran Khan of his claims that he would support people’s right to protest if elected prime minister. Fazl went as far as calling the scheduling of the OIC moot a “conspiracy”, claiming it was planned after the opposition had already announced their protest date. He also painted a gloomy picture of the situation in the country, blaming the ruling party for everything going wrong and “selling out the country to the IMF”. He also pointed to the recent Transparency International report, and accused PM Imran of being a “criminal” because of the foreign funding case, and trying to rig the next general elections using electronic voting machines.

However, despite the long ‘charge-sheet’ the PMD head presented, it still remains to be seen if the opposition can mend fractures enough to make the protest anything more than a nuisance. As the recent mini-budget vote showed, the PTI’s allies are still firmly behind it. Meanwhile, the opposition can’t even get on the same page regarding degrees of participation in the march, or a supposed no-confidence vote in the near future.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2022.

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