PTI infighting
That there are
cracks in the façade of unity the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) tries
to present as its public face is not new knowledge. Such cracks were evident
even before it came to power in 2018. Reports of rivalry and differences over,
for example, tickets for elections and other intra-party issues, existed even
during its opposition days. However, after coming to power, the normal
expectation would have been that such rivalries and differences would be kept
under wraps, particularly where top leaders of the party are concerned. That
expectation was blown to smithereens by Foreign Minister and Vice President of
PTI Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s press conference in Lahore on April 1, 2019, in
which he called out Jehangir Khan Tareen for attending cabinet and official
meetings despite having been disqualified for life from holding public office
by the Supreme Court. Qureshi likened this practice to contempt of court. Qureshi
followed up this diatribe with advice to Tareen to withdraw from such meetings
voluntarily to retain the respect he enjoys in the party for his immense
contributions in the past and avoid finger pointing and criticism by the
opposition. Almost inevitably, Qureshi’s statements evoked a counter-blast from
Tareen himself, who dismissed such statements by saying he only answered to
Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, with whom he would stand to his last breath. Federal
Ministers Fawad Chaudhry and Faisal Vawda took to social media in Tareen’s
defence, lauding his role in building and bringing the party to power,
reiterating only Imran Khan could take these decisions, and adding Tareen was
invited to the cabinet meetings on the insistence of cabinet members. Now the
justifications provided by the ministers are all very well, but they seem
blinded by loyalty to the PM and unchallenged fount of authority within the PTI
and seem to have missed the point. Cabinet government in a parliamentary
democracy is a collective responsibility. The PM may be first amongst equals
but, according to democratic political convention and by now the Supreme
Court’s rulings on collective cabinet responsibility, he cannot run things
according to his whims and wishes. Attendance of cabinet and other official
meetings by a senior but disqualified party member could attract accusations of
violation of the Official Secrets Act since the ‘invitee’ is for all intents
and purposes a ‘stranger’ in such gatherings. Surely, as Punjab Agriculture
Minister Nauman Langrial lauded Tareen’s expertise in agriculture, this can be
tapped in other, rules- and law-regulated ways without inviting opprobrium in
having him present in the hallowed meetings of the federal cabinet.
This is not the
first time serious differences have been reported between PTI bigwigs. Federal
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry is at daggers drawn with the MD PTV, with
the latter apparently enjoying the backing of Naeem ul Haq. Reports regularly
expose differences in deliberations by the cabinet on economic policy. Finance
Minister Asad Umar does have a point when he argues that differences in cabinet
are the very stuff of policy making and that once a decision has been taken,
all cabinet ministers are bound by it. Fair enough, but why do reports of
serious differences on this and other issues regularly drip drip into the
media, producing the image of a house deeply divided on crucial policy
deliberations? Difference of opinion and debate is the essence of democracy but
the PTI’s handling of internal differences has set new standards of
indiscretion. Shah Mahmood Qureshi has followed this PTI ‘tradition’ but
perhaps raised the bar higher by invoking not only respect for the Supreme
Court’s verdict, but reminding us inadvertently of the inappropriateness of a
non-electable gentleman, no matter how important to the party, enjoying a
‘free’ ride by attending cabinet meetings where he may become privy to
information that falls within the purview of the Official Secrets Act.
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