Of late, inside the Parliament and outside it, politics has gotten reduced to sloganeering, mudslinging, and bullying. While lawmakers and party officials from both sides of the aisle are responsible for such depravity of our political discourse, the ruling party shares disproportionate responsibility because being in power, it has to set higher standards, meaning, focusing more on actions and performance rather than rhetoric alone. Unfortunately, the ruling party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has mostly been concerned with rhetoric so far. And this goes back to the party’s years in opposition when it promoted use of abusive language against the leadership of two major national parties – Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Peoples’ Party. During the party’s various public gatherings between 2008 and 2018, Prime Minister Imran Khan, the chairman of the PTI, adopted a certain style of public speaking in which he cemented his political legitimacy by dissing his opponents. It appears that his followers have taken a liking to this dangerous style of public speaking since many in the ruling party follow in his footsteps when they are speaking, either inside the Parliament or online platforms. This was witnessed when Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif used a term which he should not have used during his speech on the day the PM returned to the National Assembly after a gap of a few months to attend presentation of a third finance bill during the fiscal year. Sharif referred to the PM as selected, implying that he had gotten into power through a rigged election. It is important to bear in mind that questions had been raised about the fairness of last year’s elections, but the opposition parties accepted the results with reservations and entered the Parliament, meaning the legitimacy of the election is not questionable. Besides, a parliamentary committee has been formed to probe allegations of rigging, and therefore, the opposition should exert its energies in making the committee deliver on its tasks. As uncalled-for as it was, Shahbaz’s speech led to display of even more crass political behaviour by members of the ruling party. PM’s Special Assistant Naeemul Haq posted tweets in reaction which were way out of line. He issued threats to the opposition that Shahbaz production orders would be revoked, when Haq should clearly have no role at all in issuance or cancellation of the orders given he is not a member of the Parliament. His tweets also gave an impression asif there was a nexus between the ruling party and the accountability watchdog. Then, the baton got passed on to the firebrand PTI MNA, Murad Saeed, who issued a fiery speech in the Assembly. The problem here is that this particular incident was not an exception, rather it was a reflection of the decadence in our political culture where rhetoric dominates, and real issues of real people get sidetracked. The veterans of this system, like Awami Muslim League leader Sheikh Rashid, are as much to blame as newbies like Punjab Information Minister Fayyazul Hasan Chohan. Both the government and the opposition need to reflect on their behaviour at public forums, because they’ve been put into office to do a job. It would be best if instead of slandering one another, they must try to outdo one another in terms of public service. * Published in Daily Times, January 28th 2019.