PTI-PML-N talks

Enough damage done

Imran Khan has done what the PML-N had demanded to initiate fruitful talks. What one expects is a quid pro quo from the ruling PML-N.

The entire country has suffered from the nearly four-month-long no-holds-barred strife between the two parties. The shutdowns badly disturbed social life, causing closures of schools and colleges, bringing down industrial production and depriving tens of thousands of common people of their daily earnings. They have caused monetary losses and hassle to thousands upon thousands of litigants coming from far off towns and villages to seek justice only to return disconsolate due to the cessation of work in courts. The public has got fed up with the way the two parties have conducted their fight.

Many think the PML-N should have displayed enough flexibility. Instead the ruling party has acted with arrogance. A perception is being strengthened that this is fast leading to a situation where the system is likely to become a casualty. After the PTI’s agreement to call off its agitation there is no justification for the ruling party not to do its part of the job.

The first session of the talks between the two parties was held on Sunday. Both need to realise that the fragile system may not be able to survive the type of jolts that have been administered to it, be they in the form of the use of brutal force and shut downs of entire localities through containers as done by the Punjab government or the unseemly show of force at Constitution Avenue by PTI and PAT. People will anxiously wait for the good news within a week as promised by the chief PML-N negotiator Ishaq Dar. One expects the talks would lead to the constitution of the judicial commission after which Imran Khan should return to the National Assembly and PTI should take part in the proceeding of the committee for electoral reforms.