Those in favour of the talks can’t seem to get around to them
No, they weren’t a referendum on the Taliban. The polls of 2013 weren’t all about this issue. But this was, indeed, the most divisive issue and there was no sitting on the fence for this one. The PML-N and the PTI were the big winners of the elections and this was a point of view they had been rallying around since long. It was this stance, in fact, that made their transition into power smooth sailing. Not to imply that the PTI, for instance, wouldn’t have gotten the provincial government that it did but it was definitely smoother sailing than it would have been had the ANP not been targeted even at corner meetings, what to speak of rallies.
The fact of the matter remains that two parties, one at the federal level and another at the province most affected by terror, which were on the same page on the issue of terrorism, were replaced by two others that shared another point of view about the war on terror.
Six months have passed. How are these two parties acting up on their plans? Granted, this is a complex issue, one that cannot possibly be solved overnight. But it appears that there really is no clarity on the issue. There isn’t a culture of shadow cabinets in Pakistan but given that this issue was so central to the elections, one would have thought both the League and the PTI would hit the ground running on the terror front.
The negotiations are proving difficult not only because of how ugly it would look to talk to militant groups that openly claim credit for terrorist activities that continue to take place but also because they have repeatedly denied any desire on their part to talk to the Pakistani government.
In the light of all this, the two parties are desperately clutching on to any possible straws that they can. And in Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, they have found an individual that appears to hold sway over the Taliban. After all, didn’t a huge number of them receive portions of their education at his seminary in Akora Khattak? Perhaps. But certain analysts claim this supposed leverage is overstated. Much water has passed under the bridge since their days there and that they have come to view the Maulana in the same category as the JUI’s Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, who is also, incidentally, offering himself for a role of mediation.
We shall see how this cooption of the two Maulanas plays out. It almost certainly won’t be what the government would want but the electorate has spoken in the elections and the government is mandated to make even bad decisions.