Our dysfunctional republic
“Anything can happen in life,” quips Michel Houellebecq, “especially nothing.”
The rumours that are making the rounds after the president left the country for a medical check up do hit one with a sense of déjà vu. Haven’t such rumours been the staple diet of mainstream media audiences ever since the government was formed? Since there is little internal accountability, if any, in the media, many pundits are still at their jobs, despite one deadline of theirs after another biting the dust.
Such rumours are, however, caused by a different set of stimuli every time, this time being no different. And it is an arresting case that they make. For starters, this time, the claims are being made not by some irresponsible Pakistani publication but by Foreign Policy magazine, no fly-by-night publication. The timing, also, is sort of right. The memo affair, for whatever it is worth, has stirred up a controversy that refuses to die. The embers are certainly being stoked constantly, not (only) for want of TV ratings but by the usual quarters that want to push the government into a corner. Couple this with the fact that the president has, in fact, left the country. Are these dots to be connected or just random coincidences?
This paper has it on good authority that the president did not leave on an air-ambulance; so he is not critically ill, as one rumour has it. The rumour that this is all a ruse to leave the country doesn’t hold up to the presidential doctor’s statement that it is a medical condition albeit not a critical one.
Even if these rumours are false – as they have been time and again – they should still serve to remind President Zardari and his government of how tenuous their hold on the seat of civil government is. If there is even an iota of truth in them, however, it serves to signify how dysfunctional our polity is. Significant changes in democracies simmer over months, if not years, and the politicking, even the behind-the-scenes variety, is reported by the media and is basically there for all to see.
