Daily Times

Just as expected, the government’s call, rather threat, of a million-man march in Islamabad on the voting day for the no-confidence motion has drawn a tit-for-tat response from the combined opposition. Now, the PDM loyalists will also march on the capital around the same time. Senior PTI leaders questioning the rationale for the opposition’s march when it claims to have the required numbers to carry the motion ought to put the same question to themselves as well. It is the 172 or so votes that they will need inside parliament that are going to matter at the end of the day, regardless of the sea of people they are able to gather at the D-chowk. Also, eager government spokesmen threatening to garland turncoats with shoes and paste pictures throughout cities ought to first look across their own party rank and file. Surely, they will see far too many people that similarly jumped the ship to hop onto the PTI bandwagon when the going seemed good. So where, and when, will this circus stop?

Ordinarily, democratic dispensations require sitting governments to take the lead when it comes to diffusing volatile situations. Yet here we have a ruling party that is taking the lead in spreading toxicity throughout not just the political landscape, but across much of the country itself. A no-trust vote is as legal and constitutional as the mandate that put PTI in the highest offices of the land, after all, and for it to fiddle with legal nuances to bend the law in its favour risks unleashing a cataclysmic political storm that has every chance of getting out of control; and then nobody will be able to put an end to it. That explains why even the more seasoned government allies are calling for an immediate end to this sort of politics of bitter confrontation.

But the PM is in no mood to listen. PTI leaders are also taking the strange line that the million people it will be able to gather in Islamabad just ahead of the voting will prove that opposition politicians are corrupt and hence have no space in the country’s politics. They haven’t so far bothered to connect the dots to show how they came to such a conclusion; except that they seem to really think so. While nothing conclusive can be said till the voting is done and the result announced, perhaps those favouring caution are offering better advice than those itching for a confrontation.

Hopefully, the government will still realise that it is bound to help put out this fire instead of fuelling it. At the end of the day, enjoying the steering wheel comes with a lot of backbreaking responsibilities. *