Daily Times

It is often said that everything is fair in love and war. In between you can add politics as well. All is kosher in politics too. Pot shots, character assassination, allegations, innuendos and questionable bank balances; nothing is considered off limits. No wonder a big brouhaha surfaced when the ‘holy lad’ pointed his finger at our angry middle-aged politician. One can say that the holy lad is no politician and he should have refrained from resurfacing ‘Mr Clean’s’ personal slip of two plus decades ago. The government apprentice-turned-business tycoon is no politician and he should have kept his nose out of the business of politics but, as they say, there is no business like show business and the holy lad was flashed on the idiot box, ad nauseam. His message and the subsequent debate became so stale that there was nothing substantial to add or take away.

Each nightly ringmaster was trying his level best to get that ‘exclusive’ interview of the former Chief Justice’s (CJ’s) son. The mainstays of the ‘Tsunami party’ rushed to counter him on screen. One of the reasons why I abstain from the remote control is because of these people. However, the hype was so vigourous that I succumbed and entertained myself with the stupidities of modern day gladiators and hyper ventilating television anchors. The two double-digit numbers of 62 and 63 were repeated by all and sundry. According to the Tsunami party, the holy lad was acting like a free agent for the incumbents. The next day, the ruling party was shocked when the two ‘change agents’ decided to go forward with a similar offensive by reaching out to the Election Commission of Pakistan against the prime minister. Your guess is on the dot — they brought the same two lucky numbers into their discussions as well and those two lucky numbers were 62 and 63. Honestly speaking, if you were to bring the holy water of Zam Zam and cleanse the entire country with that holy water, you would perhaps not be able to find a single politician who would be able to meet the requirements and standards of these two holy numbers.

As mentioned earlier on this forum, the incumbents truly lack the depth of handling escalating opposition, tensions and all the foul play headed their way. They are playing the juvenile tit-for-tat, reactive, often knee jerk and highly reactionary game. On the surface, the prime minster and his associates deny and denounce confrontational politics but, in practice, they are unable to mend their old ways. The administration is going full head on with everyone. Typically, the ruling party in the driving seat has to demonstrate its level of maturity in letter and spirit. It would be reasonable to say that the spirit of infamous tout ‘Gullu Butt’ envelopes the thinking ability of the people in our dear government.

The idiot box is drumming on about a showdown in mid-August in the heart of the capital. The angry middle-aged politician wants to bring in his peeps and take the capital by storm, demanding a mid-term election. The revolutionary leader back from the Canadian Rockies is threatening to bring his revolutionary volunteers and overthrow the government. The used shells of the Q League and the Sheikh of Rawalpindi are desperate to wash their hands in the flowing Ganges, so to speak. Nothing can be more ironic or, for that matter, comical; it all depends upon your point of view.

In their tit-for-tat game, the extraordinary politicians of the ruling party are doing their nightly defence on the idiot box with equally sharp rhetoric and inane verbosity. The resident and honourary PhD holder in politics, former President Zardari, has given Nawaz Sharif a much needed piece of advice through the media. Only the very few cool and sensible heads left in the administration can perhaps get the smell of his drift. With less than a month remaining before the impending showdown, what needs to really happen is an immediate cessation of rhetoric and hostilities. The stupid threats of military intervention should be shunned. If this government can initiate a dialogue with hardened criminals and murderers like the Taliban, why can it not engage the entire opposition in the process of a meaningful dialogue?

From the looks of it, the hawks within the camp of the PML-N have engulfed the capacities of the prime minster. The administration’s move of 14 days worth of celebrations in the capital to eclipse the marchers of the PTI and others is the latest example of its tit-for-tat politics. One can sincerely hope and pray that our dear prime minister gets his act together, and brings all parties to the table for discussion. The hawks, in one breath, tell their critics that the uniformed are not interested (we sure hope that it is true) in taking over and then, in the other, accuse their opponents of being propped by the high and mighty establishment. With that in mind, one can only hope and pray that better sense prevails from everyone in the end.

The writer is a Pakistani-American mortgage banker. He blogs at http://dasghar.blogspot.com and can be reached at dasghar@aol.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/dasghar