SUNDAY is a day of rest but not for the hardworking people running the government of Pakistan. These men, and a few women, never rest. This Sunday was no different, as the prime minister was busy with an official trip overseas. But foreign shores didn’t distract him from the pending work in Islamabad and he managed to issue a notification declaring current Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar as deputy prime minister.

Predictably, the notification managed to set off a storm of discussion among the other hardworking race — the journalists and commentators who fill the weekend slots.

Has Dar made a comeback? Does it mean Nawaz Sharif is now planning to reassert himself? What does this mean for Shehbaz Sharif? The questions and the ensuing discussions will probably fill the airwaves for some days to come, providing more television opportunities for Rana Sanaullah and Javed Latif, just in case journalists were losing interest and requests to them for interviews were reducing.

In other words, Dar’s appointment is going to add more fuel to the whispers that the ruling party is facing inner strife. The story of friction within the party is not new — it has perhaps been around from the time the party first fell into disfavour with the then establishment circa 2016. While the intensity of these ‘reported’ differences went up and down, the election and its aftermath seem to have added to the fault lines within.

Dar’s appointment will add more fuel to whispers that the PML-N is facing........

© Dawn