Brave fronts

Shaky innards

He was minding the store; the prime minister was, at Davos, doing what heads of government are supposed to do during visits abroad: put up a good show. He exuded confidence in his interview with the BBC there and gave the all-is-well spiel that was his duty to give.

All is not well, however, and no one should fault the premier for pretending otherwise at an international forum. “The people, the army and the judiciary are with the government,” he said in the interview. Even the most casual of Pakistani observers abroad will testify to the fact that the judiciary is clearly not on the same page with the government. Adventurous judicial activism from the courts and a sluggishness bordering on defiance from the government define the dysfunctional relationship between the two institutions ever since the judiciary deposed by former president Musharraf was restored.

With the military, there is an institutional battle of a different sort but one that is based, again, on the whole issue of limits and mandate. The present government all but gave certain key areas to the purview of the military. These included the operational aspects of the war on terror, the foreign policy and, as usual, the quantum of defence spending. All this was augmented strategically by service extensions to certain key officials in the military. That, apparently, wasn’t enough. The pound of flesh isn’t what it used to be; an exasperated prime minister made some statements, first to a Chinese daily and then in parliament, only retracting them when the other “guy” blinked a bit. But the fences are far from mended, the tension between Islamabad and Pindi still palpable.

Last come the people, the category that finds many champions. Though the military can swear it will protect them, the judiciary that it has only their best interests in mind, it is the parliament and parliament alone that can speak on their behalf. What parliament says is what the people say. But now, towards the end of the tenure, the assumption the people are with parliament and, hence, the government, has only legal validity, not factual veracity. Respect for this legal validity is a cause worth dying for, yes, but it would do the government a whole lot of good to see what its performance or lack thereof has done to the trust that the people would repose in them during its tenure. It is this piece of the jigsaw, the most difficult one to find, that will ensure that all actually is well, regardless of the tribulations on the other two fronts.