Several ministers have spoken about cooling down the political rhetoric which is on the rife in the wake of the opposition’s no-confidence motion filed against Prime Minister Imran Khan, a move seen by many as an olive branch extended by the government.
However, contrary to the conciliatory tone during Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry and Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid’s calls on Saturday to bring down the political temperatures, the main opposition party appeared to be dismissive of any such notion.
The opposition filed the no-confidence motion on March 8. Since then, both sides have been engaged in a verbal slugfest. However, Fawad adopted a conciliatory tone in a tweet, saying that the ill-planned no-trust move had caused bitterness in the country’s politics.
“I do not think [politics] should be so divisive that it should become difficult to talk [to each other]. It is not difficult to fight but later reconciliation is difficult,” Fawad wrote in his tweet, adding that democracy was not a system of extreme divisions, rather it was based on consensus on certain matters.
On PML-N spokesperson’s statement rejecting the offer, Fawad said that the spokesperson’s statement didn’t matter, hoping that the top PML-N leadership would seriously consider the proposal of cooling down the political rhetoric.
Fawad, however, clarified that whatever he stated in the tweet was his personal opinion and not the government’s official offer for talks.
At a news conference in Quetta, Rashid was asked about some hard-hitting speeches of Prime Minister Imran against the top opposition leaders. Rashid replied that he believed that the political temperature should be brought down in the country.
“Their (opposition’s) no-confidence motion will be defeated so it is better that we cool them down now and prepare them mentally that they are going to lose,” he added. However, in the same breath, he criticised the opposition for deceiving the masses.
Reacting to Fawad’s tweet, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb said that “negotiations and dialogue” could only be held with seasoned politicians, not “thugs and hooligans” like Prime Minister Imran Khan.
In a statement, Marriyum said that the prime minister used abusive language against political opponents and threatened their lives. She termed Fawad’s statement a “pack of blatant lies”, adding that the prime minister had turned the opposition into a “bloodthirsty animosity”.
Marriyum questioned whether Fawad considered the people of Pakistan as fools or whether he was fooling himself by saying that the ruling party did not want polarisation in the society. “Imran is the reason for the divisions in the society, and the dirt and filth in Pakistani politics,” she claimed.
Marriyum said that it was the prime minister who created divisions, chaos and disorder in the society while putting opposition members in death-row cells and their daughters and sisters in jail. She added that after hurling “baseless allegations”, Imran still had the “audacity” to lecture others on ethics.
The PML-N spokesperson said that through the no-confidence motion, the joint opposition was “cleaning up the filth” and getting rid of the “stench and suffocation” in the society created by this “imposed regime”.
Talking to a private TV channel, Planning Minister Asad Umar said that the opposition was playing the “no-confidence game” just to protect their vested interests. “They are only wasting government’s time by diverting its attention to least important matters.”
He said the no-confidence motion day would be remarkable when all coalition groups would be standing and supporting the government openly. “There is no truth in reports that major change is occurring in Punjab,” he added.
Umar said that prime minister was the only authority to take any decision about any political change in the province, adding that the PML-Q had not put any condition on the government about the replacement of the Punjab chief minister.
However, political analysts were of the view that it was too late to tone down the rhetoric.
Professor Tahir Malik said, “Polarisation has reached the point of no return and the offer for talks appears to be only an eyewash.”
The International Relations Department professor at NUML University said, “I think it’s too late to expect formal talks between the government and the opposition, especially, on the no-trust motion.”
Malik said that major political parties had tuned their workers in such a way that they now expected nothing less than rhetoric. He said that the followers of the political parties did not only expect foul language in political speeches and statements but celebrated the same on social media networks with even more profane comments.
Analyst Mazhar Abbas termed the efforts from either side to cool down “not serious”.
“It has to come from the top. If nothing else, the PM should have issued instructions to his ministers and also an appeal.”
On the contrary, Abbas said, the prime minister had now decided for a big public meeting at D-Chowk. “Optics aren’t good. Similarly, the opposition is in no mood to bring the political temperature down.”
He said, “Confrontation looks imminent.”
