No-holds-barred politicking

PTI and PDM are more concerned about power and self-projection rather than saving the country from bankruptcy

The economy is threatening to go back into freefall, but it appears leaders from the PTI and the PDM are more concerned about power and self-projection rather than saving the country from bankruptcy. After months of essentially refusing to accept resignations of PTI MNAs under one excuse or the other, National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf accepted 35 resignations without any heads-up, just hours after PTI chief and former prime minister Imran Khan suggested that his MNAs may return to the assembly to withdraw their resignations. This would allow Imran — or a person of his choosing — to take up the mantle of leader of the opposition, a post currently held by PTI dissident Raja Riaz. Since the law requires that the leader of the opposition be consulted for several things, including the appointment of a caretaker government ahead of a general election, Imran desperately needed to get back in the House, lest Riaz should rubber-stamp the PDM’s picks.

However, after months of decrying horsetrading and using derogatory language to refer to PTI parliamentarians who did not support his party during confidence votes, Imran was also proudly touting how several PML-N members are “in contact” with the PTI, and that he “will test them” before giving them party tickets to contest election. Most analysts believe this meant getting them to be absent from a confidence vote the PTI mulls bringing against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, thereby reducing the PM’s potential vote total to a minority.

It appears the PTI chief also intends to mock the electoral system again by contesting on all 33 of the directly-elected seats that have been vacated after the Speaker accepted the resignations of the PTI MNAs. Imran has already wasted taxpayer funds worth millions of rupees by contesting on seven National Assembly seats in the October 2022 by-elections. Instead of learning from the criticism that his decision to field himself on all seats received, the PTI chief has decided to potentially waste even more government money — assuming he wins on multiple seats and forces more by-elections.

Meanwhile, the ruling PDM continues to sell false hope, while Finance Minister Ishaq Dar works diligently to remind voters that the coalition’s top leadership works under a different set of rules — why else would Dar, who is former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s brother-in-law, be allowed to continue refusing to appear before the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance. Dar, who is believed to be behind the unceremonious sacking of his predecessor Miftah Ismail, painted himself as a knight in shining armour. Instead, his reign has been emblematic of the PDM’s last few months — an unbridled disaster that threatens to derail the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2023.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.