Fraying at the edges

The nation is looking distinctly febrile as the days tick off to the dissolution of the government and the next general election. The Panama Papers episode continues to be politically corrosive, and its effects far reaching. The unseating of Nawaz Sharif would have been unthinkable prior to this affair, and the PML-N has taken hits that are not mortal and most still predict that the next trip to the polls will again see them victorious, though no majorities are being predicted. In Karachi, the MQM continues to painfully fragment itself and is increasingly looking like a shadow of its former self, the political world having moved on from the days of its formation. The PPP with its lopsided binary leadership is probably going to hang on to Sindh but is also a fading figure and in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa the PTI and its mercurial leader is also likely to scrape together a majority.

Whilst the ailments of all the mainstream parties are on public display they remain invisible to the cohort of leaders at their shaky helms, all of which are assuring anybody willing to listen — and do not be persuaded that all political gatherings are representative of actual votes to be cast — that their particular ship may have a few leaks and yes some of the crew have donned the lifebelts and jumped overboard, but the ship itself is still upright and probably better off for losing those now swimming in the direction of other political shores.

Looking at the parties and their leaders from a safe distance it is possible to discern that these are old men occupying pedestals that are being eroded by changing demographics and shifting loyalties, perhaps the last of their generation and being careful not to let anything as trivial as succession planning get in the way of them. The last thing any of them wants or is able to envision is a time beyond them, and there has been no attempt to nurture or allow to grow a ‘next generation’ of political youngsters. The kindergarten is empty, and that may be the biggest collective mistake all of them have made.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2018.

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