PP CHAIRPERSON Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has given sound advice to the government to stop ‘fighting everyone’. And he did so speaking as the most important ally of the Shehbaz Sharif administration that has propped up this set-up as a major stakeholder since the controversial elections of February 2024. That is precisely why the prime minister and his PML-N should listen to him. Not that the PPP has plans to ditch him anytime soon. In the same boat, neither party has much of a choice. What appears to worry the PPP leader is the addition of JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rahman to the list of politicians pushed into the opposition camp by recent reckless remarks against him by some cabinet ministers.
The JUI-F chief was part of the PDM alliance that removed former prime minister Imran Khan. He does not accept the 2024 election results and is staunchly opposed to the imposition of governor’s rule and an emergency in KP.
He was hardly a government ally. Yet he supported it in the passage of the recent controversial amendments to the Constitution, and consistently declined to be part of any attempt to destabilise the current system. That seems to be changing now, as the pragmatic maulana appears to be moving closer to the PTI-led opposition. Mr Bhutto-Zardari believes that such unnecessary political squabbles are diverting the government’s attention from the real problems facing the country: a stagnating economy, rising foreign-sponsored terrorism in the smaller provinces, the war in the Gulf, and more. ‘If we continue to fight among ourselves’ and keep fighting with the PTI and Maulana Fazlur Rahman, alongside the battle against the terrorists, India, Afghanistan and others, ‘then they [the government] might end up remaining engaged in that [political fighting] only,’ he cautioned. It is a valid point. Mr Sharif should not forget that the PTI government, too, engaged in such fights at the expense of the economy and its popularity. The PTI’s popularity had hit its lowest point before the no-confidence move was introduced. With the fallout of the Iran war putting a heavy burden on ordinary citizens, political differences should take a back seat. A government that spends its energy on feuds has little of it left to tackle more difficult challenges. The same goes for the opposition. It should also abandon its habit of putting confrontation ahead of pressing national problems.