Daily Times

An old adage says that you can hope for the best but plan for the worst. With the PML-N not budging on their demands, the PTI’s ongoing saga is following that script. Having proved his party’s resilience by the long-drawn dharna (sit-in) at Islamabad’s D-Chowk, Imran Khan set out to prove that the PTI’s protest was not simply a flash in the capital. While all the cities in Punjab showed an enthusiastic response, the relatively smaller rally in Larkana was still a stunner for the PPP, in every sense the lord and master of interior Sindh. That did not nudge the PML-N out of its political complacency. It gambled thinking that, with winter setting in, Imran would be ‘out in the cold’ in D-Chowk.

Straitjacketed by a rather ambiguous strategy, it was necessary to change tactics; Plan C for Charlie was thus implemented with escalation to Plan D being crafted. The PML-N’s gut-reaction is to confront the PTI, man for man in the streets, despite getting the Sharifs into trouble in Model Town. Rana Sanaullah leads those PML-N hawks with a penchant for Sultan Rahi-type violence. Faisalabad was a PR disaster for the PML-N as a Gullu Butt type appeared on cue and shot dead a PTI loyalist on prime time television. Whether a PML-N activist or a hired thug, no amount of media disseminated falsehood will quell the growing perception that, undeterred by video-recorded evidence (like in Model Town), the PML-N hawks prefer brutal and senseless confrontation. In the wake of the deadly and atrocious mass killing of innocent school children in Peshawar, what is the nature of the political support such PML-N stalwarts enjoy in their constituencies?

Any metropolitan city can be easily shut down by closing a few critical road crossings. Nevertheless, the spontaneous PTI rallies all over Pakistan did create political waves. The protest in MQM-dominated Karachi (to the MQM’s and PPP’s credit without violence) was a revelation. The shutdown in Lahore, the Sharifs’ seat of power, was crucially important for both the PTI and the PML-N. Ruling Punjab with an iron fist, brother Shahbaz Sharif does not take kindly to any show of dissent in ‘his city’. Son Hamza Sharif (of the “mai ka lal” fame) was breathing fire challenging anyone attempting protest anywhere in the province, let alone Lahore. PTI supporters did take the law into their own hands in places to enforce the shutdown. An overwhelming number of women and children physically come out in droves to Imran Khan’s rallies. Alarmingly there were stray cases of harassment in the good old Lahori tradition. The jury is still out whether those running riot were from the PTI or agent provocateurs infiltrated to give the PTI a bad name. Such dirty tricks should have been anticipated and vigilante squads should have been in place as a ready response to counter such behaviour. With perception growing among both the intelligentsia and the masses about their political potential, one-day discomfort for the average citizen in each city is the price the PTI is prepared to pay as a calculated risk for the political mileage they are getting.

Saner heads prevailed to change the countrywide shutdown from December 16, an unfortunate choice given the connotations associated with the day. Quickly realising their faux pas, the PTI changed the date to December 18. Because of the Peshawar atrocity, the PTI has now, very rightly, called off the countrywide protest. The good news is that the PML-N (a friendly nudge from somewhere?) had earlier agreed to restart the dialogue with the PTI. The horrible killings of 130 plus schoolchildren reinforces why there must be closure to the ongoing political insanity. Residual consequences of fighting with each other rather than the real terrorist enemy should give reason to the PML-N and PTI to think again about the future of the country. The Nawaz Sharif government very rightly claims that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is shy because of the ongoing political upheaval; he should contribute to eliminating the standoff by displaying a willingness to compromise. The PTI has pragmatically dropped the constitutionally non-starter demand for the PM’s resignation. Given the sorry history of such commissions in Pakistan, the PTI’s asking for a judicial commission is also a non-starter. The PTI must show flexibility in making realistic demands to accomplish its grand strategy.

No other priority is more important than rooting out terrorism in all its forms. Both the PML-N and PTI should concentrate on the electoral system being revised to remove the anomalies that permit electoral fraud (and protest thereof) taking place. The legal filibuster by speaker Ayaz Sadiq to keep the ballot boxes from being opened reinforces the perception that he subverted the electoral process to get elected. We now have a good Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Justice Raza, his courage of conviction quite apparent by even a cursory reading of his outstanding dissenting notes to former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s autocratic judgments. The PML-N and the PPP displayed good judgment by inducting Justice Raza. They should persist with their show of good faith by changing the four election commissioners who have become controversial, inducting those of unquestioned integrity and without any leaning towards any political party. Once electoral reforms are enacted by parliament (working with a cut-off date), there would be both a legal and moral justification for fresh elections under the revamped Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Both the PML-N and PTI should use this tragedy as a reason not to blunder into Plan D; given the likes of Rana Sanaullah it could only lead to further grief. Have we learnt any lessons about political compromise from the tragedy of 43 years ago? Sustained obduracy resulted in the history of the 1947 Pakistan coming to a dead stop on December 16, 1971. We cannot afford the Pakistan of 1971 being further truncated. One must commend the prime minister for calling an All Parties Conference immediately in Peshawar. One must also commend Imran Khan for shunning politics to respond to the PM’s initiative. My no-brainer advice to both: for the sake of the future of the country, do not let the blood of innocents be wasted because of an asinine deadlock that can be easily resolved by a one-point agenda. The entire country supports electoral reforms but cannot be held hostage by a few thousand feudals and their paid supporters.

There is a time to fight and there is a time to unite. Instead of a Plan D for death and destruction, what this country needs is a Plan U for unity.

The writer is a defence analyst and security expert