With very few days left in the elections, the country is in electoral fever. All political parties are frantically holding public meetings, sometimes one leader is going from one city to another in the same day, I heard that Imran khan held 37 political gatherings in one day! Amazing, they are promising us the moon the sky and the stars! They claim to eradicate poverty, power and gas loadshedding, unemployment and are offering better and free education, healthcare, interest free loans and whatever they can come up with, however, if they are elected to power. This is a big ‘IF’, as the writing on the wall for all to see is that none of them will have a comfortable majority to form the government to carry out its so-called promised programs.
What seems to be happening is that we may end up with a hung parliament which would force all political parties to form a coalition to rule, and, if that happens there would be battles. They will create battalion of ministers, ministers of state and advisors to accommodate all coalition partners. Each coalition partner, depending on its election manifesto has a different agenda and policy to pursue, with the result that noting will be accomplished due to the varied interests of the partners. Most import, a coalition is all the time on its toes to avert dissolution and for that has to appease and pacify the dissident partner, which needless to say will breed corruption and put an end to the dream of good governance.
Now we must all think are we going through this tough process just to come back to zero and have another corrupt coalition government? Isn’t it a fact that the coalitions are the most inefficient and corrupt governments, where the Maulanas are entrusted with the task of attracting foreign tourists to the country?! We know that the only reason our politicians are asking for a democracy is that they saw it was so easy to take power and misuse it, and get away with any crime that they committed.
Why can’t we have some really good ‘Care Taking Governments ’? Comprising of capable, dedicated and honest professionals and masters of their respective fields to govern us for some time instead of putting us once again at the mercy of the same good-for-nothing and visionless plunderers and looters? Right now Pakistan cannot afford the luxury of having corrupt politicians to rule it further for five years. There would be nothing left to save after another five years of a ruthless government.
COL. RIAZ JAFRI (R),
Rawalpindi, April 29.