ISLAMABAD: It is amazing how bees get in order when the queen is around. In our case it was Nawaz Sharif who got his worker bees disciplined for a change. The moment he arrived in the National Assembly, everything changed.

 

All the senior ministers, who were missing since the budget debate, suddenly popped out of nowhere; backbenches got energised, junior ministers became more active. The lady with the golden purse, Anusha Rehman, morphed into her trademark look-busy avatar, jumping around from one seat to another. Even the PML (N) kitchen club, usually engrossed in exchanging food recipes and match-making proposals, was found attentive for a change. (The phoopis, maamis and begums of the party elite are such a blot on the concept of affirmative action – WAF, please take note).

 

The Prime Minister spent nearly two hours meeting party stalwarts in his chambers before coming to the House. The occasion was also marked by Ishaq Dar’s formal announcement about the World Bank unanimously approving the Dasu hydro electric power project. In a pleasant surprise for Pakistan, the United States also voted in favour, which Dar interpreted as a vote of confidence in the PML (N) government.

 

Many thought that Nawaz Sharif particularly came to take the credit for having started both crucial dams – Dasu and Diamar-Bhasha – simultaneously. Earlier Pakistan could not find funding for either.

 

But then Nawaz Sharif was pretty consistent in his attendance during the ongoing budget session, missing only one sitting. He was swarmed by a beeline of members. Some were ministerial hopefuls who wanted to show their faces in person. Others like Senator Abbas Afridi wanted to perhaps remind the prime minister that he was still a minister without portfolio. His family has a knack of virtually bulldozing their way into provincial and federal cabinets – a trick they might have learnt from their huge construction empire. Still others had applications for jobs, quotas, exemptions, transfers and postings. Nawaz Sharif kept receiving them with a smile, piling up their papers, sometimes taking notes in his green diary. Our guess was that most of the favours sought from the prime minister were against the rules to oblige their kith and kin or the people who may have invested on them. Otherwise, why should they need Nawaz Sharif’s indulgence? Here is the dilemma of our current political system – call it patronage-based or crony capitalism.

 

A prime minister or a chief minister is considered good by party stalwarts if he is generous in doling out favours. Goodman the laaltain, as they say. But this generosity makes a hash of governance.

 

What do you expect when you favour a special class of people, violate the rules of law and equality. The unfairness and injustice that we see all around us seep down to the lowest rungs of the administration. In real life these applications result into, say, SHOs releasing criminals backed by local MNA; DCOs hiring people without merit; bureaucrats posting the kith and kin of MNAs to lucrative posts. After all, the folk did not get into politics to be told about merit. What is an MNA if he or she does not ride a Land Cruiser with official guards and can’t dictate to his local PSO and DCO.

 

So far, Nawaz Sharif has shirked from meeting his party members. There is a general clamour that he is inaccessible. The general refrain is that he does not give time even to a minister, let alone party members.

 

This is sometimes interpreted as arrogance or seen as isolation. May be he has learnt his lessons. May be he does not trust anybody.For he knows, at the end of the day, at stake is his own neck. This could be the reason why he keeps a very centralised power structure.

 

Half of the ministries have junior ministers, which makes him in-charge. He keeps an eye even on his senior ministers as important files get routed through his office.But Nawaz Sharif seems to have come at a crossroad. The pressure from the back benches is mounting. They want ministries, quotas, jobs, basically power. But then what else did he expect from the bunch of traditional turncoats, called lotas in local parlance, who were inducted from every party to win votes. Himself a product of the very system, he can’t teach revolution to the finest pedigreed quislings that he gathered from the land of five rivers.

 

This was evident from a small incident that happened in the Assembly today. Omer (Gohar) Ayub Khan gave a reasonably good speech. But he focused more on the ruling PTI in the KP from where he recently got elected in a by-election. He ripped apart the PTI for its grandiose projects, particularly targeting its secretary general, Jahangir Khan Tareen. He alleged that Tareen ran the actual government to secure his vast business interests in the KP and that IJ looked the other way because he loved traveling in his jet plane. In the process, the new entrant, who joined the PML (N) recently after enjoying power in the Musharraf government, annoyed many in the opposition. There was perhaps excessive use of “our government; us; we” in his speech which provoked the opposition into chanting, “lota, lota.” PPP”s Ejaz Jhakrani could not resist taunting him, saying, “who’s we; you were saying the very same words for another party not very long ago; so please take time to switch over.” It was embarrassing because he was flanked by fellow turncoat ‘young turks’ like Marvi Memon, Awais Leghari, etc. Most of their kind hopes to be adjusted in some way.

 

This is perhaps the biggest challenge for Nawaz Sharif. He has to give way or stand firm. Either way, it’s dangerous.The ideal way would have been if Nawaz Sharif had introduced massive administrative and political reforms. There should have been firm policies to curtail the onslaught of the cronies. The biggest step was perhaps the local body elections. All these powers should be reverted to the local level and legislature here should just be, well, legislating.

Published on: thespokesman.pk

Date: Thursday, June 12, 2014