PTI-led govt needs to review its performance, says Maleeha

KARACHI: The present government needs to review its performance. It doesn’t have to do it publicly but it has to see where course correction is needed.

This was said by Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United  Nations Dr Maleeha Lodhi while answering a question put to her by Dr  Huma Baqai at a Zoom meeting organised by Lightstone Publishers Ltd on  Friday evening.

Dr Baqai started off the conversation by talking about the research that she had recently done on Dr Lodhi, part of which was about the fact that she was one of the 100 women going to influence the 21st  century.

Dr Lodhi said it was a reference to a Time magazine article in the 1990s and “you should not believe everything you read”. This brought the host to Dr Lodhi’s days as editor of The News when she refused to take a half-page advert and ran a report instead. Dr Lodhi replied she used to push back very hard as editor. “There’s always tension in every newspaper between the commercial and the editorial sides.” At that time Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman, who she hoped would be released soon, said to her “You keep challenging me”, and she responded: “I don’t have a choice, you’ve made me the editor and I have to do my job.”

‘Today there are unspoken restrictions on the media’

In today’s context the former ambassador said we’ve gone through ups and downs, and this is the freedom that the media has brought in  Pakistan, it’s not given to the media. There have been phases in which media freedom has been under assault. Even today there are unspoken restrictions on the media which are different from the past [martial law period]. The media has played a key role in Pakistan’s democratisation. Without it there would’ve been no democracy in Pakistan.

Answering a question on multilateralism, Dr Lodhi first pointed out that one of her memorable moments in life was her meeting with Nelson Mandela in London. During the conversation with him, he constantly kept talking about hope and stressed on idealism — the young generation must be idealistic.

She argued that multilateralism is facing a huge challenge, mostly coming from the United States; but it’s not just the US, other countries, too, are challenging it. It is in crisis, but “in a way it is like democracy which is the worst form of governance except for everything else”. She rejected the idea of a new cold war with reference to the China-US tussle.

Kashmir issue

On the issue of Kashmir,  Dr Lodhi said Pakistan has had a consistent policy on Kashmir [in the  UN]. Every Pakistani government has done whatever it could to make sure the issue of Kashmir is kept alive and remained on the Security Council agenda. When she [Dr Lodhi] was there, she used every avenue to highlight the Kashmir issue.

Referring to the Justice Qazi Faez Isa reference, Dr Lodhi said it’s [Friday] a great day for the rule of law in Pakistan. The reference against him was ill-conceived. “This is the judge of the highest integrity. The Supreme Court has shown that it can give judgements independently.”

Dr Lodhi said the present government needs to review its performance. It doesn’t have to do it publicly and see where course correction is needed. Nobody’s perfect. There’s always room to improve. They’re new so the benefit of the doubt is with them. But “there’s nothing more appealing to people than humility”. She gave the example of  New Zealand’s prime minister [Jacinda Ardern] who has successfully handled the coronavirus pandemic; the public complied with the lockdown because she showed humility, empathy and compassion.

Afghanistan situation

On the Afghanistan situation, Dr Lodhi said that agreement between the US and the Taliban at Doha is about the US withdrawal [from the region] and the Taliban ensuring that they will not permit Afghan soil to be used against any other country. Even if the intra-Afghan dialogue doesn’t produce a peace deal, the US will, in her opinion, withdraw from the region.

Replying to the question about India winning a non-permanent seat on the Security Council, she said both India and Pakistan have won elections. It does have implications for the Kashmir issue because a  non-permanent member can do a lot of things behind the scenes. Pakistan will have to be alert, and make sure it has enough friends in the council.

Commenting on India-China border skirmishes, she said this border region has always been a tense one; there’s a history to this. But both countries want to step back from any wider conflict. India under Modi has tried to follow a muscular policy and countries have pushed back against it.

Earlier, managing director of Lightstone Publishers Ameena Saiyid welcomed and introduced the guests to the online participants.