Therein lies the blame

Nawaz is a man stuck in a time warp of just under 30 years and it is unrealistic to expect him to deliver

Blaming Imran Khan for the general instability and internal deadline games being played by him and his team of grown men is not quite fair. He is getting away with what he is and is not doing merely because there is a yawning vacuum where there should be a government. Were the country to be defined by government, governance, the rule of law and all other such matters that make for, if not democracy, at least a viable state, Khan would not have got away with what he has got away with rather successfully and he would not still be on the warpath. He is doing what he is doing because he knows that he is dealing with a calibre that is the PML-N and its allies.



His mistakes are his waywardness and his inability to think things out and to force one sole point. No, it is not the recount of the election results in his chosen constituencies — though there is no valid reason other than a non-existent election commission why that should not have happened months ago. What he needs to go for, which the saner elements of the country would all back, are massive, structured electoral reforms that will eventually make multiple recount demands redundant.

All elections have been flawed, mightily flawed, even the much-vaunted 1970 election which allowed what would now be termed minor cheating, and 1977 fully acknowledged as rigged to the hilt. The 1980s and 1990s were plainly fraudulent, 2008 set by circumstances, and 2013 fluffed up almost purposefully by the ridiculous caretaker government put in place to organise and ‘oversee’ with a pathetically powerless election commission.

It is now fashionable, even mandatory, to warble on about preserving democracy (as if it had actually been in place at some point in time) and saving the ‘system’ without actually contemplating exactly what part of the rotted ‘system’ is worthy of saving. To be sure, not the electoral system, nor the election commission, as it is constituted to function, headed by a retired hamstrung judge who, even if he were capable, would not be allowed to institute any reforms that are vital, if what is universally regarded as democracy is to settle upon this unfortunate land at some future point. Mere survival for a stipulated term of a shabby government in no way denotes democracy. There is far more to it which we have so far missed out on.

The present set-up — not a government — and its opposition ally must shoulder the entire blame for the Imran Khan fiasco. The PML-N and the PPP, even at the height of their rivalry, have been brothers under the skin, each feeding off the other. Their present unity is convenient; it allows each a free rein to misuse power, to squander or stash away what it is they need from the national and provincial exchequers, and to unite in the face of the common enemy to whom they have yielded ground, thanks to their sheer corrupt, miserable inefficiency.

Khan is not that dim that he cannot spot the void, with there being no internal and no external policies. His supporters can also see it and palpably feel it. Those many who are urging Nawaz Sharif to ‘do more’ will get nowhere. He is a man stuck in a time warp of just under 30 years, as are a good many of his companions. It is unrealistic to expect them to deliver. The prime minister trots around the world, using up a good deal of money in lackadaisical fashion without producing any real rabbits out of his worn out hat, whilst at home his so-called government is besieged, with advisers and ministers shooting off statements at odds with each other.

Let us be grateful for small mercies. The nearest thing we have to a sensible foreign minister is our army chief.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th,  2014.

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