Prime Minister Imran Khan, in less than a month, has complained twice on separate occasions that a five-year constitutionally mandated term for a democratically elected government is insufficient to complete large-scale development projects, calling the time limit ‘a tragedy’. That he has chosen to leave the question of how much time a government should ideally get to make good on its promises unanswered, leads one to believe that he feels it should be ‘unlimited’. The PM has remained throughout his political career an advocate for a democratic system of government, severely critical of military dictatorships that typically last much longer than five years. A limited term of office is at the very heart of a democracy, serving an important purpose by keeping a check on authority, providing the people an opportunity to judge the performance of their elected representatives after every four to five years with their vote.
Two and a half years after coming to power, for the PM to suddenly start blaming the limited amount of time a government gets in a term for his inability to achieve results is a lame excuse for patently bad performance. Prior to the 2018 general elections the same Imran Khan would boast about revolutionising the country within the first 90 to 100 days if his party came to power. One can disregard such talk as election campaigning hyperbole but in the PTI’s case they actually presented such a plan, much of which remains unimplemented even at the halfway mark of its term. Instead of finding flaws in previous governments, the opposition, bureaucracy, judiciary and the democratic system in general, it is time for the government to start improving its performance to achieve tangible results. It has done well in some aspects of the economy and governance but much of the more complicated reforms that require continuous and focused effort are still pending. With this constantly distracted and haphazard style of running the country, the PTI cannot build its ‘naya Pakistan’ even if they were to get an unlimited time in office. Unlike the USA, there is no limit on the number of times a party leader can be elected Prime Minister. Ironically enough, if PM Imran Khan can somehow manage to convince the people that he and his party have done well in their five years, then they have a good chance of securing consecutive terms. But perhaps the government realises that with the way things stand at the moment, it has reached a point of no-return.
