The election of the new Punjab Chief Minister was a constitutional and democratic process that had to be completed in a congenial environment.
Unfortunately this was marred by outright violence in the provincial assembly on Saturday, leaving many injured including CM candidate Parvez Elahi.
This and earlier physical attack on the Deputy Speaker Punjab Assembly should leave our heads down in embarrassment as it only brought more bad name to the country.
The unruly scenes in Punjab Assembly only indicate disturbing level of intolerance in our political setup which if not checked may soon reach roads and streets of our towns and cities. Already videos are surfacing of people shaming and disgracing elected representatives.
While elected representatives need to rise above their petty political interests and review their conduct, greater responsibility rests with top leadership of political parties to deliver messages of peace and harmony as exchange of harsh and foul language against each other will only further aggravate the situation.
As regards election of Hamza Shehbaz to the seat of provincial chief minister, we understand that given his political struggle and especially difficult times that he went through during the era of Gen Pervez Musharraf, he deserved to be installed at the coveted seat.
This will be a test of his leadership skills. It will not be an easy task for him, as people of Punjab will compare him with performance of his father Shehbaz Sharif who during his tenure as provincial CM won the hearts and minds of the people by executing unprecedented number of projects of public interest.
The way development projects were completed in his era at a fast pace is still fresh in our minds.
In his maiden speech after getting elected as the CM, Hamza Shehbaz vowed to leave no stone unturned to work for welfare of the people.
This indeed is what the people of the province expect from him. The biggest challenge is price hike, which has broken the back of common man.
We are confident that the new CM will do the needful to provide some sort of relief. The focus must be on generating economic activity in order to create job opportunities and increase income levels of the people.
