- While Imran Khan should end tweeting to take part in legislation
A democratic system cannot be run with a mindset chracterised by inflexibility and intolerance. Imran Khan is going to find it increasingly difficult to run the government smoothly, pass laws and constitutional amendments, maintain good relations with state institutions and even retain the allies who help keep his minority government in power. Impatience has led the PM to reprimand NAB several times for delaying the finalisation of enquiries against his political opponents. Sycophancy has made the information minister accuse NAB of insulting the PM by pursuing a case against him.
Piqued by SC’s orders to remove the names of two PPP leaders from the ECL and the LHC allowing Hamza Shahbaz to go abroad for a few days, Imran Khan questioned why these politicians are keen to travel outside while there is so much work to be done in Pakistan. Had he ever questioned Azam Swati, whose name was reluctantly removed from the cabinet members list only last week, whether he had really gone 24 times abroad in the last twelve months? Why are the names of the opposition leaders only put on the ECL while PTI men facing enquiries are exempted?
In a striking contrast to these outbursts, Shah Mahmud Qureshi did well to express regrets over the government’s ‘rash’ decision to place 172 people on ECL promising that that government does not want to do anything in a rush now. A similarly conciliatory approach was adopted by Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser who, responding to leader of the opposition’s concerns, ruled that recourse to unparliamentary vocabulary would not be allowed in in the house.
The government needs to lower the prevailing level of tensions between itself and the opposition. For this it will have to display tolerance and accommodation. Imran Khan has to rein in, rather than encourage, those in his party who indulge in provocations and there are quite a few of them. While none in the opposition is keen to launch a movement to overthrow the government, it needs to rein in the tendency to stage walk outs every now and then. It’s time both sides went for legislation through consensus.
