Daily Times

Public opinion is a construction: of media, of the governments and of everyday discourse influenced by media and the governments .It is therefore acknowledged and treated as though it were an objective reality to be discovered by taking account of assumed beliefs and expressed beliefs about public policy.

Lest, the truth shall eventually prevail but a political rhetoric in recent days has botched up an undemocratic polity in the spectrum of recent developments in the political landscape of the country. Amid hue and cry the political parties in the center and provinces were quick to incessantly clamour about their alacrity to topple the governments in the light of corruption accusations and political victimization.

The embattled PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari  whose name was placed on the Exit Control List (ECL) as a result of JIT report in the Fake Accounts Case ,expressed his views in a heated political atmosphere, as PTI leaders seek to replace the ruling PPP in Sindh, though later the mission was halted by the Prime Minister himself. Meanwhile, the PPP’s leadership also adopted a more strident tone against the PTI, accusing Prime Minister Imran Khan of being a puppet. PPP supremo strongly criticized the PTI government, saying that they know nothing about politics “as well as counting”. “I have 99 seats in Sindh and they (the PTI) will have to arrange 49 turncoats to form a government, because after the 18th Amendment you need more than 50 per cent majority for vote on the chief minister’s [slot].”

The political climate took interesting turn in Pakistan with a fear of toppling the federal government. After the JIT findings, PTI asked CM Sindh to resign. To add fire to the fuel, the Interior Ministry put CM Sindh’s name on ECL. However Chief Justice of Pakistan changed the course of action by questioning the government over putting name of CM Sindh on ECL. The chief justice chided JIT counsel and asked to explain why Bilwal Zardari was dragged into the case. He is just a kid and taking his mother’s legacy forward. The names of Bilawal Bhutto and Murad Ali Shah were included for point scoring, he remarked.

The political leaders in Pakistan have a knack to render themselves redundant from the democratic practices and norms and tinker with the public opinion to muster support and relevance whenever they feel threatened

Though the ransom notes by the political parties are tired tropes of political elite, regurgitating their quintessential political tactics, however, it is germane to reckon with the consequences of such political threats and maneuverings. The political parties are accustomed to bragging and taking pride in being the custodian of the masses, however the same masses are divorced from reality and willfully manage to stay aloof from what’s being bargained on their behalf.

The so-called voice of the people is largely manifested by those who already wield the greatest power and is then used to rationalize their policy decisions and mileage they yield disproportionately-simply by relying on misleading facts to manufacture a crisis and stoke fear, since opinions evoked by the statements and actions of those occupying the pedestal in the corridors of power and media inadvertently results in the creation of a polity far from democratic norms.

The political leaders in Pakistan have a knack to render themselves redundant from the democratic practices and norms and tinker with the public opinion to muster support and relevance whenever they feel threatened.

The year 2019 was welcomed by major political parties creating news headline about overthrowing the governments in Islamabad and Karachi, which ricocheted around the national debate in a problematic way. The PTI stalwarts being prisoners of their bravado- mobilized to create a pressure on PPP in Sindh, cementing public opinion against the party amid the JIT report which was made public even before the hearing in the Supreme Court. The PPP which is already grappling with its survival as a national party, that it once was, and facing innumerable court cases amidst the accountability campaign, took the opportunity to cease the public opinion through media to alter one that was being created by the government. The parties exchanged barbs and quintessential ransom notes eventually to withdraw from their positions.

We might not identify the winners or losers of this politically ludicrous droll but one thing was simply evident, both played in the hands of the same old masters. Taking account of the assumed beliefs and expressed beliefs about the agenda to discover reality would have been anathema for a few quarters but it’s the open truth-Ransom notes are prepared somewhere else, the agenda manufactured and the protagonists always behind the scenes.

The public opinion, come what may has already been created, the Supreme Court has watershed (whitewashed?) the concerns of the threatening parties and  the government has already sent the ECL list to the review committee. The concomitant results of this entire slapstick event are yet to be seen but the democratic polity has once again proved to the cynics of the system; the democrats would continue to serve and never rise to the occasion when needed, the actors may have changed but the strings are still attached to the package and that the accession to mendacity is the true reality of the entire system.

In the era of theatrics in politics, a good rule of thumb to follow is: always be suspicious of a story built around one issue that would threaten the entire system and project the bravado of a few ,the truth is willfully half-baked .Politics is everywhere but the reality is sacrosanct. Learn to dig in, for the devil is in the details.

Published in Daily Times, January 23^rd 2019.