Opposition leader — at last

The formal appointment of Mehmood Khan Achakzai as leader of the opposition, after a hiatus owing to power politics, should serve as a first thaw. Incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan had proposed his name after Omar Ayub had been unseated by the election commission on a contentious judicial ruling in the May 9 riots case.

Since then, the opposition had lingered peerlessly in the National Assembly, and was more in an agitational mode than acting as an assertive shadow entity on the floor of the house. As Achakzai, a veteran politician, is also the chairman of the six-party anti-government alliance, TTAP, he has a responsibility to dispense: to guide the polarised synergies towards a path of reconciliation in order to attain political and economic stability.

The delay on the part of the ruling coalition, as the post had been vacant since August 7 last year, was unwarranted. The treasury had, in fact, pushed the opposition to the wall. It had defied all norms of legality and morality, denying a lawful audience with the jailed former prime minister and cracking down hard on dissenting voices. That spell of highhandedness must come to an end, and its high time politics was channelised through the parliament. For this to happen, the PTI must revisit its stance and, likewise, the government ease restrictions by providing due political space to the opposition. A series of confidence building measures are indispensable and the first step could be to start talking without conditionalities.

Achakzai and the opposition, including the newly-crafted NDC of Fawad Chaudhry, have come up with a minimum agenda: release of political prisoners, including Imran Khan, and parleys for restoring the 1973 Constitution. Better sense must prevail to usher in rule of law and ensure that soaring parochialism is rooted out. The leader of the opposition must lead from the front and galvanise all political forces onto the negotiating table. The government has no choice but to go by the book and oblige with the opposition's lawful demands.