Daily Times

PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari should be appreciated for daring to give upcoming elections its due importance. Because the mainstream political players have been overwhelmed with everything under the sun but the actual technicalities of governance, their profound interest in climbing up the ladder begets far more questions than it can answer. However, PPP’s interest in unveiling a manifesto to apprise its voter base about how it intends to resolve a myriad of challenges cannot be taken as a luck break to throw things at a wall to see what sticks. The formation of a pro-people government that focuses on the welfare of all of Pakistan cannot be stressed enough, but extremely ambitious projects like doubling salaries, provision of three million houses and a nationwide replication of a successful public health model in Sindh would cost the fragile treasury an arm and a leg. Based on the chequered record of populist pledges that had echoed from PTI’s containers back in 2018, old hands should have been cautious enough before promising heavens.

As Mr Bhutto-Zardari heavily relies on his party’s previous socio-rehabilitation programmes, those with a clearer understanding of today’s Pakistan could have given him a good reality check. Every lofty, picturesque ideal of “Awami Raj” triggers at least a dozen reservations pertaining to the PPP’s failure to provide any relief in Sindh in the past 15 years. Instead of tooting the well-worn slogan of “Roti, Kapra aur Makaan,” the Bhutto scion could make his grandfather proud by coming up with a new revolutionary catchphrase that wins hearts and captures the imagination.

This 10-point agenda would only go on to haunt him in whichever capacity his party manages to join the executive. With the election literally around the corner, people who wish to stand at the wheel can only be expected to provide concrete, foolproof plans to steer through the choppy waters. Promising moon to the famished and perpetually stressed masses might have worked wonders in the past, but today, when it is 2023 and ordinary men and women have seen the ugly realities of every self-professed messiah, the secret sauce to success entails a lot of homework, realistic goals and iron-clad determination to bring about lasting results. *