EDITORIAL: PTI’s (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s) attempt at damage control, if it can be called that at all, after the attack on ‘Sindh House’ gives the impression that it does not feel at all that this particular card should not have been slammed on the table; at least at this particular point in time. It’s not just that the information minister should have known better than to pitch the line that the lota business upset the ordinary citizens of Islamabad into such a frenzy, and PTI really didn’t have much to do with it. It’s also that he, among so many other ruling party heavyweights, epitomizes the kind of party-jumper that’s got PTI so upset about right now. Time was, indeed, when he’d beat his chest just as hard in support of people he now calls Pakistan’s enemies in press conferences, not to mention those that suspended the constitution itself.
That is why such a gambit at this time was inadvisable. It raises a few very important questions. One, what’s to be expected when the state itself spreads the kind of toxicity that takes the smallest spark to ignite? A no-confidence motion is constitutional procedure, after all, and the PM should not need to see his own comments about it doing the rounds on prime time as well as social media to be reminded of his party’s position on such things. So why’s the government doing all it can to make this fight dirtier than it’s already become? Two, who really expected that the opposition would hold back till the OIC conference even as the government attacks it; that too at crunch time, when no tit-for-tat is very bad for optics?
And three, and most importantly, what are the country’s security agencies to make of this slide into anarchy? Their oath binds them to protect the state against all sorts of threats, foreign as well as internal, doesn’t it? ‘Sindh House’ is government property, no matter how you look at it, and this was one of those very rare occasions when an attack on state property was instigated by agents of the state itself and allowed to go on by other agents whose job it is to prevent such incidents from happening, especially in what is the ‘red zone’.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court has taken up this matter because of a petition filed by the SCBA (Supreme Court Bar Association), also fearing anarchy in the country because of the standoff that the filing of the no-confidence motion has triggered. Especially since the opposition’s threat of blocking the OIC summit unless the motion is tabled on Monday has made life much more difficult for everybody. It’s embarrassing enough that foreign ministers of 48 countries are coming here, and the Chinese foreign minister is a special guest, at a time when we don’t know who the prime minister will be next week, but it’s worse that everybody is still bent upon letting mobs fill the headlines.
The incumbent government must always bear the burden of responsibility of de-escalation situations just like this; not the least if it took the lead in making bad things much worse; to the point that the highest court in the land, already dogged by an indefensible backlog, must also waste its time with it. Sanity must return to the main political discourse very urgently. The government does itself, and the country, no favours by making this confrontation much uglier than it has to be. The no-confidence motion is a constitutional inevitability, at the end of the day, so might as well have it over and done with without wasting any more time. There will always be time to sort out all the turncoats.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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