Dissecting the budget with taunts and witty barbs

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif does not feel too motivated to attend parliamentary sittings. He surely surprised many with his long and attentive presence during the first day of the commencement of general discussion on budgetary proposals Friday. Another big surprise was a wittingly engaging speech made by Syed Khurshid Shah.

Parliamentary traditions grant the privilege of initiating the general discussion on budgetary proposals to the leader of opposition in the national assembly. Thanks to the explosively divided polity that we had suffered in Pakistan for many decades, the successive opposition leaders would always avail this privilege to attack the sitting governments, almost with vengeance.

Ms Benazir Bhutto always took the lead in this context. She would assiduously prepare such speeches like a battle-hardened warrior and deliver the same with overwhelming passion and energy.

Although a shrewd politician with huge experience of working for both the government and the opposition, Khurshid Shah mostly appears dull and weak while attempting to weave a narrative during parliamentary discussions. At times, he does sound witty but seldom equipped with persuasive content.

Friday proved different for he primarily relied on solid statistics to blast the myth that due to diligent management by its finance minister, the Nawaz government has somehow succeeded in generating the feel of a promising turnaround of our economy. While dissecting the spin doctoring ‘talents’ of Ishaq Dar with taunts and witty barbs, Khurshid Shah often made even the prime minister laugh with an amused heart.

The sober, mature and good-goody appearances in the house helped the government to generate the illusion of all-is-well about its affairs. But the same appearances would look ominously hollow even if you knew a little about the intense discussions between the prime minister and some of his key ministers that went on almost nonstop during the past 72 hours. Equally important were the prolonged but covert negotiations that the duo of Shahbaz Sharif and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan kept holding with some high-level interlocutors from the outfits dealing with issues related to national security.

I have it from trustworthy sources that the decision to suspend the licence of a TV network that we saw being finally executed on Friday was in effect ‘scripted’ during these meetings.

The ‘fire-fighting duo’ of Shahbaz and Nisar strongly feel that due to their diplomatic initiative and efforts, the Nawaz government will now be able to quell the feeling that it has developed serious differences over perception and execution of some crucial policies on various sensitive issues vis-à-vis the military elite. They do seem to have convinced the prime minister to concede on an intense and passion-inciting matter.

Disregarding the self preserving concerns of the fire-fighting duo, Nawaz Sharif and his hardcore loyalists had been adamantly holding on to the position that the banning of a specific, rather any, media outlet during the tenure of their government would perilously damage their democratic credentials. Fervently promoting this line, however, all of them conveniently forgot the reality that Nawaz Sharif happened to be the Chief Executive of this country these days and it was a definite ministry under his visible command and control that had formally approached PEMRA against a particular media group.

After officially forwarding a strong complaint to the relevant forum, it simply appeared behaving clumsy and deceptive by trying to dissociate itself from the endgame. The government’s conduct in this regard rather appears foolishly affirming the famous adage: you cannot fool all the people all the time.

A federal minister, known for active access to the prime minister, privately agreed to my assessment of the finale of PEMRA-connected drama. Yet, he kept forewarning me that it would “still be unwise to imagine that Nawaz Sharif is now more amenable to willfully concede whatever is demanded from him, by you know who.” The minister was not willing to elaborate further. He did suggest to me in passing, however, “to recall the hyperactive and firefighting doings of Shahbaz and Nisar,” when it came to dealing with the blowback of Kargil in the mid-1999. One could only wish that the said minister proved wrong in the end.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2014.