A gathering storm?
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Once again, Pakistan’s politics is heating up and the political temperature rising to fever pitch. A new round of frenetic political activity is underway with the opposition gearing up to move a vote of no-confidence against Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government. For its part, the ruling party has adopted a posture of being unruffled by the challenge. But the Prime Minister’s televised address to the nation earlier this week seemed to indicate he was under pressure. This prompted him to announce cuts in fuel and electricity prices aimed at blunting the opposition’s campaign.
The opposition’s two largest parties, PML-N and PPP, that fell out last year with the latter’s exit from the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) have now come together to intensify joint pressure on the government. A meeting between PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari earlier this month yielded the agreement to work toward a no-trust motion. After that, they began to reach out to allies of the government including MQM and PML-Q to explore the possibility of securing their support for this goal. Meetings also followed between the PDM head and JUI-F chief, Maulana Fazlur Rahman and PML-Q leaders.
Why has the combined opposition concluded that this is an opportune moment to strike against the government? Two factors seem to have weighed in the decision. One, that soaring inflation and the public’s growing economic distress has fueled widespread discontent and also produced disquiet among ruling party parliamentarians. Public frustration is seen as eroding the government’s support and creating an enabling environment for such a move. Several opinion polls have confirmed the slide in PTI’s popularity due to the economic situation. Two, the opposition’s calculation is that the so-called ‘establishment’ may no longer be as firm in its support of the government as in the past with indications that it is seeking to adopt a ‘neutral’ posture. Whether or not this perception is correct, opposition leaders seem intent on testing it. They hope to leverage both these factors in their campaign to oust the government.
Never in the country’s history has such a motion succeeded.
Maleeha Lodhi
While opposition leaders have said they are hopeful of securing the required number for the no-confidence move, it is a very tall order. The opposition’s combined strength in the country’s Lower House is around 163 members while it needs the support of over 172 MNAs for the move to succeed. Never in the country’s history has such a motion succeeded. The last time Prime Minister Imran Khan sought a vote of confidence from the National Assembly, he managed to win 178 votes.
The opposition has other challenges to overcome. First and foremost, it has to forge a unified approach among disparate parties that have competing interests. It has to agree on a common strategy and above all, on what comes after, if the motion succeeds. On this, differences are reported between PML-N, that insists on immediate general elections and PPP, that wants assemblies to complete their term and the government formed after the vote to continue until polls are held on schedule next year. The PPP clearly wants its government in Sindh to complete its term. These differences have yet to be reconciled.
Meanwhile, both PPP and the ruling party have pressed on with protest marches against each other in tit-for-tat street campaigns. They were triggered by the PPP’s decision to organize a long march to culminate in Islamabad as protest against inflation and worsening economic conditions, that it blames on the PTI government. Just when PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto kicked off his party’s long march in Karachi on February 27, PTI vice chairman Shah Mahmud Qureshi headed a convoy of party activists from Ghotki to Sindh’s provincial capital. The PPP march, which its leaders claim will be “the longest in the country’s history covering over 2000 kilometers” expects to arrive in Islamabad on March 8, and has the backing of ANP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. PDM also announced its support for it while its own march on the capital is set for March 23.
In response, the government has adopted a confident stance with its spokesmen claiming they will easily defeat any no-trust move and even challenged the opposition to bring it on. The Prime Minister’s announcement about cuts in fuel and electricity prices however shows his worry about the political consequences of economic discontent with his government. PTI leaders including the Prime Minister himself have been contacting coalition partners to secure assurances that they will stand by the government in such an eventuality. The prime minister, like opposition leaders, also visited the residence of Chaudhry Shujaat to meet him and Pervez Elahi, whose PML-Q holds the balance of power in the Punjab assembly. This aimed at ensuring the PML-Q doesn’t abandon ship.
Whether or not the no-confidence motion materializes, what has been missing in the noise of politics is any discussion of the country’s pressing issues. Instead, both sides of the political divide have mostly engaged in attacks on each other. On daily display on television and elsewhere are bitter polemics and unseemly rhetoric. With many challenges facing the country, the focus should be on the policies that political parties have to offer to address these. Instead, the accent is on charges of malfeasance and venality that political rivals constantly hurl at each other. This denudes politics of reasoned debate and means the political conversation is dominated by invective, not argument. Such conduct generates public cynicism and disillusionment regardless of people’s partisan loyalties. Above all, it fuels the public impression that political leaders are only engaged in a struggle for power divorced from the interests and concerns of the people.
- Maleeha Lodhi is a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, UK & UN. Twitter @LodhiMaleeha
