I see an increasing number of self-anointed pontiffs — the ones who have made it a habit to sit on judgment on people — to be suffering from one or another version of a fundamental ailment. One may call it being blind to reality, or creeping senility, or just plain downright lunacy. It is all discernible in varying hues and shades in their pronouncements which come forth with unceasing frequency, more now that the elections are nearing. There is so much that they see which is not there, and there is so much that they refuse to see which is visible around in great abundance. The manner in which these pontiffs have tried building a persona around Nawaz Sharif, placing him in an overly hallowed sanctum, defies logic. He is dubbed as a champion of democracy, the one who has dared to stand up to the military to blunt their effort to intervene. He is promoted as a squeaky clean person who is being wrongly sullied by his detractors. His corruption is blown away as a figment of his adversaries’ imagination and his pitiable unsuitability to be a leader of a nation is a tale traced to fiction. On the other hand, beginning with the early-morning tweets of some who claim to belong to the tribe of the blue-blooded journalists, Imran Khan is projected as the devil incarnate. There is an indescribable potion of bias, prejudice, even venom when it comes to dealing with him, his associates, or his vision of a Pakistan which will be qualitatively different from the one which has been visible over seven decades of misrule and exploitation. Every move he makes and every word he speaks is aptly construed as fulfilment of a prophecy of disaster that is in store for Pakistan if he were given a chance to rule this country. Who was Nawaz Sharif, and how was he hoisted to be the finance minister of the province of Punjab? How did he manage to push his way through to the ruling elite? None of Imran’s critics would like to recall that Nawaz’s political birth is owed to the lap of General Jilani and his subsequent growth to the feeder of General Zia I have issues with a fair bit of what Khan stands for. What, for example, could be a bigger irony, what could be a graver travesty than persons of dubious backgrounds becoming the arbiters of the electoral fate of people like Walid Iqbal? But, then, I am also reminded of what he once said: “Where should I get people from? Import them from outside that they could be better and more dedicated? I have to get them from here, and that is the stock I have”. This still does not exonerate him from taking the blame for the choice he has made. His critics can’t see, or opt not to see so much which has gone into the making of leaders like the Sharifs and the Bhutto/Zardaris of this land, and how much Khan is different from them, both in instinct and essence. By some, Khan is dubbed as the best among a bad lot –- the bad lot being the people who have ruled the country hitherto, and the ones he is surrounded with. So be it. Political compulsions aside, he is decidedly not corrupt, not even corruptible, and is most definitely driven by an urge to do good to Pakistan. One may disagree with many of his predilections. His plunge into the realm of spirituality-laden regression is degrading, as may be much else. But, that’s not what leadership is all about. There is no denying his deep-rooted genuineness. He stands out among a corrupt coterie of word-mongers who have amassed sordid empires built on the skeletons of the impoverished and the marginalised. Khan, on the other hand, has contributed, in no small measure, to investing in the welfare of the ordinary people, be it in the field of health or education. And this has been done without scavenging the state coffers. But, his critics see no harm in defiling him, in casting him in the shadow of the devil. In the process, they forget where his adversaries came from, the Sharifs and the Bhutto/Zardariset al of our time. For Nawaz Sharif, it goes back to the demonic days of General Zia ulHaq, the one who contrived the present-day misery to be heaped upon this state. Who was Nawaz Sharif, and how was he hoisted to be the finance minister of the province of Punjab? How did he manage to push his way through to the ruling elite? None of these critics would like to recall that his political birth is owed to the lap of General Jilani and his subsequent growth to the feeder of General Zia that he drank from so consummately. From there on, it were his purse strings doing the trick for him. He is the original architect of the game of buying-and-selling in the annals of politics. He had a price tag for every soul and the corresponding funds to pay. That’s how he secured his way to the chief minister’s house, and on to the prime minister’s. But his purse needed to remain filled to be used again. That’s why it kept germinating, ending up building a mountain of ill-gotten billions with no end in sight. Ask him where it all came from, and he has the Qatari letters to offer, nothing more. But his admirers can’t see this. His admirers also can’t see his despotic instinct. He could be anything but democratic. He is the one who has craftily built a family oligarchy garbed as a political party. This is devoted solely to advancing his personal interests which are rooted in him, or his anointed ones, staying in power to perpetuity. So far as he is concerned, that is the beginning as well as the end of democracy. Lest we forget, he is the one who tried pushing through the notorious 15th amendment to the constitution designed to ultimately declaring him the Ameer ulMomineen of the Islamic Republic. The move was aborted because of rebellion from within his own party. He is also the one who orchestrated the attack on the supreme court of the country by his goons when he thought that his rule was faced with judicial threat and resorted to having journalists kidnapped who were perceived to be opposing his draconian style of governance. He lied on the floor of the parliament rubbishing it later as a political speech. His subsequent two statements were mutually contradictory, and everything he presented in the accountability court belied all his previous protestations. He forged documents and deeds in an effort to deceive the court. His defence was one mammoth pile of lies. He had the parliament amend a previous law to legitimise a person, who is disqualified to being a member of the parliament, to continue heading a political party. This self-serving enactment was later declared unconstitutional by the apex court. He ruled through excessive politicisation of all state institutions, including the bureaucracy, creating a battalion of sycophants ingratiating them to take an oath of loyalty to his person. In return, they were granted unprecedented gratifications in addition to their original benefits. This is all unravelling in the corruption cases against over fifty companies operating in the province of Punjab alone. When under pressure because of the Panama revelations, he decamped to London feigning sickness which either was not the case at all, or excessively exaggerated to win political sympathy. He is now doing the same with the illness of his wife who is kept in a London hospital with daily bulletins addressed at garnering support in the political arena. This appears to be the Sharif version of a trick originally mastered by the Bhutto/Zardari clan who have traditionally used their dead to curry political support. This time around, it appears to be a case of overkill and there are indications that all this may be fading away with the coming elections promising a different kind of battleground. At this critical juncture, what we need is a leadership with an unsullied past to lead the country through these turbulent times. Such a leadership will require the services of the very best in constituting a credible and efficient team for doing an increasingly difficult job A cursory glance at the doings of the Bhutto/Zardari clan — the political progeny of that other dictator FM Ayub Khan — would tell you what a miserable legacy they have left behind, both at the centre and in Sindh. Karachi and the rest of the province are littered with garbage with no drinking water available. Funds which were to be invested in the welfare of the people have been siphoned out of the country and remain untraceable in spite of the sporadic efforts of the judiciary and the accountability bureau. The provincial administration remains beholden to furthering the interests of the ruling syndicate with the poor languishing for two miserly meals a day, bulk of them going empty-stomached for days. The dawning of a celestial will and the subsequent sabotage of the probe into the murder of Benazir Bhutto require a comprehensive investigation to unveil the real culprits. What does this amount to? Is this the Sharif or Bhutto/Zardari brand of democracy — preaching democracy in the country, but running their political parties as personal fiefdoms? Is this the recipe for bringing salvation to the teeming millions subsisting on the fringes of existence, and those who continue to plunge deeper into the torment of poverty and deprivation? There is another twist given to the possible outcome of the forthcoming elections: the alleged involvement of the so-called mil-establishment, the aliens as they are referred to. If the military people have had a penchant, albeit excessive at times, to doctor the fate of the country, the political orphans have had an insatiable lust to sit in their laps to create, advance, even resurrect their political careers, the Sharifs and Bhutto/Zardaris being no exception to the rule. So, when it works to their advantage, they are declared the patron saints, but when that may not be the case, they are dubbed as species come from an outer world. If some mil-establishment critics are finding synergy in the current narrative of Nawaz Sharif, let me assure them that, given half a chance, he would go crawling to their doorstep to save both his tottering political empire and his illicit wealth worth billions stashed in foreign lands. That is the putrid stock he is made of. The traditional mafias which have ruled the country taking turns are inimical to the prospect of change. Their power is based in maintaining the status-quo, in fact rendering it more regressive to further strengthen their hold. Be it the Sharifs, or the Bhutto/Zardaris, or a coterie of smaller concoctions, they are now fighting a battle of their survival in the political arena. There is a choice to be made here: survival and further perpetuation of the traditional corrupt ruling beneficiary elite, or sustenance and ultimate progress of the state? Should Pakistan be left entangled in the self-driven interests of the traditional ruling mafias, or should it be freed to breathe in an air that may bring along promise and salvation?This is a critical paradigm that may chisel the course that Pakistan would take in the coming times. The beneficiary mafias know that they are under threat and that their political future would be at stake if Khan were to succeed. Consequently, the venom of their tongue and the power of their coffers have combined to generate a battalion of cronies who disgrace their profession by serenading a song of abject subservience. Pakistan has become a difficult country to rule, and will be made even more so by the vile machinations of those who are defeated in the elections. They will fully exploit the caveats in the system to create unprecedented obstacles in the path of change if any such thing is ever visualised. So, the new government, as and when it is administered an oath, will have to begin at the beginning — with improving the system. Through multiple ill-conceived amendments, it has been rendered impractical. The contradictions have to be eliminated to generate clarity and precision so that it would become an effective tool in the hands of the government to initiate a change that has been long overdue. Institutions are needed in this country — viable, credible, independent, empowered, transparent and accountable institutions which should do their job as transcribed in the law. They should also be free of the stranglehold of the executive and be subservient to a self-regulating mechanism geared to making them powerful instruments of good governance instead of rendering them compliant with the will of an individual, or a coterie of sycophants who drum the beat of their lords and masters. Rather than pursuing a conflict course, the government has to work with other state institutions, including the military. It cannot contemplate power at the cost of them as that would be counter-productive, even self-destructive. The tradition of bullying their way through by state institutions will have to be remedied forthwith and a sustainable consultative mechanism developed to cultivate and strengthen intra-institution working and inter-institution cohesion and harmony. They should all respect and work strictly within the operational parameters as defined in the constitution. Pakistan is virtually buried under a monster of debt. Its external component has crossed the $90 billion mark with the internal component surpasses the number of zeroes available that could be placed alongside the figure. The debt built during the 5 years of the Sharifs’ most recent stint in power almost equals the entire debt built over the preceding sixty-five years. Paying this off would be a Herculean challenge for the next government. Accountability should be a continuing phenomenon built into the working of the state. It should not be beholden to the whims and fancies of individuals, no matter how powerful. It should be indiscriminate and across-the-board and the state should be cleansed continually of corruption as it moves along. Simultaneously, the priorities for development will have to be remodelled and substantially enhanced allocations made for the sectors of education, health, social emancipation and empowerment of the poor and the marginalised communities so that they could become involved as engines of national growth. Pakistan is blessed with enormous potential and resources. What it has lacked through decades is leadership that would be committed to advancing the cause of the people in preference to their personal interests. In the process, the state has been rendered weak and the personal coffers of the leaders, both here and abroad, have grown phenomenally. This must end even if strict laws were to be enacted for the purpose. Pakistan’s wealth should stay here and be invested in the welfare of its people. At this critical juncture, what we need is a leadership with an unsullied past to lead the country through these turbulent times. Such a leadership will require the services of the very best in constituting a credible and efficient team for doing an increasingly difficult job. My plea would be to ensure that the elected leadership is granted this prerogative to drive the country along the thorny road to recovery. This may not lead to a state created in the image of the Quaid’s August 11 speech, but freeing the country from the evil stranglehold of the forces of status-quo would be a necessary first step in ultimately transiting to the dream of a liberal, just, equitable and egalitarian Pakistan. The writer is a political and security strategist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute — an Islamabad-based think tank. Email: raoofhasan@hotmail.com. Twitter: @RaoofHasan Published in Daily Times, July 3rd 2018.