Governments are not elected merely to remain in power. They are elected to govern. Political parties can choose the politics of protest, confrontation and agitation, but a government has responsibilities that go far beyond the political interests of the party that brought it to power. This distinction becomes particularly important when a provincial government begins using its official resources and institutional strength for political protests outside its own province.

This is precisely the question that needs to be asked about September 27, when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has once again called for a protest. There are two things that need to be looked at separately. One is Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf as a political party, and the other is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is also in power. Political identity and governmental responsibility cannot be treated as the same thing.

A political party holds public meetings and stages protests. That is part of normal political activity. But when the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, with its own resources, goes to other provinces to create an environment for protests, the question naturally arises: what is the basic duty of a government? To do something for its people, or to remain fuel for protests all the time?

Political activities are a normal part of politics. They continue to take place, and political activities can also take the form of protests. But it has never happened that a political party turns its own government into a means of protest and, instead of spending all the strength it possesses by virtue of being in power on the welfare of the people, throws it into protests and remains trapped in a state of perpetual protest.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has a political organisation. If it has to protest, and if it has been decided that we will do nothing except protest, then that organisation can protest. But if the Chief Minister is determined to stage a protest with all the resources at his disposal, and the entire strength of the government is thrown behind it, then it raises very serious questions.

Many a time, one wishes that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government would compete with the Punjab government in the same way Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis competed with each other on the cricket field: through performance.

But if the problems in your province have become extremely frightening, and instead of paying attention to those problems, the Chief Minister of that province has set out to run a protest campaign, then what could be more unfortunate than this?

There is terrorism in Tirah. The situation regarding the police in Khyber has become extremely complicated. Bodies are being carried away almost every day because of terrorism, but the government’s priorities are something else entirely.

After the 18th Amendment, the provinces have become autonomous in many matters. In such circumstances, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government should have been telling us how modern and how much better it has made its police system. What facilities has it provided to its police? What has it done in its hospitals? What has it done in its educational institutions? What are the things and sectors in which Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is ahead of the other provinces and has performed better than them?

Its basic responsibility is not for the Chief Minister to travel sometimes to Sindh and sometimes to Punjab........

© The Patriot