Daily Times

Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry perhaps knows the art of pre-emption. Like a visionary he sees ominous things before they happen. He knows when a politician will be arrested, when he or she will be in jail, what would possibly be the court verdict without it being made public. He also has a strong nose that can smell a stinking rat in any corner. Out of the blue he disclosed without a casus belli  that the PTI boat was sailing smoothly, there were no threats to it and that perceptions of its failures that were being created were sinister and deliberate.

“The parties led by Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari have already met their fate due to bad governance in their respective governments during the past 10 years,” the minister said while talking to the media in Alhamra recently. He blamed the previous rulers for corruption, lack of good governance and their gross failure to improve Pakistan’s external image. He claimed that the government will present a finance bill on January 23, which will help strengthen the economy. ‘It will contain a lot for the masses to celebrate’, he did not elaborate on this point. Will it be inauguration of a dual liquid way via river Indus to carry milk and honey to the starving masses? Candid as he always is, he forgot the hundred-day agenda and shared another secret that Prime Minister Imran Khan will soon come up to the people’s expectations. “Just give the PTI government two to three years, and you will hail it for the epoch-making reforms that they have undertaken.”

It is said where there’s smoke there is fire. Why did our Information Minister have to resort to a pre-emptive strike when there were no threats to the government? Or is there something that is still in the closet? Social media is flooding with ominous forecasts that the PTI government’s days are numbered. Powers that played a pivotal role in engineering its electoral victory for PTI and Imran Khan are regretting their selection. As they mean business, they have made it clear privately to the PTI leadership that it has another six months of trial and error. It could mean midterm elections, though both PPP and PML-N would not like to bring down the government halfway. The messier things get; the better the prospects will be for the opposition parties.

It is said where there’s smoke there is fire. Why did our Information Minister have to resort to a pre-emptive strike when there were no threats to his government? Or is there something that is still in the closet? Social media is flooding with ominous forecasts that the PTI government’s days are numbered

Prime Minister Khan and his team of novices are lucky that both the major opposition parties are wedded to democracy as they are not interested in over turning PTI’s power bandwagon. In this context, I would refer here to a comment by PML-N Senator Lt General (R) Qayyum on PTI’s conduct of the state of affairs. “In my view, IK is sincere and is keen to develop the country but he doesn’t know the basic structure or basic framework for development. Should it be a state-led development model or a private sector-led development model? The models he refers to in his speeches, such as Malaysia, China or Turkey, they all are state-led development models. China was communist in its originality but it continues to be state-led in its development model. Others (Turkey, Malaysia and the famous Asian Tigers) they all developed on the basis of a Hamiltonian state-led development model. His team, however, has little understanding of the development models. They know development from the end result not from its process. Therefore they seem to have a desire to develop sans clear policy.”

Prime Minister Imran Khan remains a world class cricketer who has yet to become a politician or a statesman. His mindset is that of a long handle wielder of a bat, who only knows that his arms have the strength to take a mighty swipe with eyes closed and once the bat hits the ball, it is bound to bring runs. His politics as well are restricted to the cricket field and the gallery, his cabinet ministers too with the exception of Dr Shireen Mazari and Shah Mehmood Qureshi-are no better than boys of the street vying to be rudimentary cricketers. Their critics call them trigger happy loudmouth show boys or crooks with their own personal agendas.

According to IK he has spent 22 years struggling politically before success touched his feet. It seems that he regretfully did not spend those 22 years in learning politics. However, he has developed an ornate ability to be an orator, but his capacity to deliver has yet to charm any one. According to his critics he indulges in day dreaming and spells out utopian schemes of social welfare without much ado.

Unfortunately, Imran Khan has burnt his boats in pursuit of his utopian dreams. Pakistan needs strong provincial governments with a competent central government to take imaginative steps and initiatives in foreign, defence and most crucial economic fields. Instead of putting dirty fingers in the provincial pies, IK would be doing a great service if he could give the country a professional finance minister rather than appointing his own crony whose only link to fame is his father-a General- who was a close buddy of General Yahya Khan.

Author is the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to UK and a veteran journalist

Published in Daily Times, January 16^th 2019.