When comedian Trevor Noah compared Trump and Imran Khan
(in a program “Pakistan’s Donald Trump”) little did we know how right he was. Both
men were thought to have been elected under suspicious circumstances. There
were other similarities which I don’t want to bring up (like being involved with women).
Trump and Imran are
well known for their frequent U-turns and the current pandemic has revealed how
similar they are. Just like Trump, Imran Khan thought Corona virus wasn’t
serious, that it was just like the flu and it would disappear in the summer. Both said the virus would attack only aged persons and that it would disappear in the hot summer months.
Both Trump and Khan are at loggerheads with the states and provinces
in their countries. Trump, like his Pakistani counterpart, is always critical
of those states where his party is not in power. Trump frequently threatens to
withhold federal aid to Democrat governors, while Imran's reluctance to pay Sindh's share in the federal divisible pool is well known. He also does his best to
downplay the efforts of the rival PPP in Sindh.
While Imran Khan is still not convinced that a lockdown
of the entire country will have any effect on the virus, Trump is actually
encouraging Republican voters in Democrat states to defy the lockdown. Imran in
Pakistan has overtly sided with both the business as well as the religious
lobby, so much so that we don’t know where he stands, as I found out recently.
The latest of course is Imran's allegation that the lockdown was forced upon the country by the country's elite, completely ignoring the fact that it was his own cabinet that took the decision. Perhaps Imran Khan has been affected by the virus already, maybe it's a milder version which attacks the brain.
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