The prime minister didn’t exactly reveal anything unknown to Pakistanis when he pointed out that the country’ elite had got into the habit of avoiding accountability, and there’s no denying that his government has done its best to make accountability the cornerstone of its policy, but his remarks and their timing need a little explaining. First of all it says quite a lot that even after two-and-a-half years of this government not even a single corruption case has come to its logical conclusion. The country’s legal system is so painfully slow, and broken down, that the inability of courts to hand timely verdicts, which has resulted in a huge backlog of unsolved cases, has become the stuff of legend. And whenever the prosecution is able to make some progress in some high-profile corruption cases, the defendants are invariably able to get bail and take the sting out of the case, so to speak. The recent controversy about bail granted to opposition leaders Shahbaz Sharif is one such example, and now the prime minister and his team appear somewhat disheartened; even frustrated with the way things are progressing despite their best efforts. For even with all important state institutions apparently on the same page, and all agreed to take the scourge of corruption by the neck, progress is still painfully slow and not one case has come full circle so far. Perhaps the main problem is the single-minded pursuit of accountability and corruption even at the cost of other matters of governance and state. People at large have begun to lose interest in it because they do not see the economy functioning as it should and some are blaming the government for taking its eye off the ball in its obsession with trying opposition politicians on charges of corruption and misappropriation. The thing about the mantra of accountability is that it must accompany a general improvement in people’s living standards for the government of the day to maintain healthy approval ratings. That, unfortunately, has not happened in the last couple of years. If the economy were growing, jobs were aplenty and general income levels were good enough to offset out-of-control inflation in essential items, then nobody would have had a problem with the ruling party putting accountability at the top of its priority list for the time being. But since people’s lives have not improved, and practically nothing has come from two years of talking down the opposition, surely it is time for the government to revise its strategy. Most sitting ministers seem to believe that their number-one job is to badmouth the opposition, regardless of what portfolios they hold or what is really expected of them. It would be a good start, then, for the PM to order only the information ministry to do the talking and insist that all other cabinet members focus on showing results within their own domains. Otherwise they, too, should be held accountable. *