Daily Times

It is a bit rich of some PTI leaders to question the opposition’s decision of holding a public rally in Islamabad when it already has the required number of lawmakers in its camp to make the no-confidence motion a success. Perhaps, they should put themselves the same question first. Haven’t all of them, including the prime minister, been claiming the same thing all along–that, they have more than the number required to win the day? Why did they feel the need to gather a million people on D-chowk then? And also make all sorts of threats, including how anybody who votes against Imran Khan would have to pass through this crowd, and that the prospect of a terrorist attack was a very real one?

They didn’t bother to explain their own actions because they know very well that all of them owe to utter desperation. First, everybody in the ruling party dismissed all talk of the no-confidence motion as just irrelevant noise–perhaps counting on the so-called establishment to bail them out as usual. Then, when it really came, the PM did a characteristic U-turn and actually lowered himself to interacting with his government’s key coalition partners, something he’d never cared for before. And when that did not work as well, they resorted to naked threats.

Now, they’re just trying to bully as many lawmakers into staying with them as possible by thumping their chests and rattling their swords as loudly as they can. Unbelievably, though, they are even trying to subvert the constitution itself by getting the speaker to disqualify dissident PTI lawmakers before they are able to cast their votes. But the constitution will never allow it and the ruling party will do something like this to its own long-term cost and also harm the country’s politics even more in the process. You can be sure that a party that is used to blaming others for all its many failures will now also criticise the constitution for having a clause that can send a sitting government packing because of its incompetence.

You can be sure that a party that is used to blaming others for its failures will now criticise the constitution for having a clause that can send a sitting government packing because of its incompetence.

It’s also no surprise that the PM now sees some sort of grand international conspiracy to oust his government. That’s why you hear him taking credit for somehow giving Pakistan a respectable and independent foreign policy whereas the fact is that he has hurt and damaged political alliances that successive Pakistani administrations built and nurtured over decades. Things have become so bad that now when he takes the begging bowl even to countries that have been a steadfast friend for a very long time, he only invites humiliation for himself as well as the country. And he still has the audacity to count that as something of a success.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that even coalition partners have had enough of this partnership. They know that all of them are doomed in the next election if they don’t set their priorities straight right now. And they couldn’t have been luckier as the opposition chose this moment to mobilise because doing the right thing now still gives them enough time to make a credible case for themselves on the campaign trail for the next election. And a lot of politicians that were pushed into the PTI camp before the last election, by forces everybody knows only too well, are gladly hopping back onto their mother ships now that the external pressure is clearly gone.

It won’t be long now before fascist forces are plucked out of the country’s political system once and for all. For all the problems that people have had to face in the near-four years of PTI’s government, it has also left them a lot wiser about who their real beneficiaries are, and who served this nation before a bunch of con artists, who used compelling slogans like Riyasat e Madina, hijacked it.

This experiment has pushed Pakistan right to the edge. Everybody must join hands to pull it back and make it work once again. The people have already been playing their part for some time now; voting for PML-N in successive by-elections and local body polls. The fight between forces of fascism and freedom has reached a tipping point, and the result will be out very soon. That is why the selected government’s desperation is speaking for itself.

The writer is a LUMS graduate and currently serves as PMLN MPA. She is a close aide of Maryam Nawaz and tweets at @hinaparvezbutt