Daily Times

Pakistan is a country that never forgets. At least when it comes to changing sides. To turning coats to chase someone else’s tails. Nawaz Sharif is a man who knows this better than most. After all, he played his part in this great game. From being a proponent of a particular military regime. To taking his cut in the orchestrated poll rigging of the 1990 elections of yesteryear. Yet it was his reinvention as a bonda fide democrat that saw him come undone.

And now, with the King dethroned, his footmen are falling one by one. The question now remains: to what extent should a thrice-elected Prime Minister who has less than clean hands keep fighting the good fight? It is democracy he is striving for? Or, else, his own political legacy? To ponder the aforementioned is to invite yet more puzzlement. When, if at all, comes the point whereby a flawed but fledgling democratic system must keep going for the greater good; clean slates and all?

Pakistan, sadly, has still to reach this point.

The PMLN continues to pay the price of the elder Sharif’s ‘sins’. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is but the latest of all the King’s men to bite the dust, politically speaking. And this raises yet more concerns about the need for the prevailing structure to be more self-corrective. The former premier has been disqualified from contesting the elections from one of two constituencies due to what is, in reality, a mere technicality. Had it been otherwise, he should naturally have been barred from both. Significantly, the petitioner included in the charge-sheet against Abbasi his support for the Nawaz interview in which the latter contended that the security establishment harboured certain militant outfits which  crossed the border to kill innocents.

Even political rivals are now finding it hard to not to refer, in hushed tones, to how the playing field has not been levelled but razed. If this were another time and country, perhaps opponents would stand united with the persecuted. As not only a goodwill gesture but as investment in democracy’s future. Yet as things currently stand, it is becoming increasingly hard to not talk about witch-hunts.

This is reinforced by news of how the caretaker set-up has suddenly and rather mysteriously lifted a ban on proscribed sectarian outfit Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat (ASWJ); an entity that has been intermittently outlawed since 2002. This reversal of fortunes also extends to its leader, Mohammad Ahmed Ludhivani. The ASWJ is not hanging around to see if the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will register it ahead of next month’s polls. Instead, it has taken a leaf out of Hafiz Saeed’s book and is all set go ballot-boxing on the Pak Rah-e-Haq Party (PRHP) ticket.

Which leaves Pakistan at a crossroads. Sacrificing Nawaz will mean haemorrhaging the democratic structure. And the country can ill afford life-support. Not when extremists are no longer waiting in the wings but are moving centre stage. Thus the entire political leadership across the great divide must do the needful. That is, come together for the betterment of the system, citizenry and country. If, that is, democracy is ever to truly be the best revenge.  *

Published in Daily Times, June 29^th 2018.