Cabinet expansion

It bears repetition to argue that the coalition governments at the Centre and the provinces have deeply disappointed the people. Conceding that these bodies did inherit some intractable problems, one cannot overlook the fact that over the three months that they have been in power no worthwhile effort seems to have been made by them to come to grips with these people-specific problems.
For the ordinary people, who constitute the vast majority of population of Pakistan, the day to day life has become a painful affair. Food shortages, power outages, joblessness, frighteningly bad law and order situation, in the backdrop of war-like conditions on our western border, tend to snuff out that little light at the other end of tunnel that had kept the public morale intact during the long years of quasi-military reign.
On the other hand, there is clear evidence to help one correctly describe the elected coalition governments as cabals of self-seekers. What a joke, they disagree on every major issue, be it the restoration of judges or political future of President Musharraf or standing up to the challenge of Talibanisation, but closely share the urge and determination to remain in power. Consequently, we have bloated cabinets in the provinces.
Prime Minister Gilani does not want to be left behind either, drawing inspiration also from the fact that his predecessor, Shaukat Aziz, had a 60 members plus cabinet - thanks to political networking by the agencies that perpetually worry about political stability and therefore would like all the horses to be pegged together in the same barn. After getting briefed by his leader, Asif Ali Zardari, as he flew into Dubai directly from Kuala Lumpur, Gilani has sounded out other coalition leaders on cabinet expansion. According to media reports, junior coalition partners, ANP and JUI (F), are too willing to send in their nominees.
But the MQM, which is a coalition partner with the PPP in Sindh and cooperates with it in the Centre, has not yet received the phone call from the Prime Minister House. Would it join the cabinet if invited, the answer has been aptly provided by Haider Abbas Rizvi who told a reporter: '...in politics, you are never sure what exactly may happen the very next moment'. But PML (N) wants the MQM out of the federal cabinet, as it has 'serious reservations about its (MQM's) past role on certain matters'. As for the PML (N)'s response, reports say this would remain ambivalent unless Chaudhry Nisar Ali's expected meeting with the Prime Minister results in overcoming their divergence on the judges' issue.
Coalition governments are very much a democratic phenomenon. But given the history of hard-fought confrontationist relationship the PPP and PML (N) had have over the past two decades, their decision to jump out of their grooves and form a coalition government appeared to be so much unnatural. Not surprisingly, within days of their forming coalition governments in the Centre and Punjab, the PML (N) walked out of the federal cabinet as the coalition partners failed to build a consensus on the judges' issue.
But it does not want to part company with the PPP, mainly because should it take this road it might go out of power in Punjab. Playing cat-and-mouse the PML (N) has seriously undermined the Gilani government's capacity to provide good governance, especially at a time when emerging challenges have sharpened people's expectations from it. Surely, the federal government must complete its cabinet and soon. But the expansion has to be need-oriented and fully justifiable and not just to cater to the partners' so-called quotas. At the same time, the government should undertake a comprehensive review of bureaucratic structure, for on the face of it, quite a few ministries should not exist at the federal level.
For instance, education, health and a few others are essentially provincial subjects and they should be with the provincial governments. The Centre may have just one coordination division to create liaison between the provincial governments and the Centre with regard to these subjects. The fact is, that so far, the elected leadership has not been able to put its feet on the ground. Much time has already been lost, as the problems confronting an average Pakistani multiply. That is not good for any government, much less for a coalition government, which is teetering on the brink of collapse.