Daily Times

It’s unfortunate that PTI, under direct orders from the party chairman no doubt, thew everything but the kitchen sink into its attempt to derail no confidence proceedings in the national assembly, in blatant violation of the supreme court’s orders.

And, though reports are still sketchy, it seems it might have taken some persuasion by the establishment to eventually turn things around to get voting underway with hardly two minutes remaining in the day.

Still, there was enough confusion to get the chief justice and senior judges call an extremely rare midnight session of the supreme court, with all sorts of rumours doing the round, which did not do the country, or even PTI, any good whatsoever.

They way (former) speaker Asad Qaisar was made to fall on his sword was also in pretty bad taste. Clearly Imran Khan’s senior lieutenants share his private dismissal of any and all things that even mildly contradict his own narrative; even if it is the highest court of the land.

That’s proof, if any was still needed, that PTI will assume a very aggressive posture in the opposition. Yet it’s too soon to tell if its main play – the alleged foreign threat – has any real mileage. If not, Imran’s strategy could well have delivered his own party the kiss of death in the long term.

Regardless, as the curtain falls on the PTI government, the new prime minister will soon find out that his administration has very little to celebrate; so great are the burdens weighing the country down at the moment. Chief among them is the economic crisis.

The economy was already reeling but the uncertainty and flawed steps of the last few weeks have triggered a situation where the country’s dollar debt profile is raising concerns of possible default in international financial markets.

There is no way it will be able to arrest rising prices, which was, incidentally, the issue at the heart of the no confidence push. And there’s precious little to suggest that people’s sufferings will come to an end anytime soon.

Pakistan might wake up to a new political reality this fateful day, but it’s a far thing from the new dawn that’s promised every time such winds of change blow through the land. *