With great power comes less responsibility

Qaim Ali Shah has been around for a while. He was there when General Ayub Khan was president. He was there when General Ziaul Haq was in power. He was also there in 1990, 1997, 2002 and 2008.

As one of the oldest and most powerful members of the Sindh Assembly, Qaim Ali Shah can get away with a lot of things. These things include coming to the assembly late and falling asleep with his eyes open.

Yes, he is the chief minister and had come to the assembly to make a grand speech on Monday but during the first half of the session he wasn’t really paying much attention to what was going on. He just sat in his seat with a hand under his chin to balance his head.

It wasn’t his fault, really, he walked in around 12:45pm and by 2pm, the first half of the session was over.

He did scoot over once or twice to make space for MPAs who came to greet him. He scribbled a little on the sheets of paper kept in front of him and then, he fixed his moustache and took what looked like another nap.

The chief minister didn’t flinch when the opposition pointed fingers at him. He did not even turn to hear Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon give a fiery budget speech - a response to allegations made by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Imtiaz Sheikh against the PPP and Sindh government. He just sat there with a blank expression on his face.

He did nothing to control his ministers or the opposition’s as Memon’s words upset the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, PML-N and Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F). The speaker kept asking for order and for the ‘new’ MPAs to behave and learn from seasoned politicians. The MPAs sitting in the opposition benches kept calling out to the chief minister to see how unfair the speaker was being but those pleas fell on deaf ears as the CM said nothing.

The chief minister was also quiet when PML-F’s Jam Madad Ali asked the government and CM to launch an inquiry to find out what happened in Sehwan. The MPAs became rowdy, the speaker became angry but the chief minister just sat there, oblivious to his surroundings.

As the minutes ticked away and the long hand of the clock was 60 seconds away from 2pm, the chief minister got up and left. He didn’t even wait for the speaker to finish his sentence or stand long enough for him to announce that the session would continue an hour later.

The chief minister, it seemed, had other more important things on his mind.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 24^th, 2014.