Before the government or the opposition go on any longer about the alleged role of the so called establishment in Pakistan’s politics, perhaps it’s wise for both to take a step back and consider the effect of all this on the people. It is, after all, the ordinary people of the country that everybody who takes up politics swears to serve. And when the people are reduced to seeing a slugfest between the government and those who want to be in government over matters that concern neither governance nor people who are meant to be governed, they realise that their lot doesn’t really matter to those in the halls of power. Now we are about to see yet another round of agitation against a sitting government in which opposition forces will get together and blame the last election result on interference from the establishment. The government, then, will respond with the usual rebuttal and claim that the election was the fairest in the history of the country, and so this back-and-forth will go on. Surely all this will take a lot of energy and resources on the part of both the government and the opposition; things that were much better directed towards the interests of the state and the people. It is surprising, really, that the opposition still needs to be reminded that its job is to keep checks on the government but in matters that concern governance and the people, not who played what role in which election. That is so because they too have won many a suspect election and were fine with the results all those times. And if the government and the brass are on the same page, and the country has been battling an unprecedented situation quite successfully, then it is a good thing at the end of the day. The way things are going the opposition seems unable to mount an offensive against the government’s work plan, therefore it seems bent upon delegitimising it by attacking the nature of the election itself. But in that it is only feeding an already frenzied international media, especially in India, and everybody is talking about how another storm is brewing in Pakistan. Both the government and the opposition must realise that they exist to serve the people and the state. That is all. Therefore they must direct all their energies towards what they are supposed to do. Perhaps then the fate of the ordinary people will finally begin to improve. *