Inexcusable performance

This refers to the editorial ‘Changing scenarios’ (July 15). I think Imran Khan has to realize that if he has come to power, it is not due to his leadership qualities – of which we have seen no manifestation so far – but because of a lucky combination of factors. Having suffered their corruption and bad performance over decades, people were disappointed with the main political parties, and saw some hope in him. But even that did not bring the PTI enough seats and it needed help from coalition partners.

And as for his campaign slogan of ending corruption, while Imran Khan has started the campaign against various mafias he has not secured any meaningful success against them so far. And even his promises to coalition partners have not been fulfilled and he cannot keep counting on their support for ever. Most of all, despite the availability of an experienced person like Pervaiz Elahi, Imran Khan’s insistence on keeping Usman Buzdar imposed on Punjab is simply unintelligible and just too much for people to bear. One can understand that it is not easy to defeat strong and deeply entrenched mafias and that it will take time to defang them. However, there is no excuse for not doing even things which are within his powers to do, like bringing capable leadership to Punjab which hosts more than half of Pakistan’s total population. Imran Khan has been lucky to survive so far but he can’t be lucky all the time, simply by giving people new dozes of opium – like the offer of cheap housing now – in lieu of actual performance.

S R H Hashmi

Karachi