
There was another missing component — any coherent plan or common strategy presented to the attendees as to how the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was going to be unseated. Instead we had the tedious spectacle of parliament being cursed by all and sundry, the joint leader of the PPP making something of a fool of himself by declaring that he could bring the government down any time he liked (he cannot) and Messrs Sheikh Rashid and Imran Khan both announcing their likely imminent resignation from the legislature for reasons as clear as mud.
This was a gathering with all the resonance of a cracked bell. There was no strategy to oust the PML-N. The PAT chairman, here on holiday from his home in Canada, announced that there was to be a meeting ‘in the next few days’ to finalise a plan for future protest strategy but no mention of strategy formulation. And everybody had been there before. There was not the slightest indication that this event and the leaders present presented any threat to the government. Any ‘charter of demands’ that may be cobbled together can be safely ignored as have all the other demands made in The Day of the Dharna. Government 1, Protesters 0. Date for a rematch unannounced.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2018.
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