Daily Times

Summer is creeping up on us, and what are the big boys and the not so big boys all in thrall of? Yemen of all places. Of course Mian sahib the elder and the Mian sahib the younger will try their best to keep the Yemen situation on the boil as long as possible. The idea is to divert the attention of ordinary people away from the Mian sahiban’s old friend, known as load shedding. Yes, it is true that load shedding helped the Mian sahibs get their mandate but if load shedding stays the same three years later, the mandatees might finally and actually start changing into manatees.
Some interesting things are going on besides the Yemen debate in parliament. We have this ‘action’ in Karachi that is managing to defang the MQM. Soon we will have a by-election in an MQM stronghold in Karachi and if the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) actually wins that election, perhaps we can start talking of a naya (new) Pakistan in earnest. We will have local body elections in most of the country by the end of the summer. If the MQM loses support in urban Sindh, letting the PTI get some election wins, and if load shedding keeps the people of Punjab on edge and makes enough of them vote for the PTI, things could get a bit interesting.
The one question that does bedevil me is the total incompetence of the PML-N government at the Centre and in Punjab at handling the power crisis. Recently, I asked a friend and a PML-N supporter to tell me of a single PML-N accomplishment in its present and previous stints in power especially in Punjab. The best he could come up with was better roads and, of course, the metro bus system. I challenge my readers to come up with a major PML-N accomplishment other than the motorway or the metro bus system. It would seem that the Sharif brothers have this thing about roads, or should I call them quick exits? Perhaps it is the one thing that the Sharif brothers have acquired enough experience with and so they feel comfortable building more roads rather than anything else.
But that does not seem to be reason enough. Recently, while discussing the ever ongoing road projects in Lahore, a PML-N supporter told me with just a hint of pride that Mian sahib the younger wants to remove all traffic lights from all the roads in Lahore. What the PML-N supporter really meant I suppose was that Mian sahib wanted to remove traffic lights from all roads that Mian sahib might be travelling on. As it is, whenever Mian sahib or any member of his family travels through Lahore, traffic lights are either turned off or ignored to allow them unimpeded movement. So why this need to get rid of traffic lights? Frankly, for me, it would seem to be some sort of youthful indiscretion that has something to do with a traffic light and possible trauma from subsequent disciplinary action that makes Mian sahib hate traffic lights quite this much. Perhaps a future historian might come up with better insights into why Mian sahib detests traffic stops with such an abiding passion, a passion that sadly costs Punjabi taxpayers a tidy sum of money. The destruction of trees and historical buildings can best be called collateral damage.
Enough about conjectures and on to some hard facts of life. All the new roads, traffic patterns and under-over-side passes being built will only benefit car drivers and leave the 90 percent or so of the population of Lahore that travels on public transportation, on bicycles or on foot, quite unaffected. And if you allow slower moving traffic onto these fast track roads, the end result will be the same as having traffic lights. Clearly, the better investment would have to be in better quality public transportation that can actually take people from one point to another in the city of Lahore and not just on the metro bus along just one line. What about north Lahore and the areas nowhere near the metro bus line? If at least the development of roads and traffic is being done to make the lives of ordinary Lahoris a bit better, then that would be somewhat laudable. But clearly the only beneficiaries will be the car owning and driving elites. As we all know, the sort of people Mian sahib wants to impress rarely visit Gawalmandi, Mian Mir, R A Bazaar (wherever that is) or the inner city unless of course it is time to ask for votes.
And I am not even going to wonder about a possible Karachi-like ‘action’ in Punjab to flush out the terrorist types lying low at this time and whether such an action will target and then undermine the PML-N’s vote bank. So, now to the big question: if the PML-N starts to lose strength in urban and possibly rural Punjab due to the above mentioned problems, which political party will benefit when the local body elections come about? The PPP is reeling and it seems Mr Zardari is bent upon preventing the PPP from becoming a political player in Punjab, at least in his lifetime. The PML-N is not reeling but is definitely under pressure especially due to the continuing power crisis. So, it would seem that the PTI could benefit the most. That is going to be the thing to watch this year as far as politics is concerned. My feeling is that the PTI will have to do well in the local body elections before, and I repeat before, the ‘establishment’ will be willing to support it in the general elections.
One last question for anybody who is willing to answer it: when the PML-N government runs out of convicted criminals to execute, what is it going to do?

The author is a former editor of the Journal of Association of Pakistani descent Physicians of North America (APPNA)