Senator Sherry Rehman says ‘We can’t have rule by tantrum’

On the point of order in the Senate, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Parliamentary Leader Sherry Rehman on Monday opened the opposition’s debate by demanding an explanation from the treasury benches on how a sitting prime minister (PM) can say he will decide who should be the opposition leader.

This is not his decision nor his prerogative, she added and said that the members of the parliament are elected by the people of Pakistan, who are sovereign according to the Constitution of Pakistan.

“It is the sovereign right of the people of Pakistan to elect their representatives, not his [Imran Khan’s] own prerogative as a manifestation of his hubris and bizarre conceptualisation of the political and constitution reality of the country,” the Senator said.

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“It is his high time he [Imran Khan] understood that his time in the PM House is limited now, given his government’s disastrous performance on all counts. His constant resort to blaming either the past or external circumstances or anyone he can think of except his own spectacularly incompetent government has now become a dark joke for the people of Pakistan who don’t know where to turn in their unprecedented misery and deprivation at the crisis after crisis his government has unleashed on the country, whether it be the destruction of Pakistan’s economy, power sector, and once-booming self-sufficient agriculture sector,” Rehman said.

She added that instead of providing solutions, the PM is now openly threatening both the opposition and a large majority who elected it.

“He is making a laughing stock of Pakistan by threatening his own country, and also sending a message to his selectors who are now clearly fed up with this amateur show,” the Senator said.

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Rehman also said, “On the one hand we have calls for a presidential system which has broken Pakistan in two, and on the other hand, we have the bizarre and unedifying spectacle of a PM threatening an entire nation and state that he will cause havoc if he is removed. We condemn such a pharaonic, self-absorbed distortion of the constitution and people’s rights. The government is sinking like a leaky ship, and instead of salvaging his dignity, the PM is lashing out at everyone he can.”

She added putting the stability and security of the country in the dock for one’s whims and fantasies of power is both irresponsible and extremely dangerous and commented that such an unstable person should not be holding the reins of the country.

“Too much is at stake given Pakistan’s national security challenges and economic distress. You can’t have rule by tantrum. Pakistan will not be sacrificed to anyone’s ego. We will not let that happen,” she concluded.