Although the Hamza Shahbaz government in Punjab has started showing some signs of stability, the politics in the largest province of Pakistan is far from normal. The more things get closer to a resolution, the more it gets complicated with the passage of time.
The PML-N heaved a sigh of relief after the appointment of the new governor. Minutes after the oath-taking of Governor Balighur Rehman late in the night, members of the cabinet rushed to take the oath from the newly-appointed governor at the Governor’s House. It took President Arif Alvi 24 days to concede and submit to the mounting pressure from the PML-N, paving the way for the formation of a provincial cabinet that is pending for over a month since Hamza Shahbaz took the oath of the office as the Chief Minister of Punjab. It resulted in ending the impasse that has paralyzed the functioning of the largest province of the country besides helping the ruling party honor commitments it had made with the four independent and one Rah-i-Haq lawmakers by accepting their demands of adjusting them in the cabinet. Now they are bound not to switch sides in case of a run-off election for the chief minister.
