- Needless obstructionism
The PTI government should understand that its refusal to let the PPP hold a rally in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh was bound to be counterproductive. It did not need the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi Bench to order that the rally be allowed to realise that it was there not to oppress people, but to allow them freedom. Rather than increasing the public space for people, the government is trying bureaucratic methods to restrict it. The LHC Rawalpindi Bench gave short shrift to the administration’s plea that it could not provide security to PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto.
The PPP’s rallies at the venue have been an annual feature, held as they are to commemorate the 2007 assassination of then party Chairperson Benazir Bhutto there. This was the first occasion for the PTI government to handle it, and it immediately apparently forgot its own experiences while in opposition, when it was allowed to hold its dharna at D-Chowk Islamabad for 126 days, with virtually no let or hindrance. The Rawalpindi Bench, by ordering the granting of permission, may well have averted an unfortunate clash, for PPP leaders had announced that permission or no permission, the rally would be held regardless. If there was any attempt to stop the rally, such as by the time-honoured method of flooding the ground, the gathering of even a relatively small crowd in the heart of the city, on its main artery of Murree Road, could have lead to unfortunate consequences. There is a need for the government to be wary of such an event today, when the rally takes place.
The government should realise that it needs the opposition more than the opposition needs it. After all, it is the government which needs its help in the Senate to pass the legislation mandated by the Supreme Court about the COAS’s tenure extension. It should not forget that the extension of his tenure is its own proposal, not the opposition’s, and it should also remember that the kind of truculent petulance it showed over the Rawalpindi rally will not make for ease of cooperation. It should also remember that this kind of obstructionism had nothing to do with accountability, which is its usual excuse for bad behaviour of this kind.
