PremiumWith Pakistan’s economy reeling, foreign policy under America’s eye and the Assembly due for polls this year, its tilt is a policy bet that its people should get to make, duly informed of both Beijing’s and Washington’s policies
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The cricketer who once led a team famous for perfecting the craft of reverse swing found himself run out this weekend, ousted from power as Pakistan’s prime minister by a late-night vote of no-confidence ordered by its judiciary. Of its National Assembly’s 342 members, 174 asked Imran Khan to go, while his party fought only feebly for him. As he’d tried to bend the rules to stay in office, his ouster was deserved. The envy he expressed of India’s foreign policy should have covered democratic processes, too.
Leader of the opposition Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of three-time PM Nawaz Sharif, is widely expected to replace Khan. The brothers are seen as aligned on ties with China and India but divergent on a key issue, their party’s army relations, which would explain why the former chief minister of Punjab province has a chance. With Pakistan’s economy reeling, foreign policy under America’s eye and the Assembly due for polls this year, its tilt is a policy bet that its people should get to make, duly informed of both Beijing’s and Washington’s policies. Also of the fact that command models usually don’t prosper, whatever the colour of the ideology.
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