I suppose we should begin celebrating. Asad Umar is back in the federal cabinet as planning minister, which is a sign that our economic woes are over. Now all we have to do is wait for the dollar to plummet against the rupee, until their value is briefly par, and then the dollar settles somewhere 20 to the rupee. Of course, his removal as finance minister in the first place had been a great disappointment to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) core.
That core seems to be developing a mind of its own, that has to be placated. It did not like Asad Umar losing his job, because Imran Khan used to point him out as a pre-selection: he was to be finance minister, and solve the mess left behind by the looters and plunderer. Well, the PTI got into office, Asad Umar duly became finance minister, but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) felt it would like to deal with someone else. Dr Hafeez Sheikh, for instance. No sooner said than done. In a U-turn of Napoleonic proportions, Asad Umar got the axe. He has been brought back, and we can presume that the economy will get well, and we will be able to tell the IMF bad things. Meanwhile, can Asad Umar give his snake oil to Makhdum Khusro Bakhtiar to sell, or will he have to hold on to his stock until he has to resume selling it?
Khusro was the previous planning minister, but he has not been chucked out of the cabinet, just had his portfolio changed, to food security. His predecessor, Khwaja Mehboob Sultan, has been moved to the vacant portfolio of Kashmir and Frontier Regions. Remember, the charges against Assange are what drove regions. That meant Shehryar Afridi has finally found a boss. He had held interior as a minister of state, and then Kashmir and frontier regions, also as minister state, both times in-charge. But this time, he has got a boss.
I assume the dropping of rape charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Sweden had nothing to do with Asad Umar. There is the very tangential relationship that the institution that did not like Asad Umar, was once headed by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who had to give up the job after being accused of raping a New York hotel maid. I doubt if Asad Umar has anything to fear from a rape accusation. He should fear either the traditional cattle-theft charge, or he should worry about the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arresting him, which it has been doing pretty liberally these days.
Asad Umar’s boss, Imran Khan, is not bothered by rape charges. However, he takes corruption charges more seriously. Remember, he has developed a new economic theory: stop corruption, and economic indicators become healthy. Of course, after his triumphs in economics, he has now turned to medicine. He has the ability to diagnose a patient by looking at him. That is how he was able to tell that Nawaz Sharif was faking his illness. And then there was the unseemly debate over who let Nawaz go, the judiciary or the government. May I suggest the Lahore CCPO as the culprit? The Lahore CCPO? I hear incredulous readers gasp. Well, yes, why not? He has absolutely nothing to do with all this, but he has a certain name recognition, so why not? And since when, under the PTI, does one have to be guilty before being held responsible?
Imran might have noticed that things are hotting up in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted for corruption without anyone holding a sit-in, and without any speeches from the top of any container. Of course, maybe he is responsible for the poisoning of Nawaz, which his son Hussain said had been done. Had he been poisoned as a result of corruption? Well, I suppose that is one explanation, of how he got sick in NAB custody.
Another person lining up to get involved in corruption is Sri Lankan PM Mahinda Rajapakse, who has also become finance minister. He is gathering all these posts after his brother Gotobaya became the president. Mahinda is himself a former president. But Gotobaya is cause for celebration among all the retired colonels of the Subcontinent. Because he is one too, which Imran would probably find very satisfactory.
