2020

After the demise of Quaid e Azam, our politicians got sucked into an ugly struggle for power leading to conspiracies and backstabbing isolating them from public issues. This led to miss appropriation of taxpayers money and dragging national institutions such as judiciary, armed forces, and bureaucracy into this game of cat and mice.

Almost seventy-three years have passed by and we as nation have not been able to get of this quagmire. Our power circles are still more focused on satisfying their lust for power at any cost. The economy, growth, and resultantly masses suffer badly under the burden of mammoth inflation, high joblessness, and lack of basic amenities. The not so new PTI government has been under immense pressure from days one as it is reaping the fruit of its own doings. Just as PTI did, the current opposition wants the PTI government out of power come what may.

Recently, PPP has offered MQM Pakistan ministries in exchange for their help in toppling the federal government. The government on the other hand has failed to show solid movement in direction that would provide any relief to masses. Another year (2019) has passed by, but the government keeps blaming the predecessors for all the ills in the country.

Their claims of reduction in current account deficit, increase in forex reserves, and improvement in fiscal space mean nothing until people keep getting buried under high prices of gas, petrol, electricity, and resultantly prices of everything. Still, the government does not seem eager to reach out to the opposition to find a civilized way to get of this mess. For people, yet another year has gone by without any real hope of things getting better on the political front.

Let us pray that our politicians find some wisdom in the new year and they sit together to get the country out of the mess we are in.  Unless they do so, I am afraid 2020 may also turn out to be another year of conspiracies, blames, and selfish struggles for power at the cost of people of Pakistan. I hope and pray that my apprehensions are wrong, and 2020 proves to be the year of real change in Pakistan.

RAJA SHAFAATULLAH,

Islamabad.