- PM was self-congratulatory when updating the nation on Coronavirus
In his latest update to the nation on the covid-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Imran Khan sounded self-congratulatory when he said that there was international appreciation for how the country was being praised for the prompt steps it had taken to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. He managed to paper over how those steps were taken by the PPP’s Sindh government, and even now Mr Khan would like to claim that he opposes the lockdown because of the suffering it will entail for the poor, who mostly subsist on daily wages or daily earnings.
Mr Khan also used the address to warn of an expected surge in cases, which might reach 50,000 (from the current 8000 or so) in the latter half of next month. While that was hardly unexpected, as the surge of cases in Pakistan has far from begun, it is also an indication of the Khan government’s ineptitude. Either it failed to disclose its plan to the handle the surge, or perhaps it has no plan. In either case, it is highly remiss. It is not enough to know of the surge; what matters is how to handle it. It has become well established that the key to reducing the time in lockdown is to conduct a large number of tests. Pakistan’s ability to conduct a large number of tests is doubtful.
It was also something of a pot calling the kettle black for the Prime Minister to say that politics should be held in abeyance for the time. The sermon might have sounded more sincere if it had not come after tremendous efforts by the PTI to denigrate the efforts of Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah who had perhaps the worst problem to handle, what with zaireen (pilgrims) from Iran returning through his province, as well as carriers landing at the country’s largest airport. Mr Shah did his best, and could be seen to be trying to do so, showing off a competence woefully lacking in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the two provinces the PTI rules itself. True, this is not the time anyone should be trying to make political capital, but Mr Khan must ensure that his own party follows this particular guideline, if he hopes to make opposition parties follow suit.
