Resignation politics

National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf accepted 43 more resignations from MNAs of PTI, leaving only the rebel members in the Raja Riaz camp in the lower house and almost certainly ensuring that the PDM can now rubber-stamp all legislative business, including decisions relating to the next general elections. The move was not unexpected, but could still have been avoided, given how top PDM leaders in recent weeks had still been inviting the PTI back into the NA. Instead, it came across as a Machiavellian move to sideline the PTI at a time when the country needs unity to claw its way out of the ongoing economic and political crises.

However, some critics have fairly called out PTI chief and former prime minister Imran Khan for his refusal to take up the mantle of opposition leader from day one instead of going the doomed route of street agitation and conspiracy theories, which may have revitalised his base, but actually alienated many voters while eroding his own credibility and political capital among the establishment and Pakistan’s allies. There is also a school of thought that says PTI leaders and backbenchers — including those that wanted to withdraw their resignations — deserve this for the way they have made a mockery of parliament with their gamesmanship around attendance and resignations.

Whether or not there will be any consequences for the PTI or PDM remains to be seen. But what is clear is that the PTI and the government, via the Speaker, have shown that their personal political goals outweigh any sense of loyalty or duty to their voters, who were left without representation in parliament for over nine months. Although the PTI’s boycott is mostly to blame, the government fell off the moral high horse they were perched on when they claimed they were refusing to accept the resignations to allow the PTI members to return to the House, only to accept them when a potential PTI return threatened to weaken the overwhelming majority in parliament that the party’s absence had created.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2023.

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