An overwhelming section of the media voted for Imran Khan with its feet. Now it is getting restive as it measures the man by his deeds in comparison with his words.
Imran Khan constantly harangued us on the philosophy of “the right man for the right job, on merit”. But, generally, he has done quite the opposite in office. To take just the most prominent appointments: the Sindh Governor is a college dropout. What are the Punjab Chief Minister’s qualifications for the job? The Presidential candidate is a prominent, hard core PTI activist, for a constitutional post that requires someone relatively neutral or apolitical who can represent the whole country non-controversially rather than the ruling party exclusively. Much the same may be said of cabinet appointments (with some honourable exceptions) where a policy of the “right man for the right job, on merit” hasn’t been followed.
To be fair to Imran Khan, though, he didn’t have much choice, given the low quality of the elected representatives of the people of Pakistan from which he is compelled to pick his teams in our parliamentary system. It is also true that he is severely constrained by his slim majority in parliament which compels him to make unsavoury choices to keep his herd in line.
But then that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it, when one is guided by the philosophy of the end determining the means? When he was stuffing his party with opportunist lotas and self-serving “electables” at the expense of his ideological, educated, merited youthful supporters, the end-result was already in sight.
Regardless, there are other consequential matters where such considerations don’t weigh in. The gaffe with India and the US cannot be condoned, especially in the presence of Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the Foreign Office. Clearly, it will take time for oppositionist rhetoric on foreign policy to be replaced with the office’s hard-nosed realities.
It’s also not surprising that the treason case against General (retd) Pervez Musharraf is being willed to wither on the vine. The prosecution lawyer appointed by the PMLN government, Akram Sheikh, has pulled out of the case following the appointment of General Musharraf’s lead lawyers, Farogh Naseem and Anwar Mansoor Khan, as the Law Minister and Attorney General of Pakistan respectively. Indeed, a significant majority of the federal cabinet comprises men and women who indifferently served the Musharraf regime earlier.
The latest embarrassment for Imran Khan originates in the household of the First Lady. Her ex-husband, Khawar Maneka, arrogantly flouted the law and landed in a brawl with the police. He used the First Lady’s clout with the Prime Minister to try and extricate himself from the mess by having the District Police Officer fired for doing his duty. The backlash from the public, media and bureaucracy has enveloped the Prime Minister, Punjab Chief Minister and IGP Punjab and tarred the regime’s tall claims of building a “Naya Pakistan” in which power and privilege will not be misused.
Imran Khan’s unprecedented use of a government helicopter to ferry him daily from Banigala to the PM Secretariat and back has also been roundly criticized. This, too, must be viewed in the context of his words on the need for austerity and expenditure cuts in government administration. He proclaimed he would shun the palatial PM House in Islamabad, sell its fleet of expensive vehicles and get rid of its teeming staff to cut costs. Now the federal information minister has added insult to injury by claiming it’s no big deal because it only costs Rs 55 per km to transport the PM daily by helicopter!
Imran Khan has repeatedly criticized the previous government for nominating the Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board because “such practices are the cause of the decline in Pakistan cricket”. Yet barely fifteen minutes after the harassed Chairman resigned his post following a revival of cricket fortunes, Imran Khan tweeted his nominee for the same post without batting an eyelid.
A big test will come when Imran Khan tries to fulfil his pledge to abolish the various discretionary funds at the disposal of the government for development projects of favoured ruling party parliamentarians, a major source of corruption and wasteful expenditures. The previous government had “abolished” such discretionary practices by siphoning off such funds through other “institutional” means, which meant that the problem of waste and corruption remained in the bowels of the system. Imran Khan can either follow the same cynical route or he can risk mass anger and alienation among his parliamentarians that could provoke a revolt and cut short his tenure. After all, how can a member of parliament whose pocket is lighter by several crores in an election hope to recoup his investment with an appropriate rate of profit if not through hefty commissions in development projects in his constituency?
In the next weeks and months, the media will be counting Imran Khan’s various “betrayals”. He should get his act together and deliver deeds to match his words.
Imran Khan constantly harangued us on the philosophy of “the right man for the right job, on merit”. But, generally, he has done quite the opposite in office. To take just the most prominent appointments: the Sindh Governor is a college dropout. What are the Punjab Chief Minister’s qualifications for the job? The Presidential candidate is a prominent, hard core PTI activist, for a constitutional post that requires someone relatively neutral or apolitical who can represent the whole country non-controversially rather than the ruling party exclusively. Much the same may be said of cabinet appointments (with some honourable exceptions) where a policy of the “right man for the right job, on merit” hasn’t been followed.
To be fair to Imran Khan, though, he didn’t have much choice, given the low quality of the elected representatives of the people of Pakistan from which he is compelled to pick his teams in our parliamentary system. It is also true that he is severely constrained by his slim majority in parliament which compels him to make unsavoury choices to keep his herd in line.
But then that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it, when one is guided by the philosophy of the end determining the means? When he was stuffing his party with opportunist lotas and self-serving “electables” at the expense of his ideological, educated, merited youthful supporters, the end-result was already in sight.
Regardless, there are other consequential matters where such considerations don’t weigh in. The gaffe with India and the US cannot be condoned, especially in the presence of Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the Foreign Office. Clearly, it will take time for oppositionist rhetoric on foreign policy to be replaced with the office’s hard-nosed realities.
It’s also not surprising that the treason case against General (retd) Pervez Musharraf is being willed to wither on the vine. The prosecution lawyer appointed by the PMLN government, Akram Sheikh, has pulled out of the case following the appointment of General Musharraf’s lead lawyers, Farogh Naseem and Anwar Mansoor Khan, as the Law Minister and Attorney General of Pakistan respectively. Indeed, a significant majority of the federal cabinet comprises men and women who indifferently served the Musharraf regime earlier.
The latest embarrassment for Imran Khan originates in the household of the First Lady. Her ex-husband, Khawar Maneka, arrogantly flouted the law and landed in a brawl with the police. He used the First Lady’s clout with the Prime Minister to try and extricate himself from the mess by having the District Police Officer fired for doing his duty. The backlash from the public, media and bureaucracy has enveloped the Prime Minister, Punjab Chief Minister and IGP Punjab and tarred the regime’s tall claims of building a “Naya Pakistan” in which power and privilege will not be misused.
Imran Khan’s unprecedented use of a government helicopter to ferry him daily from Banigala to the PM Secretariat and back has also been roundly criticized. This, too, must be viewed in the context of his words on the need for austerity and expenditure cuts in government administration. He proclaimed he would shun the palatial PM House in Islamabad, sell its fleet of expensive vehicles and get rid of its teeming staff to cut costs. Now the federal information minister has added insult to injury by claiming it’s no big deal because it only costs Rs 55 per km to transport the PM daily by helicopter!
Imran Khan has repeatedly criticized the previous government for nominating the Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board because “such practices are the cause of the decline in Pakistan cricket”. Yet barely fifteen minutes after the harassed Chairman resigned his post following a revival of cricket fortunes, Imran Khan tweeted his nominee for the same post without batting an eyelid.
A big test will come when Imran Khan tries to fulfil his pledge to abolish the various discretionary funds at the disposal of the government for development projects of favoured ruling party parliamentarians, a major source of corruption and wasteful expenditures. The previous government had “abolished” such discretionary practices by siphoning off such funds through other “institutional” means, which meant that the problem of waste and corruption remained in the bowels of the system. Imran Khan can either follow the same cynical route or he can risk mass anger and alienation among his parliamentarians that could provoke a revolt and cut short his tenure. After all, how can a member of parliament whose pocket is lighter by several crores in an election hope to recoup his investment with an appropriate rate of profit if not through hefty commissions in development projects in his constituency?
In the next weeks and months, the media will be counting Imran Khan’s various “betrayals”. He should get his act together and deliver deeds to match his words.