Finally the PML(N)-led government is in place. The new 37-member cabinet was sworn in on Tuesday a little over a week after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was administered oath as Prime Minister of Pakistan. As happened then, the President went on sick leave and the oath was administered to the Cabinet by Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani. The delay in cabinet formation is understandable as reaching an agreement on cabinet share between half a dozen alliance partners required time. An eleventh-hour delay was caused by the BNP(M)’s demand for action against FC personnel responsible for firing in Chagai, as a precondition for joining the cabinet.
Shehbaz Sharif is known for his practical skills in implementing policy and for diligently pursuing his ambitious development agenda. He is expected to have a hands-on style of governance that would be very different from that of Imran Khan’s. However, as PM Shehbaz faces problems that he didn’t as CM. To start with, he will be required to change over from micromanaging bureaucracy to evolving consensus between disparate allies and keeping traditional rivals together till the next elections. While countering a populist Imran Khan, the PM will also be required to deal with hurdles created by a hostile President who cannot be removed for lack of the required numbers in Parliament. As chief minister, Shehbaz ordered about a docile PML(N) cabinet. To cope with a cabinet representing half a dozen parties, he will be required to negotiate rather than dictate.
With demands of early elections on the rise from within the ruling alliance along with the PTI, the PM has to decide in consultation with his partners about the lifespan of the newly formed government and the tasks that need to be performed prior to the elections. There is a need for electoral reforms to ensure polls that are widely seen to be fair, free and transparent. For this there is a need to strictly regulate electoral expenses and control use of muscle power during the polls. Also to devise measures to counter pre-poll rigging. To overcome the distortions resulting from the first-past-the-post system, there is need to discuss if this could be remedied through the introduction of an element of proportional representation along with the current system.
