Pakistan's opposition lawmakers : Ugly shows

Editorial:THE FRONTIER POST

Who are the opposition lawmakers entertaining with their ugly parliamentary spectacles of rowdyism, heckling and shouting nowadays, anyway? It is only a cheering media where they are hitting the headlines. Not at all on the street where not a taker they have for their obscene shows to clap on. Indeed, it is only jeers and sneers that they have there for their exasperating antics. Then who are they trying to impress? The electorate had sent them to the parliament to espouse the people's causes, not to fight their own political battles. So, the people are infuriated the way these grandees have pushed back their woes to pursue their own political objectives. They cannot even imagine with how much scorn are the people's hearts filled for them when a grandee from amongst them walks in jollily, points out lack of quorum in the house childishly and then walks out laughing amidst the sounding bells to call the truants to the session. Ironically, in respected democracy, which these jokers pretend we have become but actually we have not, the opposition parliamentary party holds a strategy session to decide what issues it will take the treasury benches on, what will be the party stance on it and who will speak out that stance. Here these clowns hold a session to work out the strategy as to how to disrupt the parliamentary proceedings. It is not the issues their strategy session dwells on. It is if it will be a bhangra dance, pulling the hair, or a straight boxing match that their strategy session ponders on. But who are these eminences kidding? Do they know that the mass of our people deem them wholly unfit and incapable of understanding, what to talk of debating, serious things like a budget? Do not they know that the people from one to all are perfectly aware that the bulk of these eminences don't turn over even the first page of bulky budget documents placed on their desks? And are they not aware either that the people know that most of these eminences do not bother even to remove those documents from their desks but leave them there untouched? And those few who do carry them to their cosy homes and luxurious parliamentary lodges simply dump them there, not read them. In any case, what point are these eminences trying to make with their obscene show? Of course, the prime minister could have taken the sting out of their antics, had he taken a high moral stance and stood down from his office, which still remains controversially mired in court challenges. Nevertheless, the opposition lawmakers too could have taken the most logical step if they have a problem with his continued incumbency. They could have just terminated their own membership of the parliament in protest. That would have carried some conviction with the mass of the people about their own credibility. But they have not, making them look as great charlatan as the prime minister in the popular eye. But is the hard-pressed taxpayer shelling out enormous sums from his hard-earned money for these gaudy shows of the opposition lawmakers? Mind you, every parliamentary session costs a lot of buck. On each sitting, millions of rupees are consumed up just in paying the lawmakers their daily allowance and conveyance allowance, and on the security and air-conditioning of the premises for their safety and comfort. The wages of attendants and parliamentary staffs is a hefty extra. If the taxpayer is to have a circus show, why would he go for these eminences' discordant, disjointed, amateurish performance? Wouldn't he go for the Lucky Irani Circus, where the act will be lyrical, rhythmic and pleasing? And also it would cost him just a pittance compared to what a staggering sum he has to expend on the ugly show of these eminences? Enough is enough. The electorate has had enough of chicanery from the swaggering political elite across the spectrum. The people are now fed up with their antics, with which they have belittled the very concept of democracy in the people's estimation. The people are not ready to have any more of it. For a change, these elite must deliver and help deliver the people their needs and wants. And they must stand down, if they cannot. A stop they must put to their jugglery at once, anyway. Just intolerable have they become.