A year later, in 2014, the Imran Khan
... aka
Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems...
-led Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf
...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is
Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations....
(PTI) was declared the villain for holding a long dharna and destablising the country. Senior PML-N leaders didn't miss a single occasion to accuse the PTI chairman of scaring away much-needed international investment. In particular, the postponement of the long-awaited visit of the Chinese president to Pakistain was blamed on PTI.
We are now in the second half of 2015, within touching distance of the halfway mark of the five year term. However,
it was a brave man who first ate an oyster...
this time around Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
cannot shift responsibility on to anyone else. The PPP rule is now firmly part of the past and a tamed PTI may still be whipping up a storm in its pressers, but it is no longer in a position to threaten a dharna or demand the prime minister's resignation.
In other words, whatever the government has delivered or failed to deliver, in 2015 or later, will be PML-N's responsibility alone.
Because of this, the PML-N has already begun to feel the heat.
For some months now, the government's mistakes and mis-governance have been doing the rounds. From the opposition parties to the media, the PML-N is everyone's favourite target.
Be it Nandipur; the LNG pricing issue or the absence of a full-time foreign minister, the PML-N is being battered.
Undoubtedly, the power sector is the most-discussed issue. After all, the PML-N had used the loadshedding card to win the election. But two and a half years later, the government has failed to introduce urgently-needed reforms in the power sector. Despite a small army of advisers and energy experts, the line losses of the ten electricity distribution companies have jumped from Rs30 billion to Rs50 billion in the last two years.