Prime Minister (PM) Yousaf Raza Gilani has poured cold water over the hopes of those relying on his replacement as PM to write the letter to the Swiss authorities. Thereby they hoped to bring down both the PM and the President. Further, the PM has reiterated his view that only parliament can decide whether he can continue as PM or not. Therefore there was no question of his resigning under pressure from any direction or any other institution. Although this implies a rejection of the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) verdict convicting him of contempt of court, nevertheless the PM in the next breath advised Nawaz Sharif to hold his horses until the detailed judgment of the SC, implying an appeal against the judgment, a process that must be exhausted before the question of starting the process of settling the future of the PM. Gilani’s defence lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan has supported his client’s view that only the Speaker of the National Assembly can disqualify the PM.Meanwhile a familiar (from the past) war of words has broken out between Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik on the one hand and the Sharifs and Chaudhry Nisar on the other. This ‘war’ has been sparked by Rehman Malik’s opening up his guns against the Sharifs’ alleged corruption, bank loan fraud, etc. Malik has appeared on TV to flash documents he says are proof positive of his accusations. In reply to the harsh answers he has received from the Sharifs and Chaudhry Nisar for his pains, Rehamn Malik has challenged them to sue him for libel. Nawaz Sharif is now planning to stump all over the country to contact ‘like-minded’ opposition forces in the hope of forging a grand opposition alliance to launch a protest movement against Gilani continuing in office. However, at this time it is difficult to assess the chances of the success of such a venture, since despite their misgivings about the heightened confrontation between the executive and parliament on the one hand and the judiciary on the other, most people seem willing to wait for the judicial and political process to play itself out before they may be persuaded to pour out into the streets against the sitting PM.To those with living memories of the confrontations between the PPP and PML-N in the 1990s, all this may seem very much like déjà vu. However, while that decade of democracy ended in a military coup, if Chaudhry Shujaat is to be believed, the military is far from keen to take over and is only “observing” the situation from the sidelines. There is little doubt that given the plethora of serious problems confronting the country, it would need either extraordinary courage or foolhardiness to want to be responsible for running the country at present. What the deepening confrontation between the two main parties portends is the end of the period that began with the signing of the Charter of Democracy between the late Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in 2007 while both were in exile and out in the political cold. A pragmatic realisation that General Musharraf could not be removed ‘from the outside’ finally persuaded both rival parties to join hands. BB must be given the major credit for that political wisdom. This effort to bring the political class together to settle once and for all the fundamental rules of the political game was informed by its main thrust of taking a principled position against military dictatorship and the vow that neither side would indulge (a la the 1990s) in pulling down or toppling each other’s government’s by approaching and/or collaborating with military adventurers. The present developing scenario may persuade most that it is time for us to say adieu to any such ideas. Whether the confrontation between the two mainstream political camps will end up with the same result as at the end of the 1990s is not clear at this point, and Chaudhry Shujaat’s wisdom on the army’s reluctance to step in may carry a lot of weight. However, one conclusion seems inescapable: the Charter of Democracy, a good idea and one that most observers thought at the time was an idea whose time had finally come, seems dead in the water, with both sides of the political divide having to bear the cross of their responsibility for bringing things to this pass. RIP, Charter of Democracy. g Butchered in lieu of ransom How tragic that one of the select few international experts tasked with welfare operations in Pakistan met a horrific end in the very country he chose to help. The beheaded body of Dr Khalil Rasjed Dale, 60, a British national, who had been kidnapped on January 5 while on his way home from work was found on Sunday in an orchard near Airport Road, Quetta. Soon after his abduction, the Taliban had claimed responsibility. Last month, his captors had contacted his organisation, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and demanded $ 30 million as ransom. The ICRC could not meet their demand under its charter and the militants brutally killed him. The killing has brought condemnation from far and wide as the ICRC tirelessly works across the globe purely for the welfare of people regardless of their political affiliation, race, caste or creed. Owing to the poor security situation in the militancy-hit country, the ICRC and other international welfare organisations had already reduced their operations but after Dr Dale’s abduction, they had vowed to continue their work to show their commitment to the noble cause of serving the suffering people of Pakistan. Unfortunately, their sentiment was reciprocated with utter callousness and brutality.The government has to react appropriately as the issue of kidnapping for ransom is becoming serious and rampant with each passing day. For the terrorists, it has become one of the major sources of their funding. They have been abducting people, both Pakistani nationals and foreigners, and using the ransom to fund their terrorist activities. A number of innocents, including high profile people like Shahbaz Taseer and an American aid worker, Warren Weinstein, are still in their captivity. Recently, they released a Swiss couple, reportedly after receiving a hefty amount as ransom. Kidnapping for ransom seems to have been established as a thriving business. Captives are usually taken to the tribal areas as the writ of the state is weak in those places. They are even sold to other groups of abductors like commodities. The government has to take effective action against this racket. Nabbing only the kidnappers or their associates is not enough. There is a need to reach the base of their whole network and dismantle it. In the present circumstances, it has become risky for people to move around freely and for the international NGOs to carry on their welfare operations. Dr Dale’s ruthless murder has stained Pakistan’s name in the world community. The government has to act decisively against the perpetrators otherwise such tragic incidents would continue to make headlines. *