Pakistan Cabinet Extensions: A person who defends the party and establishment is included in it. This decision has not been taken from the point of view of the functioning of the cabinet, from the point of view of the functioning of the government; just an adjustment has been made. The way to run this circus is that you reward as many people as possible. These are mostly defeated candidates in the general elections; in fact, everyone present is appointed rather than selected already, but the burden adds up.
We are heading towards a storm, and Pakistan is not sustainable. There is so much alcohol in these people that they do not accept this whole system. We saw that first an advertisement came from the Punjab government in it was of such a type that we have not seen an example of it in the history of journalism, that the advertisement campaign was published exactly like news, news agencies made a big bias for the journalist community.
The Punjab government published a 60-page advertisement praising its performance after one year, leaving everyone laughing at the kind of jokers we have as leaders. The government does these things and promotes themselves to please the media; whatever government comes to power, they do this, but I think this is a bit too much, and the way that 60-page supplement is, Maryam Nawaz is on every page; her media managers are presenting her as some crown princess, and she seems to be enjoying the spotlight.
Governments that work, their performance speaks for themselves, and it is not that in the past PMLN did not work in Lahore or Central Punjab; media reporting independently has always highlighted the performance of PMLN in Lahore and Punjab, but this Maryam Begum, who seems to have created a personality cult of her own, unlike us, she has no name. The most charismatic cult following that we have seen is that of Imran Khan, and we can see how damaging that has been to this country. Maryam Nawaz seems to care about her looks and her portrait. Punjab is the biggest state; it has such a big assembly, it has such a big cabinet, but in this 60-page advertisement, you will not see anyone except Maryam Begum, and it is surprising that who is giving them such advice and whom are they convincing by giving advertisements in newspapers? It is the digital era; it is the era of social media. Their social media team is also very active, so except that you want to please a few media houses, you want to give them a political bribe, you want to justify it, but this is the public’s money; it is the taxpayer’s money that someone is spending on their promotion.
That’s what you do when you inherit a family business and want to cover up for all your losses. Sadly, this is just one element, and the latest decision to reward all the corrupt and defeated facilitators with ministries is astonishing. It seems that there is no end to the irony, and we could expect anything from the system until it falls on its head. There is no retaliation from the public; they are hopeless, and it seems they have accepted their fate. You just cannot justify the cabinet acting currently, consisting of more than 80% of ministers who are selected rather than being elected, and the numbers are increasing with additional burden on the deteriorating Treasury.