Demand of National Govt – A Political déjà vu

ISLAMABAD   -   After keenly observing the chang­ing scenario in the country at times it feels like a political déjà vu, es­pecially when the opposition start demanding the same matter, which they had ignored in the ruling era.

In the current political chaos, the political statements by the politicians from both sides of the aisle are usu­ally not taken seriously. Some of the statements, in the views of political pundits, are given for testing the reac­tion of the opponents to gain headlines of media outlets. With other many po­litical statements, in the recent past, a veiled threat by the rul­ing elite to ban the PTI was reported, which evaporated from the scene in a week after some discussion on it.

Likewise, the op­position members without missing a day threaten to start pro­test rallies and other politi­cal moves but it hardly lasted for a couple of days. Re­cently, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) Chair­man Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who also heads Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Aain, floats an idea for the ruling clique to resign and a national government to be led Shahid Khaqan Abbasi formed in the country. The national government is a con­cept in which members from more than one political party, especially one that is formed during a crisis. At minimum, a national government requires enough power over its states or provinces to set and main­tain foreign policy and other matters. These are lot of ex­amples of these political state­ments, which were never taken seriously. Interestingly, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), in PTI’s government era, had floated an idea of a na­tional govern­ment to take the country out of uncharted wa­ters while claim­ing that no single party including itself can take up the insurmountable challenges of Pakistan.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, in Aug 2021 having a charge of leader of opposi­tion in the national assembly, remarked that the solution of the current national problems, ranging from foreign policy to economy and from politi­cal uncertainty to fast-eroding space for true democratic forc­es lies in a consensus national government. The demand of Shehbaz Sharif was not given much weight at that time.

Senior politicians, desir­ing not to be named, seem to agree to the point that the cur­rent crisis-like scenario might not be handled easily by the present government owing to multifaceted issues. The gov­ernments never accept their failure but blame the previous government era and the op­position for creating hurdles. The trust deficit among the political factions is one of the reasons for not evolving a consensus on any issue. In the past, the arch-rivals were seen evolving a consensus on ‘Char­ter of Democracy’, but this kind of a major development cannot be imagined in the present era.

Though the government’s senior members spent a lot of time asking to evolve the ‘Charter of Economy’ to deal with the current economic crisis, the opposition and treasury were not seen on the same page. Political observers viewed that it feels like a polit­ical déjà vu, as the opposition MNA in these days demanding a ‘national government’, just as the previous opposition [Sheh­baz Sharif as opposition lead­er] did in the past. The main question arises as to how the government and the opposition would evolve a consensus over a ‘consensus agenda’. The de­bate on the concept of national government’s constitutional status might be resolved at some point but it seems the po­litical players from both sides would never agree on the same agenda to run the country.