The exit door beckons the prime minister

Beneficiaries of a corrupt system huddle to save it

The divide in the country is becoming increasingly clear: the beneficiaries of the existent system on the one side and those fighting it for a share of the pie on the other. In between are a few who are banking on their pound of flesh irrespective of the direction the battle may take ultimately.

The hurriedly-convened National Security Conference by the government was turned into an unsavoury platform for playing politics and advancing arguments favouring the continuation of a corrupt and decrepit system. The alternate arguments were available only outside the domain of the conference which was conspicuous by the absence of the interior minister and the Punjab chief minister. PTI had opted to boycott the conference.

Notwithstanding the hyperbole emanating from both sides of the divide, the tactics used by the government to gag political protest can be safely construed as bordering on the fascist. Lahore has been under siege for over a week now and its link with other parts of the country effectively cut off. If the Sharifs were heading a genuinely elected democratic government, why do they live in mortal fear of political protest and why do they have to resort to imposing draconian curbs on the movement of people which is the latter’s right as per the constitution that the two brothers and their paid cronies never tire of quoting from? Blocking the roads would not stop the people from converging on the location of protest. It would only make life more unbearable for the ordinary people, thus adding further to the resentment against the government.

Islamabad has already started looking like a ghost town with massive containers blocking the flow of traffic on all the city arteries. It has been completely sealed off for all incoming traffic from Rawalpindi and G. T. Road that will, in all probability, bring the main PTI procession into the capital, as well as from other parts of the country. This is all part of the fascist repertoire of the rulers who look absolutely disjointed in their response to the burgeoning crisis. It has also been virtually confirmed that the government does not plan to allow Tahirul Qadri and his people to leave Lahore and is determined to use the lethal state machinery to ensure that.

PML-N’s anti-army and anti-ISI agenda keeps finding voice in their leaders’ discourses, the latest being an accusation that the former spy chief was advising the PTI. The Prime Minister himself alleged that protests against governments usually take three to four years to begin, but agitation against his government had started within one year. This fatalistic preoccupation has brought about their downfall in the past and may expedite another one this time around.

The Prime Minister’s speech on August 12 was nothing but a painful harangue of what he claims his government is doing for the country. Towards the end of his speech, he offered to constitute a judicial commission, almost in passing, to look into allegations of rigging in the 2013 elections. I believe this to be too little, too late. If the Prime Minister was genuinely interested in averting a show-down, he should have taken steps a long time ago to engage the opposition in meaningful discussions with the help of intermediaries and well-wishers. But, given to indescribable arrogance and an emperor’s demeanour, he opted to remain aloof and left things to his decrepit and shameless foot-soldiers who, in addition to adding to the existing crisis, created a lot more by puking venom at other state institutions.

It is also true that, with the Prime Minister in the saddle, there is little prospect of remedy. Having taken political birth in the lap of the vilest military dictator that this country has known, he is used to behaving like one himself and no amount of good advice has been able to prevail upon him to banish the demons of fascism from the manner of his governance. The democratic apron is only a camaflouge that he wears to deceive the people and hide his real spots. So, the offer of constituting a judicial commission to look into the allegations of rigging does not mark a step forward because there is a vastly pervasive feeling that the ills of governance including corruption and the lack of transparency and delivery can be traced directly to his dictatorial and overbearing style. This includes the conspiracy to rig the last elections and steal the people’s mandate through a combination of the administrative and judicial measures and the help accorded by people who were ensconced in positions of power and influence. That having been done to its most lethal effect, there is little that can be achieved by way of progress without the principal culprit first leaving the stage. It is only then that the prospect of any genuine remedial initiative would be possible.

But leave Nawaz Sharif will not because he fully understands that, having stolen the last election, and with the crisis at hand and its possible repercussions, there is little that he would be able to do to influence any future election exercise either by way of securing votes on the basis of a credible performance of which there is none of, or by way of employing deceitful tactics and building mutually-beneficiary partnerships as he managed to do in 2013. So, in all probability, this appears to be his last stint in power and his coffers are not yet full. So, he needs a few more months in power to raise his financial stakes further – the principal objective of all his politics.

So, what do we expect later today? With the opposition led by Imran Khan not willing to be brought over to the negotiations table without the Prime Minister first resigning, and the government hell bent on using the worst of the fascist tactics to gag the opposition and stop it from marching to the capital, the scene is set for a violent show-down that may result in the toppling of the so-called democratic government and paving the way for just what the PTI chief wishes to be done: the induction of a technocratic government to do a non-partisan accountability, the constitution of a judicial commission to enquire into the conduct of the last elections and punishing the perpetrators of fraud if any, incorporating the necessary electoral reforms and preparing for the next elections within a specified time frame.

While everything else may be doable, even desirable, it is the time factor that may ultimately determine which way the country is headed by way of how it is to be governed. Notwithstanding the parliamentary system that we have, there is absolutely no harm in looking into its inherent drawbacks and reviewing options that may better suit Pakistan’s needs and requirements. A directly elected president with a cabinet comprising the best brains the country has may offer a better option for finding a way out of the quagmire that our leaders have so treacherously dug out. Pakistan deserves better than the pigmies that rule it today and whom the existent system may throw up, yet again!