A long haul ahead

Assuming the 2018 general election goes ahead as scheduled and agreement is reached on boundary delimitation, it is a certainty that every day is going to see a new political headline. Last week was The Week of Impossible Alliances, both still-born, and the current week may be the week when the institutions of state are placed on the sidelines as far as confrontation goes.



Thus says the PML-N which has laid before the nation a policy of non-confrontation with state institutions which includes the army and the judiciary. Considering that several senior members of the PML-N have been deeply critical in public of at least the judiciary, we wonder how things might change. A basket of senior Sharifs have matters before the courts of considerable gravity, many if not all of which are not going to be resolved before polling day.

As ever there is no shortage of rumour with the most lurid of these being that there are plans to dissolve the assemblies. They are sternly denied as are the rumours of any rifts in the lower orders of the Sharif clan where all — allegedly — is sweetness and light and everybody is talking to one another and dropping in for tea and biscuits on a daily basis.

What is undeniable is that there are better-substantiated rumours of existing PML-N MNAs musing on the possibility of jumping ship, ably assisted nay encouraged by the establishment. In that event the party is unequivocal — ship-jumpers are gone once they have jumped and will not be received back into the fold if they find life elsewhere not as rewarding as they had expected.



Given that this is probably not the best time to be haranguing the judiciary with so much pending that is dependent upon its verdict(s), the ‘zero confrontation’ option is the wisest course. As to what the establishment may think about all this we have no insight at least in the public domain, but we are sure that back-channel communications will have been busy as the PML-N will be wanting a clear run at the polls. A long haul lies ahead.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th, 2017.

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