The young stand in Chief Minister Dost Mohammad Khosa will get vote of confidence from Punjab Assembly today (Friday) but the PML-N, PPP coalition government needs years to clear the mess created by the out-going government.
Business Recorder has learnt from reliable sources that the previous government withdrew Rs 114 billions allocated for development projects in just first three months of the current FY 2007-08. They alleged that Pervez Elahi spent billions of rupees on his personal publicity and electioneering, which had nothing to do with public welfare.
Analysts say food, energy and social security, replenishment of water resources, increasing trade imbalance, budget deficits, law and order, poverty, unemployment, population explosion, illiteracy, health cover, and infrastructure are such issued that could only be solved with long term and sustained measures.
They say Mian Mohammad Shahbaz Sharif, who would ultimately take over Chief Ministership after the by-elections, has the vision, will, vigour and administrative skills to make a difference.
However, they say that for solutions of these seemingly daunting challenges, the coalition government needs political stability and a new democratic culture of reconciliation, understanding, tolerance, mutual trust and peace in the province.
The say that the newly installed federal and provincial governments should, first resolve the issue of deposed judges and restore parliamentary character of 1973 Constitution in order to strike a balance between the powers of the Prime Minister and the President.
They say the civil society, political workers and lawyers are already becoming restive since they have not seen any change in the old system and governance during the past three weeks.
They say that exactly two months have passed after the people gave their verdict for a change on February 18 but delaying tactics were used to transfer power to the peoples representatives at the Centre and in the provinces.
In the meantime, the care-taker governments did nothing to solve the food and energy problems which have now been compounded. Psychoanalysts say that in such an atmosphere of deprivation, uncertainty, helplessness and apathy, people get violent, unruly, irrational and agitators and an ordinary incident can spark social upheavals on large scale. They emphasise that violent incidents of Karachi, Lahore, Multan and some other cities during the past two weeks speak volumes of the peoples' state of mind.