EDITORIAL: The kick-off event of the Pakistan Democratic Movement's (PDM's) protest campaign against the government turned out to be hugely impressive power show. This may not be surprising considering that it was hosted by the PML-N in Gujranwala, the party's stronghold from where it won almost all the Punjab and National Assemblies seats. It was also a joint effort by as many as 11 opposition parties. Politics, indeed, makes strange bedfellows. The two bitter rivals of the past, the PML-N and the PPP, have come together on the same platform to fight what they claim to be a victimization campaign by the ruling PTI, while the JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the current PDM president, fails to come over the shock of losing his electoral bid. In his speech delivered from London (the government wisely decided not to stop it), the PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif delivered his usual harangue against the establishment; and just as usual, his daughter Maryam Nawaz as well as the Maulana regurgitated much of the same. The young PPP Chairman Bilawal-Bhutto Zardari, whose family faces the same problems as the house of Sharif, however, made a substantive and wide ranging speech. Though resorting to exaggerations, even fabrications, at times - something politicians are wont to do he devoted considerable attention to issues affecting ordinary people.
The ruling PTI leaders can try and under-rate the rally at Gujranwala as much as they want but they cannot fool the people who attended it in-person or watched it on television. To be sure, however, it reflected not as much a success of the PDM as a failure of the ruling PTI to contain runway inflation, which has made life difficult not only for the poor but also its middle class supporters and sympathizers. The government may contend that it inherited a cash-strapped economy that forced it to go to the IMF which in turn imposed conditions leading to the present predicament, further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. It may also offer the consolation that macro indicators having been stabilized, better days are ahead. As far as the common man is concerned these are all abstract notions, the harsh reality for the people is that they are unable to make ends meet. The PDM held the next such event in Karachi hosted by the PPP that was basically, as expected, same o' same o', to be followed by Quetta and some other cities and finally a long march to Islamabad for the ouster of the "selected and incapable" Prime Minister Imran Khan. If the turbulent political history of this country is any guide, opposition movements do not bring down governments -unless backed by extraneous forces - but they can weaken them to a point where it becomes difficult to govern.
Indeed, the government recently launched a poverty alleviation programme, Ehsaas, to provide free cattle, rickshaws, etc, to those living under the poverty line, and also loan schemes for startups in hopes of generating fresh economic activity. But these measures do little for the vast majority hard hit by ever-rising prices of essential commodities like sugar, wheat flour, vegetables and lentils as well as consonantly inflating electricity and gas bills. The ruling party's misplaced statements of bravado will not help it weather the gathering storm of public discontent. The people's pent up anger could easily explode providing a fillip to the opposition's protest movement. PM Khan needs to get his bevy of experts find a way to provide them relief from soaring prices.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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