The coalition partners of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) appear to part ways with the government on the 'grounds' that their constituencies have been deprived of development funding. Last week it was MQM-Pakistan and now it is the PML-Q. The third ally, BNP-Mengal, too, is of the same mind, but so far not so openly. Should these three leave the coalition, the PTI-headed government is likely to fall, a bitter reality that keeps rankling Prime Minister Imran Khan's mind. They do insist that they are not going to quit and will keep supporting the PTI government. But their argument is hardly tenable because of the fact that they were given ministries in return for their commitments to be the coalition partners. Answering a question why PML-Q's Tariq Bashir Cheema boycotted the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, his senior party-fellow Kamil Ali Agha says that his party had some "genuine legal and constitutional demands which were being ignored by Prime Minister Khan". He took pains to deny that his party wants the induction of another scion of the Chaudhry brothers into the cabinet, and kept insisting that "our credibility is at stake as we meet people and face their genuine reservations on inflation, joblessness and increasing corruption in the country". To quite a few discerning minds the whole truth behind coalition partners' muscle, however, lies in sudden change in wind direction - one suggestive sign of that change is the arrival of main opposition parties on the proverbial 'same page' the government has so far exclusively shared with the Army. The government was all out for extension of Army Chief General Bajwa's service, but is disturbed over the opposition's prompt, unreserved support to its move in parliament. And that tribulation was aired the other day by no less than federal minister Faisal Vawda who brought a combat boot to a live TV programme to heap scorn on the PPP and PML-N for voting in favour of the recently-passed Army Act in Parliament. Addressing the host and PML-N's Senator Javed Abbasi, the minister said he would carry it to "every TV programme to tell the nation that this is today's democratic Noon League. You [the PML-N] should have given it respect earlier." The minister also did not spare the PPP, by asking the fourth person on the show, Qamar Zaman Kaira, why the PPP withdrew amendments it had proposed earlier in services chiefs' tenure legislation.
In functioning democracies the coalition-formation is common; it works well but not always. The smaller or junior coalition partners, as is presently the case with us, ask for a rather hefty share of the cake. They want to dictate their terms in policy issues, and if denied they threaten to leave the government. Rightly then, Prime Minister Imran Khan has formed a committee, headed by Defence Minister Khattak, to meet "annoyed" government allies and address their concerns. But given the forbidding size of their concerns, the said committee may find it difficult to win back their loyalty. If their demands are genuine and can be met the prime minister has the chance to keep them, but if their demands are only a camouflage for something else - recall Vawda's theatrics - then the only course left with the PTI is to go for the mid-term polls. Given the enormity of security challenges besetting today's Pakistan, the government must be sure of its footing in the public. True, funding worth Rs 162 billion for Karachi was promised and is not translating into a reality. But to think that someone in Islamabad is sitting on it out of malice for 20 million Karachiites won't be fair. Same is the case with Punjab. The federal government must come clean on these demands. But if the game is on, in view of what Faisal Vawda's 'army boot' tends to suggest, time is of the essence because the country cannot afford to be in limbo of incertitude.
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