No doubt corruption is the dry rot that is eating into the very fabric of the nation. And no less crippling to the nation’s wellbeing is the curse of money-laundering and tax evasion. Equally calamitous are the evils of nepotism, encroachments and poor governance at almost all levels. These evils should have been nipped in the bud. But these were not, earning Pakistan the stigma of nearly a failed state. Prime Minister Imran Khan is spot-on when he brandishes his sword to cut these multi-headed monsters, and that’s what catapulted him into power. So, one can’t think of questioning his determination to eradicate them from their very roots. But to all that he has been saying at a presser in Lahore the other day, there is one puzzling caveat: Can his government actualize his pledge? That is perhaps the reason that of late he is no more talking of 100-day programme and ‘Naya’ Pakistan. That was too short. One dare say even a year or two are too short to turn the page and usher in what he called the ‘State of Madina’. He needs to rethink his manifesto for change, because the evils which took years and decades to take hold of the nation won’t go away so quickly. He has to be patient and persistent. And, most importantly, he and his party men and women need to be careful with their diction while dealing with the political opposition, particularly within the parliament. It is the fundamental duty of the government to observe parliamentary norms and ensure effective work within the houses of parliament. It is usually the opposition that indulges in heckling and causing a ruckus within the parliament.
There is a growing sense that he has not been wisely briefed by his counsel about the possible long-term solutions to tackle the shrinking and heavily indebted economy of the country. To begin with, it appeared that he was banking on recovering of the wealth stashed abroad in safe havens by Pakistanis and enlisting the help of the Pakistani Diaspora to raise funds in foreign currency to stage economic recovery. However, now there is a realization that this was highly optimistic view if not a pipe dream, as it is easier said than done. A case in point may be our inability to bring home even the individual who is charged with crime of high treason, likewise some others who burgled the national exchequer. Then the Prime Minister expressed his dissatisfaction over the performance of the National Accountability Bureau, daring its chief that ‘had the bureau been under him he would have sent some 50 big fish behind bars’. Given its responsibility to make sure that references it makes to the accountability courts and then further up in high courts can withstand stiff test of open-court trial the Bureau could not catch the 50 big fish – an inability reflected from the rejection by the Islamabad High Court of an accountability court’s verdict in the ex-premier Nawaz Sharif’s case.
To an average witness of his statements lately, it appears that IK is getting anxious over his inability to actualize his promises that he made before the elections and after. In the process, it appears that the government’s narrative is becoming toxic which is vitiating the political discourse that is not conducive to national harmony and political stability that is so essential for staging the much needed economic recovery.
