Wrapping up the Senate debate on Monday on the President's address to Parliament, Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali conceded that his government's performance may have been unsatisfactory, though he was quick to add that that should not be seen as lack of sincerity on its part.
He mentioned the lack of success regarding the law and order situation, saying judicial inquiries had been ordered to ascertain the causes of "unfortunate" incidents, especially the murder of the Sindh Assembly member, Abdullah Murad.
The Prime Minister, indeed deserves to be praised for having made such a frank admission of less-than-satisfactory performance, which is something rare for a government leader to do.
Judicial inquiries alone, though, it hardly needs saying, cannot ensure peace and harmony in society. The issue has to be addressed in its bigger socio-economic perspective.
In an earlier frank admission Jamali had said that it was his "luck" that brought him the prime ministerial office. In fact, for a time he had considered staying out of the last general election.
As luck would have it, he not only entered the fray and won his Assembly seat, but was also chosen to be the country's Prime Minister even though he was neither the chief of his party nor was he projected as its candidate for the office of Chief Executive in the run-up to the elections.
The party that was to thrust him into the most powerful - in theory at least - elective office, having broken away from the PML-N, was more concerned with trying to bring aboard more and more dissidents than worrying about policy matters.
Little surprise then that his faction of the PML - it has nearly as many splinter groups as characters in the alphabet to identify them - did not come up with an election manifesto that was to serve as the basis of its future programmes and policies.
Speaking at the National Defence College in Islamabad last month, the Prime Minister defined his "vision of Pakistan." Much of what he said there looks like rhetorical or reactive politics.
His vision, he said, was founded on the ideals that led to the creation of Pakistan, and "our path is paved with the Quaid-e-Azam's guiding principles of 'Unity, Faith, and Discipline.'" That, of course, does not say much as to the shape of programmes and policies that his government is to put in place to achieve what he described as the "daunting task of building a strong and prosperous Pakistan."
In articulating his 'vision', Jamali also touched upon some important issues confronting the nation, and offered familiar but vague solutions. He talked of the need to have a corruption-free society and to impart quality education to the youth.
He firmly believed, he said, that "the Kashmir issue is neither intractable nor complicated. It can and must be resolved." Turning to the judicial system, he repeated successive governments' unfulfilled promises to separate the judiciary from the executive, and vowed to establish rule of law, dispense social justice, and ensure equal opportunity.
The only concrete suggestion he made related to the formula of financial allocations to the provinces.
He must have touched a receptive chord in the smaller provinces as he argued that "a more honest way of facing the situation is to base the provisions of infrastructure and social services on the established needs of each province, and not on the population formula."
What has remained missing from his frequent assertions on all these issues is a well-formulated, solid programme that is to translate his vision of a strong, stable and prosperous Pakistan into reality. It would be useful to know how he intends to do that.
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