How long the teething troubles last, in medical context the accurate answer should come from former medical practitioner or dentist and now President of Pakistan, Dr Arif Alvi. But in political parlance, it is the first 100 days of an elected government - in case of Pakistan further shortened to 90 days by Tehreek-i-Insaf that had come to power to usher in a "Naya Pakistan". Seven and a half months on one would like to know if anybody has seen that utopia called "Naya Pakistan". In plain sight it is not there, and should present conditions persist as seems to be the possibility, it is likely to be an ever-receding mirage. As to what has gone wrong with the utopia you ask the man in the street. Invariably, he would take a deep breath and then say his life is more difficult than it was during the tenure of "corrupt" governments he didn't vote for. Ask a government servant why there is this ambience of lame-duck governance, he would raise his shoulders and say the files don't move and the orders if and when they come are too confusing to be implemented. Ask a businessman what is wrong with the market, he would touch his forehead and say every tomorrow comes with a new set of policies and he is therefore utterly confused. All that's said above is the broader perspective to what this newspaper said this past Sunday. According to one of its report, it is essentially lack of "capacity and incompetence" on the part of the PTI leadership to select executive and bureaucratic teams at the federal and provincial levels in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. That was not done, so there is no "Naya Pakistan" even after seven and a half months. And, a voice that comes from within the sanctums of power says that was so because 'it's easy to defend performance on paper' - the reference is to the periodic reports put up to the prime minister but are not there on the ground. Simply stated, the performance reports put up to the Prime Minister are sham and deceptive. 'We must seriously look into the performance of ministers and bureaucrats' is the demand of the ruling coalition's backbenchers. As for this report of "relief" offered to the Sharif brothers, they think the powers-that-be seem to be looking for an alternative.
How wide of the mark is the PTI's governance the Prime Minister's intention to amend the name 'Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP)', demanded by PTI politicians the other day at Ghotki, is a case in point. Given the provincial PTI's lingering pain of election lost to the PPP in Sindh their demand may appear to be natural. The prime minister of the country concedes that outlandish call that's unthinkable. Denying this respect to Benazir Bhutto means being oblivious, if not rejectionist, of the growing call and reality of women empowerment the world over. Does anybody know that this charity programme under its present nomenclature was given constitutional protection by a unanimous vote of parliament which was otherwise sharply divided? And no less ironic is the fact that the PTI-led government does not have the needed numbers in parliament to amend the Constitution. Does it show that Imran Khan hasn't read the Constitution, or was it merely tilting at the windmills to the clap of anti-Bhutto leaders in Sindh? Let Shah Mehmood Qureshi say he is "not in favour of renaming BISP" and let Fawad Chaudhry clarify that the BISP would "continue its operation under the Ehsaas Programme". But the whole saga tends to cast Imran Khan's ordeal in the image of Don Quixote.