NAWAZ SHARIF: The genie is out of the bottle

Editorial:(Daily Times)

Addressing a protest rally against the disqualification of the Sharif brothers at Aabpara Chowk in Islamabad, the PMLN’s senator-elect Mr Zafar Ali Shah said on Thursday, “If Zardari wants to stay in the presidency, he will have to undo the SC verdict”. He warned the president against “the wrath of the masses” if he did not issue a presidential order to reverse the verdict. His chief Mian Nawaz Sharif was in Sheikhupura exhorting the “masses” to revolt against the government, a clear incitement to violence.Violence was committed by the PMLN activists in Rawalpindi and other cities, spearheaded by youths in their teens who hardly knew the political meaning of what they were doing. The style is still single-item, reliant on a calculation of anti-PPP factors, including the lawyers’ movement and the media. Given this posture of the Sharifs, the assurance given by the lawyers that their Long March would be peaceful is hardly credible. Pakistani politics is now headed for violence with unpredictable results.Mr Shah’s “demand” for a presidential edict of absolution for the Sharifs is issued late in the day and not in the language of democracy. No one in his right senses would offer a concession in the face of a threat. But concessions are routinely made in democracy through political compromises. The PMLN had many occasions to benefit from such compromises despite the all-black picture painted to the Sharifs by the hawkish section of their second-echelon leaders. Use of the language of violence was a clear precursor to the violence that is now in evidence. The genie is out and will not easily go back into the bottle.
In the first flush of a “new relationship” between the PMLN and the PPP, compacts were made, including the Murree Declaration pledging restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, that have hurt the PPP before the media and the average citizen committed to the lawyers’ cause. But even if angels were to descend upon Pakistan as politicians they would not feel safe in the hands of a suo moto judge determined to undo everything that happened after November 2, 2009 under President Pervez Musharraf. No politician will commit suicide in the name of “principles”. Democracy takes care of this predicament by accepting the practice of compromise.
The PPP and the PMLN were well placed for this compromise. The Sharifs could have settled for a presidential pardon to give them safe passage in Punjab and in future elections. After that they could have agreed to a constitutional package to execute the Charter of Democracy which the nation wants. Instead of now “separating” Mr Asif Ali Zardari from the PPP and saying that only the former is to blame for the current crisis, the Sharifs could have treated the PPP members of their Punjab government well. Instead they took on the party in Punjab and relied on their relationship with Prime Minister Gilani to win a battle that they had in mind even in the days of their honeymoon with the PPP at the centre.A majority of the people looking on will finally come to the conclusion that both parties are to blame for the present crisis, even though most Punjabis hold Mr Zardari exclusively responsible. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the case, the two have simply gone back to the toppling pattern of the 1990s. The violence in the offing is going to hurt the economy and damage the livelihood of a lot of people whose businesses will be shut in the fortnight of the build-up to the Long March. The denouement of this upheaval will be in no one’s favour. If the PMLN thinks it can inherit even a broken Pakistan after the PPP is somehow ousted, it may be shocked to find that a “third option” may quickly take hold of the country.