The three judges of the 5-member Khosa bench who wanted detailed investigations before disqualifying the prime minister have proved deadlier to the Sharif family than the two who declared him dishonest straight away. The three judges named their own investigators, duly backed and fully assisted by the military and the ISI and asked the team to ignore the rest of the world and complete its job in total secrecy. Now we have learnt what the team was doing even on holidays and weekends, writing dozens of official letters worldwide, seeking documents, travelling overseas, getting forensic tests of documents, thrashing records and collecting boxes of evidence. Their success was in completely hiding what they were doing from the government and the Sharif family. The family appeared before the team not to answer questions but to find out in what direction the JIT was moving. They got sucked in deeper and deeper without fathoming the depth of the black hole they had jumped into. Now the prime minister and his family have very limited options. They can argue in the SC against the JIT findings but the documents are incontrovertible, specially coming from foreign governments. They can cry about conspiracies by one and all, civilians, political and apolitical, and the judicial/military establishments. That may hardly help. They can blame and accuse the opposition but that means little as their main opponent Imran Khan has already declared that he would not mind if he was disqualified provided he gets rid of the ruling mafia. Despite numerous provocations and abuse, both the judicial and military leadership kept a stony cool, not getting distracted and always insisting that the law will take its course, the system would not be derailed and all have to accept the decisions given lawfully by competent courts. So the choice before Mr Nawaz Sharif is whether he goes down alone or takes the entire system with him. The irony is that in both cases he and his family will be a loser. The only chance to avoid harsh treatment and get some political sympathy would be if PML-N finds an alternate leader, with Sharif’s blessings, and retains some remote hold on coming decisions. If the entire system goes down, the new interim set up will not be of their choice or liking and they will have nobody to protect them. That may not be a good option. The entire political opposition, barring the odd JUI, is demanding Sharif’s resignation, as that may be the only way to keep democracy and the system afloat. But Mr Nawaz Sharif seems too adamant and too scared to give up his hold. He does not even trust his family members, although it may already be too late to bring a smooth change through the parliament. His party has turned from a herd of sacred cows to a bunch of scared crows as no leader has dared to raise one word against the leader, although the entire issue was Sharif’s personal conduct or his family’s crooked businesses. This is not a good omen. The choice before Nawaz Sharif is whether he goes down alone or takes the entire system with him. In both cases, he and his family will lose The party failed to perform in and outside parliament as a political entity and some cronies took up the accountability of the PM and his private businesses as a national issue threatening democracy. That only demonstrates the weakness and lack of any depth in the system. The national consensus of all others sections of the society is that no one should and would be allowed to derail democracy. Nawaz tried his best to find an excuse to get kicked out extra-constitutionally to go as a martyr with a slogan to fight back. That did not happen. His chances of staying eligible to even contest the next election, whenever that may be, are getting remote by the day. Only Mr Sharif has to be blamed for his politically wrong and incomprehensible decisions that allowed what could have been a manageable matter to become a noose around his whole family. If he wants the noose to engulf his entire party, that would again be a suicidal move. A big sacrifice is needed, and quickly, before the window to offer a political solution closes on the Sharif family. He could then save some political capital and use what he claims to be a large voter base to survive. Any delay and attempts to prolong the inevitable by a desperate legal fight back will only weaken him, probably damaging him and his family further. The judicial and military establishments have cleverly, clearly and vocally announced that no political change would stop or slow down projects like CPEC and society’s march towards a corruption free, terrorism free Pakistan. The sooner the Sharif family gets this message, the better. The writer is a senior journalist Published in Daily Times, July 14th , 2017.