Analyzing Pakistani politics through the prism of conventional political lens is an extremely difficult and fruitless task, matter of fact same holds true for India. Unlike these two South Asian neighbors ,What people living in developed countries experience , is a political system having matured and refined over periods of decades, providing public policy and legislative agenda based on their ideological tilt. The ideological spectrum usually ranges between progressive left and conservative right.

Now you could state your opinion depending on which side of the divide you fall on, and in most cases principled opinions form public policy depending on which party is in power. And here is where Pakistani political system turns the whole ideological debate on its head. The primary reason for such confusion being, that there are no real conservatives or progressives, what Pakistan has, is reactionary ideologues who might profess usual religious conservatism associated with the religious right in USA but no mention of fiscal conservatism; same for the progressive side which professes old school Marxist themes but fails on all front to uphold any progressive ideals, case in point the Pakistan Peoples Party.

In a tweet American Enterprise institute fellow Sadanand Dhume laments the same lack of fiscal conservatism prevalent in India:

https://twitter.com/dhume01/statuses/325469859867680769

Unfortunately Pakistan’s preeminent right wing party PML(N) suffers from the same lack of coherent political agenda and has no inkling of what fiscal conservatism means, or for that matter what does any principle means. This Facebook Meme from Social Media Pakistan perfectly summarizes Nawaz Sharif’s political career.

Now i am no fan of PTI on many issues, matter of fact they suffer from the same lack of coherent political ideology as most parties do in Pakistan, but since last few months Mushtaq Minhas of Bolta Pakistan has gone on full frontal assault and has repeatedly tweeted and opined on his displeasure of Imran Khan. So on today’s Bolta Pakistan when a caller confronted Mushtaq Minhas and called him out on his incessant praise of Nawaz Sharif, he pointed out that the show was an opinion based program and he will never shy away from his opinions. Here are some samples of Mushtaq Minhas’s disdain for PTI :

https://twitter.com/mushtaqminhas/status/327136175569661952

https://twitter.com/mushtaqminhas/status/327133167314153473

Granted Mushtaq Minhas has every right to express his opinions; however, equally the audience has the right to question him, and one thing i would like to ask Mr Minhas is, what political ideology does his favorite party adhere to ? or more importantly what legislative accomplishment can Mr Minhas point to in Nawaz Sharif’s past two premierships, which he is so proud of ? Is it the draconian 15th Amendment which would have declared Nawaz Sharif Amir-ul-Momineen ?

The reason this discussion is pertinent because many media types have shied away from discussing Nawaz Sharif’s past two governments and the abject failure that his premiership was, and with the recently released MOI’s list of Journalists on the take, it raises critical questions about Journalistic ethics in Pakistan. Mushtaq Minhas will not answer these very valid questions, because in all honesty i do not think he has any idea of what he is talking about.

Here is the video of Mushtaq Minhas’s exchange with the caller from Australia :

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