PML-N caught between devil and deep blue sea

LAHORE:

The prevalent mood among the people shows that they lay the blame for economic woes at the ruling coalition’s door and the sentiment would reflect in the upcoming elections’ outcome, many parliamentarians, especially those belonging to the PML-N, told The Express Tribune.

The dim view is helped by the grim optics from the country selling its assets amid ever-rising inflation to the deteriorating economy and a steady rise in terrorism, there was no good news on any front, a senior sitting parliamentarian from the ruling PML-N said on the condition of anonymity.

Referring to the recently moved amendment by the defence minister in the Army Act, he said when the “interests of the establishment are guarded so unabashedly, no amount of lip-servicing works”.

In the absence of any real opposition, he said, the government’s own performance was enough to force the people away.

The lawmaker went on to admit that this had nothing to do with the performance of the previous PTI government, “but has everything to do with what happened in the last year”.

“People are neck-deep in crises and are not ready to accept the PML-N led coalition government's excuse that they had no part to play in this crisis,” the parliamentarian said. “They don’t say this directly to our faces, but the questions that they ask generally reflect this sentiment.”

The senior lawmaker reckoned that while people realise that the PTI government’s abysmal performance did not leave them with any breathing room, the delay in reaching an agreement with the IMF had made matters worse. If only this agreement had been reached sooner, the party could have gone into a damage-control mode.

Appeasing establishment ‘big blunder’

Another senior parliamentarian from central Punjab, who too requested to be kept anonymous, said that appeasing the establishment was a “big blunder” his government was making, as this was a negation of their struggle.

He said that party supremo Nawaz Sharif’s return would provide a stimulus in the PML-N but beyond that, it would not have any real impact, “especially against the backdrop of our government’s performance”.

The lawmakers said that the party was known for delivering on all its promises but regretted that this time around, things went from bad to worse under its watch, and people didn’t want to be told who to blame. “They blame us.”

Though all was not lost, he said, people knew that the PML-N was their only hope and was the only party that had the capacity to deliver, so they would vote for them.

Similarly, JUI-F’s Abdul Ghafoor Haideri talking to The Express Tribune conceded that people were upset owing to the economic turmoil in Pakistan, saying that they indeed blamed them for this.

He said that a government that ruled for more than a year was responsible for the state of affairs and the people were justified in blaming it on the government.

Haideri said that people were not fully cognisant of the circumstances under which the PDM took control of the government, and neither were they aware of the global inflationary trend, so their expectations were pretty logical from their perspective. He said all shared the blame for this and Ishaq Dar alone was not responsible.

PML-N MNA Waheed Alam Khan said that people blamed the government for soaring inflation and this would have an impact on the elections outcome.

When asked about the damage that pro-establishment policy would have on the PML-N as was pointed out by other parliamentarians that The Express Tribune spoke to, he agreed, saying it indeed would also have an impact.