While visionary leaders happen to be rare among politicians, the least one expects from a PM is an ability to craft well thought out policies combined with competence to implement them. One also expects him to be sufficiently discreet so that he does not create embarrassing situations for himself. Answers given to members of the public during the PM’s telephonic interaction raises questions about his ability to lead the country.
Earlier PM Imran Khan had publicly rebuked his own embassies for actions that did not fall under their purview, showing that the PM has a woefully inadequate understanding of embassies’ consular work. Instead of holding an enquiry first, the PM went on air to lambast the country’s diplomats. While appearing to retract the accusations, the PM blamed those who telecast his interaction live instead of showing its excerpts only. In other words the PM still believes that the allegations leveled by him were correct while those who publicised them were wrong.
While answering a question about future relations with India, Mr Khan categorically stated that there were going to be no talks with India until the Modi government reverts to Indian-Held Kashmir’s pre-August 2019 status. India however had started demographic engineering soon after, accepting 25,000 residency applications from outsiders soon after. After artificially turning the Muslim majority into minority, India can give back statehood to Kashmir. What would be the use of talks then? Will Pakistan meanwhile have no trade talks with India and will there be no return of the two High Commissioners to their chanceries? Will this state of inaction reduce tension between Pakistan and India as desired by China, the USA, Saudi Arabia and the UAE?
Responding to a question regarding the continuous rise in prices of essential goods the PM accused the media of unnecessarily making it an issue. Aren’t the prices rising all over the world? he asked. He said he had given the task of bringing down the prices to the new Finance Minister. If the issue didn’t exist then why ask the Finance Minister to deal with it? And if it exists why weren’t former Finance Ministers told to resolve it? There is a lack of clarity on the policies and a dependance on kneejerk reactions on the part of the PTI administration.
