After more than a month of brouhaha, Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi proved his majority in the provincial assembly, winning the much-hyped vote of confidence amid commotion and opposition’s boycott in the early hours of Thursday, which defused an evolving constitutional crisis in Punjab. However, the successful vote of confidence put the country further into uncharted territory as hours after the province legislature had expressed confidence in him; Punjab Chief Minister Parvez Elahi signed the summary dissolving the provincial assembly as instructed by Imran Khan.
PTI-PMLQ’s move to dissolve the assembly sealed the fate of the PDM politics, and as of now the coalition stands routed. Moreover, CM Elahi has also dashed the PML-N’s hopes that he would not want to lose his opportunity to set up his party for a bigger role in provincial politics in the upcoming elections.
Although the writing was on the wall for PML-N led coalition government well before the trust-vote but somehow the 13-party alliance in the federal capital didn’t want to see the ground reality let alone recognizing the need for political reconciliation to lower the political temperature at a time when the country is facing its worst economic crisis since its inception.
Apparently, the PML-N has run out of viable options in light of the internal divisions within the party and its pathetic failure to stop the dissolution. However, it remains to be seen how will the PDM federal government respond to the most recent development? Will the ruling dispensation now craft a new strategy of ‘wait and talk it out’? We will know the answer in the coming days, but for now one thing is for sure; the PTI has weathered the pressure and come out swinging. Whether or not Imran Khan succeeds in his goal of calling early general elections as a result of the dissolution of the Punjab and KP assemblies, the PML-N in its stronghold of Punjab will find it difficult to win those elections whenever they are held. The dye is surely cast for a change.
