Daily Times

Pakistan Awami Tehreek-led (PAT) anti-government rally and the protest drive are yet another reminder that politics makes strange bedfellows.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have joined Tahirul Qadri as he announced his latest movement to force provincial and federal governments on Wednesday.

The ‘grand alliance’ is indeed an unusual development because the parties involved have been on loggerheads not too long ago. How can one forget Imran Khan’s claims that after Nawaz Sharif, it would be’ Asif Ali Zardari’s turn to be held accountable’, and Qadri’s statements during his 2013 protest when he spoke against the then PPP government?

Moreover, PPP leadership had lately been reiterating that it would not become a part of any steps to topple the democratically-elected government. PPP’s participation in the alliance is indeed ironic, given that its chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari recently promised to ‘return ideology back to politics’.

There certainly are no permanent friends and foes in politics, but when the politicians take 180-degree U-turns from their long-held positions overnight, questions need to be asked. In the past few months, Pakistan has witnessed several events explained by parties involved as attempt sat political engineering — first, there was Pak Sarzameen Party’s (PSP) potential merger with MQM-Pakistan, and then the mystery surrounding the change of government in Balochistan.

With just a few months left in the next general elections, the country cannot afford any misadventures. Therefore, the opposition parties in the latest ‘grand alliance’ must ensure that they do not become part of any plans of undemocratic forces.

The opposition parties have vowed support to the PAT chief who has been demanding justice for the victims of police brutality in Model Town incident. Justice for those victims is a genuine demand and those responsible must be brought to the book. However, the politicisation of the issue is not how that is going to happen. The PAT leadership has failed to pursue the case effectively on the legal front and has only used it to stir public emotions. It is about time politicians stopped playing politics on the bodies of their deceased workers and leaders. The act of politicking over tragedies needs to stop.  *

Published in Daily Times, January 19^th 2018.