Don’t worry, be happy?

The affairs of the republic are not in order and there is great disturbance under the Heavens.

Here’s why:

There is unease about this government. The unease is not about the Prime Minister’s intentions or motivations; it’s not about his outlook or determination; it’s not even about his team’s sincerity or focus — it is, in fact, none of these but the inability of the PTI leadership to get a grip on things.

The grip on things? Isn’t that a bit vague? Yes in of itself, it is. But link one event to another, one slip-up to another, one gaffe to another, one bad policy to another, one confusing project to another, one wrong appointment to another, and suddenly the original vagueness evaporates like a puff of steam.

Things are not adding up. People are not measuring up. Hopes are not rising up.

It is tempting to blame three people: Asad Umar, Usman Buzdar and Mehmood Khan (remember him?). They are convenient fall guys for a government that is groping in the dark for some sense of…anything/something. But there is more to the PTI’s failure than the failings of three men. The failure may have something to do with PTI leaders misreading the problem-versus-solution matrix. In other words, they completely goofed up their understanding of how to solve Pakistan’s problems.

No, it is not as simple as changing the batting order. Cricket analogies go only so far. In fact, their obsessive usage to explain complicated situations has contributed a lot in dumbing down the understanding and appreciation of these complexities. Naiveté sounds cute on a container; not so much in the PM Office.

So here we are — eight months into tabdeeli — adrift in a shallow sea of bewilderment. A sudden gale of half-baked ideas pushes us east; an impromptu blast of whispered policy blows us west. Promised true north, all affairs seem to head south. Flashes of brilliance illuminate the dark sky like bolts of lightning but disappear under the pall of a menacingly gray horizon. The waves will take us where they may.

But that’s not the only worry.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is on a roll. He’s stealing everyone’s thunder. He’s uttering the right things, taking the right positions and venting the right frustrations; he’s making the right mix of anger, mockery, and sarcasm; he’s swirling the right cocktail of passion, emotion and umbrage. And yet he stands no chance to make a bid for power, or even present himself as a viable alternative to the present bumbling dispensation. His party’s rout in Punjab is complete. So is his party’s rout in people’s perceptions. He will have to fight the demons of his father’s legacy before he is ready to fight the demons of the PTI government’s legacy.

But that’s not the only worry.

The mighty PML-N once sat on the Iron Throne. Today it finds itself banished to the far corners of the realm. For the House Sharif, winter is truly here. But even as icy winds sweep across the desolation of Raiwind, there flickers still a flame of hope — a warm glow in the midst of a bleak and frigid political landscape. The party retains its core parliamentary strength in Punjab and the Centre. It also retains its centre of gravity in the shape of Mian Nawaz Sharif. Despite the electoral beating, judicial shackling and institutional nabbing, the PML-N remains the only viable contender for power and a realistic alternative to the PTI. And yet, the party has straitjacketed itself in its own unresolved contradictions and contraventions.

The roar of defiance that once echoed across the campaign trail has today trailed off into a thick fog of studious silence. It is a silence birthed less by strategy and more by confusion. Should the party as a whole shake fists or shake hands? Should it crease its face into a scowl or a smile? Should it plan to resist power or plan to claw its way back into power?

After the PTI’s eight disastrous months, any sane person would take a second look at the PM-N. But what would that person see? He/she would see a party that is unsure of what it wants for itself, let alone what it wants for the voters. PML-N leaders will need to go back to the drawing board and conjure up a plan based on the variables of today, not yesterday or the day before. The PTI’s incompetence has opened up a chink in the government’s armour. Is the PML-N ready and able to shoot an arrow through it?

But that’s not the only worry.

Here is the real worry: between an incompetent PTI, a discredited PPP, and a shell-shocked PML-N riddled with internal confusion; who is there to look after the country? Run the country? Decades of political experiments, selfish power-plays, and myopic policy prescriptions have brought us to a level where a nation of 220 million people cannot find a few good men and women to govern it. Every other crisis pales in comparison to this self-inflicted one.

The Establishment is not the umpire. It is a stakeholder in the system — and a major one at that, generally speaking. If the Establishment wants a government — any government — to be stable, be able, be clean, and be willing to share the burden of power, is this asking for too much? Is it impossible to craft a government that can work smoothly with the Establishment and yet is competent enough to govern Pakistan out of this crisis mode? Is it impossible to craft a government that is burdened neither with corruption nor with incompetence; that is comfortable working within the system and yet experienced enough to reform the system; that is electable enough to enjoy the nourishment of legitimacy and yet not weak enough to be held hostage to the clowns that electability throws up in every election?

If it is indeed impossible to craft such a government, then we should all start to officially worry. Unless of course someone, somewhere, somehow has a Plan B. Or a Plan C. Or a Plan D…

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2019.

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