Opposition has miles to go before challenging govt

View from the Gallery

The National Assembly sitting in progress can safely be dubbed as first such effort and opportunity for the opposition benches to tread forward in a unified mode on real issues of public interest. But the deep rooted fault lines are not letting Zardari-led PPP, Imran’s PTI and Altaf Bhai’s MQM gel to the extent of propping up a formidable or joint opposition of sorts.

Two and a half years into the present central government set up, and here we have an opposition devoid of any unifying slogan, central personality or common goal to revolve around. So divided they stood on occasions during the debate at hand even when the common goal was to tear apart economic turnaround claims of the PML-N financial maestro, Ishaq Dar.

So it was like two salvos fired towards the treasury. The opportunity was never missed by PTI or MQM to fire one towards PPP. And the beneficiary by default is the PML-N government. Criticism on PPP’s 2008-13 tenure was a sought after target, though the three main political entities were in almost conformity about what they termed directionless privatisation of state enterprises being pursued these days.

On two occasions, during his to the point, fact and figure laden speech, PTI’s economic wizard Asad Umar didn’t mince words in criticising the PPP economic (mis)management in the recent past. On each occasion, PPP’s legislators could do nothing more but to ignore, look the other way. Asad, a freshman legislator, carries reputation of being good in theory and less of a practical economist.

But his brainy approach, and well researched facts and figures have earned him a prominent place in PTI camp, especially when party’s influential landlord Shah Mahmood Qureshi and industrial wizard Jahangir Khan Tareen shy away from such important proceedings of the assembly.

Such was the importance of Asad’s speech for party cadres on this day that Dr Shireen Mazari, and Arif Alvi had to argue forcefully with Deputy Speaker Murtaza Abbasi who wanted to limit his time to 10 minutes fixed for any member, except parliamentary leaders. Smelling trap, PTI members sought a time period equivalent to that of a parliamentary leader. Mr Abbasi agreed reluctantly.

Asad termed PIA’s privatisation a cheap sell-out, suspecting some vested interests were at work. He claimed 72 countries of the world were using petroleum products at a cheaper price than Pakistan. Earlier, Opposition Leader Khursheed Shah tried to gel economic figures in his political discourse. He is a master of political rhetoric, but struggled badly with economics, even though he had real time assistance from colleague Naveed Qamar who was safely tucked on his right hand seat to do the needful.

At times, Mr Shah could not even distinguish between billions and trillions. For example at one point he claimed country’s overall debt has touched Rs18000 trillion, when he actually meant the amount was in billions. Then he made another claim that country’s exports had witnessed a 20-25 percent increase lately. A staunch opponent of privatisation, the Opposition Leader claimed the last PPP regime had actually generated lacs of job opportunities for masses. He naturally omitted to mention the consequences of over staffing and over burdening state-run enterprises by successive PPP governments.

PPP days in power were different in nature. With co-chairman tucked in as de-facto ruler at the presidency, the then prime ministers had little to offer for crucial decision making. So it was a healthy activity as well as good pastime to focus on proceedings of both houses of parliament and spend hours in the discourse. It was a sort of mix bag – kudos from loyal supporters and flak from aggressive opposition benches – for Premier and the bunch of ministers of those days.

As chambers were thronged by parliamentarians and notables, especially party jialas (workers), so punctuality and attendance of legislators was a good by product of the whole hustle bustle. Today’s opposition is in a different mode, altogether. So moments before winding up his lengthy speech extended into three working days, Opposition Leader Shah used the most dramatic part to make an emphatic appeal to the prime minister to ‘grace’ the parliament with his presence, long overdue now.

Shah assured to extend all ‘courtesies’ to Leader of the House as and when he turns up. The tone of the appeal sounded simple, and composition almost free of taunts. Petroleum Minister Shahid Khakhan Abbasi would still tend to disagree. The other day he didn’t mince words while complaining to a TV host about the standard and seriousness of issues opposition of the day is coming up with, compelling treasury and prime minister to take less interest in proceedings. Perhaps, Mr Shah took some pearls of wisdom from Mr Abbasi’s timely advice, and hence landed this latest appeal. From the word go, tone and tenor of the Opposition Leader was music to the ears of two-three federal ministers and a bunch of ministers of state getting bored, some even yawning, throughout the lengthy discourse of Khurshid Shah which by Tuesday afternoon had entered its third day.

Mr Shah had to admit it in so many words how boring the whole episode had become, insisting the message was however sincere. A specific debate on PIA crisis and oil prices turned into a general debate on economy. It reminded all of such post budget debates. Better sense finally prevailed as the Opposition Leader used the last part of his speech to state some facts and figures. MQM Parliamentary leader Dr Farooq Sattar’s address was two pronged. One part was too serious in nature as he asked the opposition to take to the streets without delay. The second one brought some comic relief as he equated modern day governance in Pakistan to that of famous Turkish drama “Mera Sultan” where intrigues, emotions and jealousies amongst three wives of the ruler had actually doomed the kingdom. We in the east generally love emotions, mellow drama and rhetoric. That’s why we miss Altaf Bhai’s entertainment filled speeches, Farooq Bhai!