It has been a month now since the historic election held in Pakistan returned the two parties, the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarian and the Pakistan Muslim League of the Nawaz Sharif faction, as the two parties bagging the most and second most seats in the national assembly but the people of Pakistan are still waiting for the biggest party, the PPPP to form the government and set about solving the pressing problems facing the country.

But, it is indeed sorry to observe that the PPPP, which will sooner or later nominate the Prime Minister from its own party, has even been able to nominate its Prime Minister leave alone form the government.

Many explanations are offered for this inordinate delay. At first Nawaz Sharif’s party though willing to support the PPPP government was reluctant to accept any ministry; then the president and the establishment [whatever that may be] was blamed for delay in calling the national assembly session; then many prime ministerial candidates cropped up in the PPPP itself etc.

The Nawaz faction of the PML was widely seen as being reluctant to accept ministries because it was becoming obvious that solving the people’s problems would certainly take some time- if they could really be solved at all - and it did not want to share the blame that would inevitably arise; the president or the establishment or anybody else cannot be blamed for the delay in holding the assembly session because there is a specific law that says that the assembly session can be called by the president within 14 days from the time the summary for completion of the election process is sent by the election commission to the prime minister, in this case the caretaker prime minister, and then on to the president . In the case of the national assembly, its session for oath taking of the MNAs etc was called not within 14 days as allowed but within a week of the summary being sent to the president! And as far as the cropping up of different prime ministerial candidates within the PPPP is concerned, the matter is incomprehensible, to say the least, because while taking over the PPPP according to the will of the late Benazir, Asif Zardari is on record as saying that Amin Fahim would be the party’s prime ministerial candidate. In fact, till about a fortnight ago there was no doubt in the minds of the majority of Pakistanis, even among laymen, that Amin Fahim would be the new PPPP prime minister.

But whatever the cause for the delay may be, the fact is that while the government is being cobbled together and the ministries are being finalized etc, the PPPP could at least nominate its prime minister which it has not yet done and it is being floated in the media that the nomination could come after 23rd March, 2008.

The people are eagerly waiting for the new democratic government to tackle the most pressing of their problems like security and power shortage and fast rising prices. But the big parties are dilly dallying in the matter while the fate of the country and the people hangs in the balance. This may sound harsh but every analyst in the country is convinced, and says so openly, that Pakistan is facing a crises situation. As such, the big parties should realize the urgency of the matter and move with speed.

One wouldn’t want to point to the fly in the ointment but it is thought that the experts of the big parties have confided to their bosses that they do not have any long term solutions to the country’s problems, if at all, and this delay is being caused by the bosses’s indecision as to what to do to get over this situation.

But the incoming government need not fear. Despite their pre-election rhetoric and promises, the actual situation is before everybody and the people of the country know that the new government may take a long time in solving their problems, and that too only partly. But they are impatient to see the new government actually start tackling the problems honestly even if they do not succeed in the beginning.

Involving the people or trying to distract them in this hour of need will indeed be a cruel thing to do.

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Tags: Coalition Government, nawaz sharif, PML (Q), PPP, Prome Minister