Imran Niazi to face last ball in Pak Assembly today
With electoral numbers against him in the National Assembly, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Niazi will be voted out of power in the next few hours, provided the Assembly Speaker follows the Supreme Court order in letter and spirit. Or else there will be political chaos.
Analysis of a series of addresses he has made to the nation and in rallies shows Niazi to be delusional about the Opposition he faces and about the state of governance in Pakistan. It is quite evident that the former cricketer believes that he is very popular amongst the masses and has decided on his own to brand the entire Opposition as lackeys of the CIA on the basis of some informal conversation between the former Pak Ambassador to the US and an equivalent rank official of the US State Department.
By bringing the so-called foreign conspiracy into focus, PM Niazi is trying to hide the games that he was playing with Army Chief Gen Qamar Jawed Bajwa for extending his own political life. Pakistan watchers are clear that the US conspiracy is just a ruse for Imran Niazi’s bid to topple Gen Bajwa and replace him with his nominee, former DG (ISI) and now Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Faiz Hameed. Unfortunately for him, Niazi was caught by Gen Bajwa while picking up the seam of the cricket ball and was forced to appoint Rawalpindi’s nominee Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum as the DG ISI last year. This was the turning point of the entire relationship between Niazi and Gen Bajwa, who then decided to back off from protecting Rawalpindi’s erstwhile protégé and feed him to Opposition wolves.
The use of foreign conspiracy tools by Niazi is also to hide the poor governance and bad foreign policy decisions taken by him during his regime. The state of Pakistan’s economy is in tatters with both inflation and bank interest rates in double figures. On top of this, Niazi took potshots at the Biden administration and praised the jihadist Taliban for throwing away the shackles of slavery by throwing the American troops out of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021. For a country that has been a recipient of over 35 billion USD worth of aid and high-end hardware since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Niazi’s statements were ungrateful and legitimately infuriated Washington. To make matters worse, he was used by China to prove his loyalty to the Xi Jinping regime and settle scores with the US with a diatribe against Washington from Beijing.
While the Modi government has ignored Niazi’s recent praise of the Indian Army and foreign policy as a sign of political desperation, the lack of overt support for their protégé from Beijing is worth noting. The only country that has come out in support of Niazi is Russia, whose forces are in a quagmire in Ukraine. The Russian conscript army is not only showing poor battle tactics on the ground but also signs of low morale against urban warfare mounted by the Ukraine forces.
PM Niazi may think that the Pakistan impoverished masses will vote him back to power in the next general elections on the foreign conspiracy plank, but the actual vote will be on his rather inept and poor governance on the ground. Governance unlike cricket is a five-year-long match with a constant eye on the opponent till the last ball.