The art of going wrong collectively?

There is a hint of indirectly revealed truth in Nawaz Sharif ’s reluctance to topple the PPP coalition government.

President Zardari is looking around for support among parties that have collectively or singly sought the end of his party’s rule in the recent past. He wants to discuss “important national issues” at an all-parties (or round table) conference (APC) with them because the PPP government is too weak to take decisions that the masses would reject unless their political leaders persuaded them not to do so.

There is a whole list of ‘national issues’ pertaining to the economy on which he has already had the measure of the opposition; there is also the additional issue of Raymond Davis, an American who has killed two men in Lahore, whose politically ordained acquittal from a Lahore court could mean a serious rupture of relations with the United States. What will the opposition tell him?

We have already sized up the parties opposed to the government in respect of their proposed ‘solutions’ for the ailing national economy and come to the conclusion that the solutions are either impracticable or ineffective as applied to the immediate needs of the economy. If the APC backs what political leaders and retired bureaucrats from the Foreign Office are recommending on TV, then it will be a collective blunder. And if the PPP government does not act upon its recommendations, then it will have burned another bridge to its survival in power.

The government is already in consultation with the largest party in the opposition, PML-N, about what to do with the economy. It looks like a kowtow because the consultations followed the issuance of an ultimatum by Nawaz Sharif, who is struggling to find middle ground between hawks and doves in his own party. The interim report from Mr Sharif on how the consultations are going is negative, which could mean that the results of the APC would come to nought or that it will be boycotted.

The media is somehow convinced that since the PPP government has proved to be incompetent it must be pulled down constitutionally, through a no-confidence move in parliament. This ‘verdict’ of TV anchors and hosts may be founded on the mistake of not objectively examining the country’s overall governance, under attack from terrorism and general insecurity that comes from the isolationism of Pakistan’s army-driven foreign policy. Mr Sharif is frequently accused by TV hosts of being a ‘friendly opposition’, as if the constitution allowed only a hostile opposition, its instincts honed on toppling governments.

There is a hint of indirectly revealed truth in Mr Sharif’s reluctance to topple the PPP coalition government. He may think that it would be the wrong moment to take over and run the country because of the conditions prevailing in the country, which prevent normal governance. He has had a taste of it in Punjab, where his party has not covered itself in glory after the ouster of the government of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi. His brother, Shahbaz Sharif, has been highly regarded as an administrator in the past but, this time around, he has failed to tame the province, despite an affectionate electorate.

Facts being revealed in respect of Raymond Davis tell us that, under international law, Pakistan must treat him as a diplomat and let him go. At least three TV discussions carried out with experts from Pakistan, the UK and the US reveal that the Foreign Office had accepted, without demur, a notification from the US Embassy in Islamabad designating Davis as an American diplomat. But most retired generals and diplomats want Pakistan to stand up on its hind legs and punish the American. The idea is to end the ‘American nexus’ once and for all.

Will the APC look seriously at the consequences of defying international law and then advise the government not to fly off the handle? Or will it recommend standing up to a superpower widely perceived as a bully, hanging Davis and kicking out ‘thousands of Blackwater terrorists’ that our Urdu columns keep telling us are infesting Pakistan? Alas, chances are that the APC will announce unrealistic earth-shaking decisions instead of pragmatic solutions. And if the government comes out of the APC saying it can’t execute its directives, it will look worse than it is looking now.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 10^th, 2011.