A MUGGY August was livened up by Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s NAB adventure. In times when the authority’s constant sleuthing has become routine news, her decision to turn her visit to NAB into a rally and a drama has set the talk-show tongues wagging and how!Has she broken her silence? Does this portend a change of mood for the PML-N? Is this a sign that the opposition is about to come out all guns blazing? The questions and speculation are unending.The answers to most of these questions may not be in the affirmative but the street show did once again reveal a few truths and home truths.First and foremost, Maryam Nawaz Sharif is the future leader of the PML-N, regardless of who is put in charge of the party and how much she stays away from the cameras. Dynastic politics and her father have marked her as the heir, and for the moment, little appears to stand in her way, except for time. And come election time, she will be the crowd-puller and the face of the party, even if the big seat is filled by someone else. For now, however, it is her father who is in charge and for some reason he is not willing to make his choice official even if he has made it public. This is why Shahbaz Sharif is the party president and Maryam is a party office holder among many others.Dynastic politics and her father have marked Maryam as heir, and for now, little appears to stand in her way.This leads to the second point that even now there are senior party leaders who may not be comfortable with her crowning. This discomfort, or perhaps just an unwillingness to defer to someone much younger as the leader, has been conjectured and written about but the NAB incident highlighted it too. Because when she held the press conference later in the day, some of these senior leaders, including Shahbaz Sharif, were not there.More importantly, they were present at an earlier press conference where she made public the ‘confessions’ of judge Arshad Malik, even if it made them uncomfortable — the earlier press conference was about Nawaz Sharif and his unfair persecution and the one last week was about Maryam herself.Third, this absence once again highlighted the friction within the party, which has come to be symbolised by Maryam Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif, for at times there is little effort to hide it. He has been and continues to be criticised within party meetings, which are then ‘leaked’ to the press. And the criticism comes ostensibly from those seen to be close to his niece, such as Javed Latif.Earlier this year, in July, the anniversary of the day Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz were arrested after returning from London, a Twitter trend called ‘airport wallah dhoka’ (in Urdu) could be seen among the social media platform’s top trends. Many of the tweets criticised Shahbaz Sharif by name for not ‘reaching the airport’ that day. One such tweet read: “Workers will never forget and will never forgive Mian Shahbaz Sharif” while another reminisced in these words, “That night when he arrived Pakistan with his daughter he expected million of people will come to airport to well come him but his own brother make him MAMOO at that night.”It seemed as if the trend was run by party workers against the party president.One can say that this public shaming of khadim-i-aala is possible because in the imagination (of the fandom) he has become the villain of Maryam’s fairytale and this interpretation has many watchers hooked.Anyway, I digress (it is hard to avoid discussing Shahbaz Sharif when writing about Maryam Nawaz as it is hard to discuss either Musharraf or Iftikhar Chaudhry without bringing in the other).Fourth, the young Noonie leader may have caused a storm in a teacup but it may not go entirely in her favour. Chances are that she will return to her hibernation in her Jati Umra towers than opt for an aggressive street campaign — after all the unacknowledged but entirely possible understanding which has allowed Nawaz Sharif to leave the country in exchange for a quiet and docile PML-N continues to be in place. But this time around it might not be so easy to deflect questions about it — earlier, when party leaders were asked about it they retorted by pointing out the media blackout of Maryam Nawaz and her rallies last year. Their argument was that why should she bother speaking if her statements were blacked out by the media. But, last week, her NAB visit was covered as was her press conference which followed. If her silence resumes, how will it now be explained?But this might be the easier option, for if she does resume a more active (read aggressive) political role, it will highlight further the contradictions in the party’s ‘new’ strategy.After all, the party’s strategy has changed; be it Maryam’s and Nawaz Sharif’s silence or Shahbaz Sharif’s pragmatism, to some extent they all are on the same page. And this is a page which has Imran Khan written on it prominently, and the military and the judiciary erased from it.However, so far, this erasure has been blamed on Shahbaz Sharif. He is said to be the scaredy-cat who doesn’t want to upset the real powers. But the truth is that few in the party disagree with him — all one needs to do is pay attention to the interviews of the party leadership to find the proof. However, if Maryam takes on a more leading role, the responsibility of this decision will have to be shared by her. For sooner or later, someone will realise that the slogan of ‘vote ko izzat do’ or the more intellectual argument of ‘the country has to be run as laid down by the Constitution’ makes little sense if Imran Khan is the only one being attacked. These slogans point the finger elsewhere and at the moment, the party (including Maryam Nawaz) is trying to get away with wagging their fingers at the sky. Compunode.com Pvt. Ltd. ().Designed for .Copyright © 2020, DawnScribe Publishing Platform

IT’S time for yet another prediction about the end of yet another government. These doomsday predictions are the only constant in our otherwise uncertain polity, but this time around the rumours/prophecies were set off by the party’s own men (and not the women).A minister threw down the gauntlet during the  to the . Fawad Chaudhry (who has in the past also ruffled party feathers) didn’t just lament the absence of the reforms that the PTI had promised but also claimed that the infighting between senior leaders such as Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Jahangir Tareen and Asad Umar had let non-political people take over the party.Chaudhry’s outburst was followed by people such as Raja Riaz taking to public forums ie television to complain of indifferent and uncaring cabinet members. And then there was the ally, BNP-Mengal, which walked out of the alliance.It is all happening so fast that it is surprising no one has yet quoted “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold”.Even if Imran Khan decides to change the party culture, the rivalries will not go away.But without the benefits of sources which are readily available to the well-connected everywhere in Pakistan, it’s hard to see most of the PTI’s internal woes as more than the usual  (blind man’s buff) of constituency politicians at an opportune moment. In a system where parliament is fast losing its relevance, the backbenchers too are finding it harder and harder to access prime ministers and their cabinets. The PPP was perhaps a bit different but earlier Shaukat Aziz and then Nawaz Sharif and now Imran Khan rarely reach out to the parliamentarian party. Lack of accessibility has become routine.For a constituency politician, this doesn’t help because he needs access to the power corridors to maintain his position in his area. And the closer he gets to the election, the antsier he is — halfway to what he assumes is the new election date is when politicians mentally begin to think of campaign time and what the reaction of the people will be when he goes around asking for votes. With two years of inflation, belt tightening and little development spending, the constituency politicians are already having sleepless nights.Hence, the few chances they get to flex their importance, they make their resentment loud and clear. As it is, the post-2008 political world has been harsh as opposition parties no longer indulge in no-confidence moves, leaving them only with times when legislation has to be passed to be heard. And the budget is particularly important because of what it can and must offer to the parliamentarians. This is as true of backbenchers as it is of allies. Where a backbencher such as Raja Riaz will make his annoyance public once or twice and then go quiet, the allies will keep at it. And this has been the process at work over the past few days.But this is not to say the noises will not grow; they will as constituencies and voters cannot be ignored for long.The bickering between the king’s men is a different kettle of fish altogether.Most parties experience something similar — local rivalries as well as competing ambitions — but the PTI or rather Imran Khan doesn’t seem to discourage these from becoming too public. For instance, Fawad Chaudhry, when he was information minister, and the late Naeem ul Haque had a public Twitter spat, and later as the science & technology chap, Chaudhry, in a light tone, commented on a show that the Punjab chief minister should resign if he wasn’t being asked to leave. Ghulam Sarwar too has made his opinion about the unelected advisers clear in an interview or two. In a far subtler way, Shireen Mazari has criticised the Foreign Office, once or twice, as an institution.It’s not that rivalries don’t exist in other parties. It was reported more than once during the previous government’s tenure that Chaudhry Nisar and Khawaja Asif were not on speaking terms; or that Ishaq Dar wasn’t too popular with the party because he was so close to Nawaz Sharif, but few spoke about these differences publicly. One can assume that they didn’t do so because it would not be tolerated. But this is not the case with the PTI.This public airing of laundry has become part of the party culture. Even if Imran Khan decides to change it, the rivalries will not go away. Partly because most leaders benefit from divisions and rivalries; it provides a system of countercheck within the party. What people are up to, and how well they are performing or not, and what they may be saying out of earshot will make it back to the party head thanks to those against them. This is how courts operate and so do our parties.And for Khan this is perhaps more of a necessity than others. This is the first time he has come to power and is now surrounded by people whom he doesn’t know how to view. After all, many of them will desert him when he is out of power but he cannot know for sure till he experiences a stint out of power. At the same time, he perhaps will also take time to understand that party leaders constantly balance trust and loyalty with the idea that relationships with dependable ones can turn sour — Benazir Bhutto and Farooq Leghari are a case in point — while even those who aren’t trusted (such as electables and allies) have to be kept happy. But such lessons take time and the extent to which they are learned remains to be seen.But in the meantime, it is perhaps hard to believe that these troubles by themselves signal the beginning of the end of the PTI government. For that, a decision will have to be made elsewhere, and once it is made, the power brokers will have to find a willing ally in the opposition to execute it. And it is not necessary that when and if this happens, it will be well-publicised.Ironically, no one in India seems to want to accept the truth behind the US visa ban.Philosophy’s application to public policy is unexplored.The buffoonery of many leaders is disquieting.It turns out that the minister does not have evidence that the pilot licences in question are fake.It is wrong to make universities conform to the designs of those who are insensitive to pluralism.The opposition seems to have become more coherent and forceful in challenging the government.THIS past week’s speeches in the National Assembly have showcased emotional outbursts by lawmakers. As political...AT long last, the legal system is moving towards a more pragmatic approach where the functioning of the...IRAN’S appalling decision to execute journalist Ruhollah Zam once again brings into focus states that curb freedom...Reports that new coronavirus cases are decreasing across the country are indeed welcome, but this latest trend must...FEARS that the petrol crisis could trigger a damaging blame game within the government are now coming true. The...IF all goes according to plan, Israel will initiate the latest phase of its colonial land grab of Palestinian... Compunode.com Pvt. Ltd. ().Designed for .Copyright © 2020, DawnScribe Publishing Platform

What to do with a problem like Covid-19?Lockdown is the answer and that is where our debate remains stuck it seems. Few of us delved deeper into how a lockdown is or can be imposed and whether we could tweak the idea to suit our circumstances. As a health specialist, Mishal Sameer Khan, wrote in  over the weekend, the debate over the lockdown has paralysed the country, adding that each country uses different strategies to control population movement and mixing.But it seems that three and a half months later, this nuance in the debate is beyond us. It should not be, for every success story around the world has included a home-grown solution, which has differed in each case, based on each state’s strengths and weaknesses.Consider Vietnam, which continues to be quoted by us as the example of a country with few resources that has managed the virus well. But this success has many aspects to it. Perhaps one of the most important was that it took aggressive steps very early on. And this was because the country had already experienced SARS and avian flu in the past.According to reports, it seems the country took measures early in 2020, months before other countries — from travel restrictions to closing the border with China and increasing health checks at borders and other vulnerable places. They had closed schools by end January and initiated a contact-tracing operation.In some countries, successful efforts seem to have been built around local solutions.By February, they were sealing hotspots, as we call them. For example, it also sealed an area with 10,000 people north of Hanoi. (It never went for a general, national-level lockdown.) Communication was also effective and began early — the government said it was ‘declaring war’ on the coronavirus at a time when the virus was still limited to China.But perhaps one of Vietnam’s ‘biggest strengths’ has been its single-party rule and authoritarian system. Its ability to effectively lock down areas and to monitor its citizens has been possible due to its large number of neighbourhood wardens and public security officers who keep a constant watch — and are seldom disobeyed. The state keeps an eye on people’s movements as well as their social media accounts. (Some reports suggest that people are also encouraged to report on each other.)For example, one media report mentioned that when a hospital reported a high number of infections, police and local officials were ordered to visit every household in the relevant neighbourhoods and ask if they had gone to the hospital.Similarly, the law-enforcement agencies have censored hundreds of thousands of posts about Covid-19 and taken action against ‘fake news’ and even ‘sanctioned’ people. However, many have argued that others, with less authoritarian systems may find it difficult to emulate Vietnam.It’s not just Southeast Asia where one finds innovation.In terms of Covid-19 numbers, Africa is behind South Asia — but both regions have similar problems such as high poverty levels, fragile healthcare systems and little space for social distancing in the poorer residential areas.But here too, successful efforts seem to have been built around local solutions.Sierra Leone has past experience of Ebola which was declared an epidemic in the country and lasted from 2014 to 2015. As a result, the country acted early and declared a state of emergency even before it registered a single case of the virus. It followed by imposing three-day lockdowns to allow contact tracers to track down possibly infected people. The contact-tracing teams were put in place during the Ebola outbreak.The country has been successful with its public messaging, as it has been working on it since the Ebola outbreak and in the years in between; it has figured out what works and what doesn’t. One report mentioned that earlier it tried broadcasting messages from military vehicles but this didn’t prove successful. With its experience of civil war, people are obviously wary of state actors. As a result, the government was compelled to modify its message to appeal to specific local communities and win over the local-level leadership such as village leaders, religious leaders and local councils.For instance, one effort, it seems, involved traditional healers, who are rather popular with the people. They were asked to refer people to medical facilities instead of treating them. It took time, said one report, but saw some success.But most importantly, the poor country didn’t just accept that nothing could be done about the water shortage in the poorer settlements. As in Pakistan, water is a precious commodity and not easily available in the poorer areas of the countries. But Sierra Leone didn’t just stop at public messaging about the importance of handwashing. It provided simple basins, water and soap at police checkpoints; inside remote villages and in urban areas. At places, buildings could only be entered once hands had been washed.Even in the developed West, strategies have varied. Iceland, like New Zealand, has quashed the virus and has done so without a general lockdown. However, it did ban gatherings and also closed high schools and universities, while primary schools and day-care centres remained open. Places such as night clubs and hair salons were closed and masks are not encouraged. But more interestingly, Iceland put in place a contact-tracing team which included cops, nurses, and a criminologist. The country’s testing is among the highest in the world.In addition, Iceland’s response was led by the country’s director of emergency management, its chief epidemiologist and its director of health. Every afternoon, these three gave a joint briefing to discuss the virus, occasionally inviting guests to join them. An article (on which most of this information is based) in the New Yorker says that three quarters of Icelanders listen to the briefing at one point or the other. The politicians stayed away!Perhaps it’s time we also discussed more local, home-grown strategies rather than simply debating the merits and demerits of a general lockdown. Perhaps the washbasins could be a start.It is important to review the framework in which plasma therapy is permissible. Any demand or action can be put beyond discussion in Pakistan by wrapping it in a religious standard.A number of things have gone wrong this time. But at the heart of them is an attempt by the government to impose an unrealistic price at a critical time.Bolton’s book deserves to be read — only once.Acting unlawfully against citizens has been a consistent pattern.The book’s status as a bombshell is probably overrated.PAKISTAN-India relations, already in the throes of an extended cool phase, have over the past few days deteriorated...NOT all tax exemptions — the indirect, off-budget expenditures governments accrue by removing or reducing assigned...WHAT began as a farce is becoming more so by the day. It has been over 100 days since Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman,...THE Saudi authorities have finally announced what many had been fearing ever since it became clear that Covid-19 was...OBSERVATIONS by a number of UN organisations put together in one volume by the UNDP have once again tried to make us...ON multiple days since mid-June, official figures for coronavirus-related deaths in the country have been well over... Compunode.com Pvt. Ltd. ().Designed for .Copyright © 2020, DawnScribe Publishing Platform

IT was a scene straight out of an Amitabh Bachchan film when the ‘police’ (NAB in this case) arrived too late to catch Shahbaz Sharif at his residence. The wanted man had already left. It could be said of both Bachchan and Sharif that ‘in ko pakarna mushkil hi nahi, namumkin hai’ (it is not just difficult to catch them, it is impossible)!All the NAB team achieved was providing considerable fodder to the ever-hungry news channels because by the time there were reports that the team had left Model Town for Raiwind, everyone knew that Shahbaz Sharif would now remain MIA till the next morning’s hearing at the Lahore High Court. No one really thought the high-octane ‘chase’ was meant to yield any result. When it is serious about an arrest, the organisation goes where the man is — remember how it arrested Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as he was driving to Lahore — and doesn’t bother raiding places of residence in the hope that the man would be at home having a cuppa.And this is not a particularly sceptical view of the matter. Most, if not all, are convinced that for more than one reason Shahbaz Sharif, and most other Noonies, have now done their ‘time’ and are not going to be returning behind bars soon.The cases will continue, old as well as new. They will continue to be investigated and the sword of another arrest will continue to dangle over them all but it will not fall (easily). And the reason for this, or one at least, is that the party has fallen in line. The sher may not have been tamed completely but it has retreated wounded and that is enough. Because even as it licks its wounds, its existence provides some pressure on the PTI the way Imran Khan’s roars earlier were a constant headache for the PML-N government.If the point is to keep them looking over their shoulders, it’s a job well done.And this is why there is less of a brouhaha over the investigations into the PPP — there is no reason to believe that the PPP needs any taming. The process is already complete and there is little fear of any ‘misbehaviour’.And this is what accountability is about in Pakistan — nothing more than a means for political ends. It is not even to brand the bad old politicians as corrupt. For if it was simply a campaign to tarnish them, then it would make sense to pick one case which is easy to understand and hammer in the misdoing. Think Surrey Palace. To launch investigations into a multitude of complicated cases just proves counterproductive — a complicated LNG case which is barely understood by those doing hour-long programmes on it, followed by allegations of illegal appointments, followed by some misuse of government cars. Or in the case of Sharif junior, Saaf Pani and Ashiana followed by assets beyond means. There are so many allegations that there is a fear that none will stick in the public perception. But then, that is not the point. However, if the point is to keep them looking over their shoulders, it’s a job well done.And that is why our accountability cases are not tight, well-written film plots but endless soap operas.Remember the Panama case? The entire saga began with the publishing of the Panama Papers in April 2016; by November 2016, the hearings began in the Supreme Court. The new bench was formed in January next year. The first verdict came a year after the Panama Papers were published in April 2017. By May, the JIT was formed and it presented its report in court in July. In the last week of the same month, Nawaz Sharif was dismissed and his government wrapped up. A short year and some months and the first season was over.And then began the endless plot twists — three years later, the JIT, the apartments, the money trail, the time we all wasted every evening discussing the merits and demerits of prosecution, defence and receipts, everything lies forgotten. The main accused is in London and everyone is as sure of his return (after medical treatment) as we were last week of Sharif junior’s arrest.Nothing has changed since the 1990s except perhaps the period in which NAB was really active and feared was far shorter this time around. Its reign of terror under the second Nawaz Sharif government and then Musharraf was perhaps much longer.And the PTI also knows this, despite its bravado in public.Perhaps this is why its latest corruption push is against the sugar industry rather than pursuing the older cases; it knows the earlier battle has already been lost. But the support base still expects accountability so the party has found a new cause in sugar, which allows it to deliver on its ‘promise’ of sparing no one, not even those within its fold. It is like someone who abandons one diet plan for another in the vain hope of losing weight.There is no doubt that Imran Khan is fixated on accountability and punishing the PPP and PML-N, but it really is nothing more than the hysteria of the star-struck fan standing outside Shahrukh Khan’s house. He can say what he wants and he can return there every day but he won’t be able to get any closer to the star, who will remain out of reach.And this is why it is hard to believe that Khan is driving the witch-hunt of the PPP and the PML-N because if he was, they wouldn’t all be sitting in the comfort of their homes and giving interviews left, right and centre on how evil and unfair accountability under the PTI is.But it still helps that we all believe he is behind the accountability agenda because it also puts him under pressure by uniting all the other parties against the government.For this reason — if no other — Khan should have second thoughts about the accountability process.Our bodies, it seems, carry the scars of every injury, and the most harmful are those we suffer before our birth.  The provincial assemblies created Pakistan, they are not the creatures of the federation.The truth is that every rent seeker in the country has taken this government for a ride.Moral ambiguity bedevils governments here and in the UK.Digital Pakistan Vision must deliver tangible outcomes.If only it could be easier to breathe in the post-pandemic world.THE writing was on the wall from the start. Only the government refused to see it. Now, the WHO’s letter to the...IT is apparent that efforts are underway to save the peace process in Afghanistan on the global and regional levels....IN a disturbing development, it has emerged that law-enforcement agencies in Faisalabad are using stun batons on...THE nightmare scenario that doctors in the country had warned of in April is fast approaching. At the time, senior...AN archaic law, enacted by the colonial masters to oppress the ‘natives’, should not — in theory — be...SINCE recent headlines have been dominated by the spread of the novel coronavirus and themes of racial injustice,... Compunode.com Pvt. Ltd. ().Designed for .Copyright © 2020, DawnScribe Publishing Platform

A CLOSE friend of a PPP prime minister during the 2008-2013 term says he once told the latter that the press was inundated with critical stories about him and his government. Shouldn’t the prime minister do something, he asked. The prime minister chortled and dismissed the concern by saying that coverage in itself was a good thing; one shouldn’t worry about it being good or bad.In some ways, the anecdote can describe the five years of PPP rule at the centre post-2008. In sharp contrast to the PML-N and the PTI, the PPP accepted the media’s critical and harsh coverage with considerable generosity. Few clarifications used to be sent to newspapers, and channels too faced far less of the pressure that became the norm over the years. Except for the one high-profile but short-lived attempt during the 2009 long march to meddle with the ‘numbers’ on which channels appeared, there are few other systematic anti-press efforts that the party can be held guilty for.(However, it should be added that the party’s perception at the centre is contested by many in Sindh. It is said that within Sindh the record or the image is not as blameless as at the federal level; the province has one of the highest number of journalists who have cases registered against them under the anti-terrorism law. According to the Media Freedom Report 2019, 50 of the 60 journalists who had cases registered against them under the anti-terrorism law, among others, were from Sindh.)The party seems to be waking up to the media’s changing reality.Indeed, it is generally accepted that the PPP has always spoken the loudest for press freedom and not without merit. It has always given importance to human rights in general — including the right to information (except for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s period) —- and has been recognised for it. It has now become part of the party’s value system to a large extent.   The PPP’s values and culture notwithstanding, its history may also have helped shape the party’s old guard’s view of the influence of the press. During the 11 years of Ziaul Haq, the heavily censored press had to deal with a number of red lines where the coverage of the PPP was concerned. Those of us who entered the profession later were told many a story of those days when reporting on the PPP or a young Benazir Bhutto was not routine.And yet, this had little impact on the party’s popularity and support base. (It was simply one tool among many used by a dictator to try and stamp out a party’s support without much success.) Could this have been one reason the party, especially its old guard, felt that negative coverage didn’t matter and should not be countered? The story told about the prime minister earlier is a case in point.Qaim Ali Shah is another example. As chief minister of Sindh, he was consistently the target of jokes as well as negative coverage in the national press but it passed without any pushback from him or his government. It was as if it didn’t matter that such constant coverage created a rather unfair image of a man who was clueless. There was never any effort from the party or the chief minister himself to contest this perception. And over time, the perception became the universally held view, for no one ever provided an alternative one.Other parties had a completely different approach to the press. Not only could one witness a pushback, there was also an active effort to ensure coverage. These efforts increased in post-2008 times when it was clear that the proliferating news channels and their outreach could and did shape views. For example, if Shahbaz Sharif as Punjab’s chief minister or Mustafa Kamal as Karachi’s nazim were seen to be effective at their jobs, one reason for this was their strategy to engage the press — beat reporters or news organisations were told of their engagements which ensured that their visits or meetings were covered and reported. Pictures of Shahbaz Sharif clad in boots in knee-high water don’t just happen — coordination and planning leads to photo opportunities. And in the times of an overactive media, this is simply good strategy, a strategy that seemed to evade the PPP.No wonder then that at times it seemed the party was out of sync. It seemed to have not caught up with the changing realities of the media and how media coverage — whether orchestrated or not — made a big difference. It cost the PPP heavily in the 2013 elections — along with other factors lest anyone assume that media coverage in itself is enough to make or break political parties.However, in recent years the PPP seems to be waking up to this reality. The change of chief minister in Sindh was accompanied by a more proactive approach to the media; when Murad Ali Shah took over, it was reported that he was helped by a former journalist whose job was to coordinate with the media.It seemed to be more than just the preference of an individual. The party — or the younger generation within — is now more proactive and more aggressive when it comes to the media. This was quite obvious in recent days when the PPP in Sindh has been ahead of the others as the country grappled with Covid-19. Along with the chief minister, young ministers such as Saeed Ghani, Nasir Shah and Murtaza Wahab have led from the front in communicating their thinking and strategy to the media and the people — their constant presence on the news channels has far outstripped that of other governments and parties.The point is, this is a new generation of the party and they seem to bring a new way of thinking; or they are more aware of the damage caused by letting the media be. Where the old guard seemed to think that the media game was not worthy of being played, the new generation has no such qualms. And seen within this context, the Twitter war between a minister and a channel is not entirely surprising. But in the coming days, it would be interesting to see how and if this new approach will also impact the party’s general and overall reputation.  Compunode.com Pvt. Ltd. ().Designed for .Copyright © 2020, DawnScribe Publishing Platform

IT speaks to the relevance of the party or our obsession with politics that even in times of a pandemic, the PML-N’s ‘policy’ and bayanias (narratives) are never far from talk show discussions. Shahbaz Sharif’s informal chat with a journalist, which was reported in the latter’s column, or a formal one to a new channel has diverted attention — temporarily at least — from the unending debate over “to lockdown or not to lockdown”.The controversy began with Sharif junior’s assertion that he nearly made it to the prime minister’s slot in the 2018 election, with the blessings of the establishment; according to the column, even the cabinet members had been finalised. But then the elder brother’s bayaniya snatched the proverbial defeat from the jaws of victory for the Noonies.The revelations were obviously much discussed. There was curiosity over who made it to what spot in this ‘cabinet’, and much guesswork over the identity of the two journalists who are supposed to have pla­y­ed messenger boy (or girl). But more so, there has been much horror and shock over the revelation that the party, in its revolutionary avatar, was negotiating with the big, bad establishment and seeking its ashirwad (blessings). The party’s critics have expressed horror with much glee as they concluded that Noon’s revolutionary fervour was no more than sound and fury, and its supporters disgust as they asked why the voters were led up the garden path of defiance.Parties opt for violence only when the state leaves them with no political space.But really, it’s hard to understand what the palaver is all about.All those voicing their  seem to be implying as if they really believed that the Noon had evolved into the offspring of Che Guevara and cut off all ties and channels of communication with the other side. Did anyone, anywhere in Pakistan (and beyond) buy this? Does anyone believe that Maryam Nawaz is now silent only because the channels wouldn’t cover her if she did talk; or that Nawaz Sharif was  abroad only because of the low platelet count?These questions are not intended to criticise the party but simply to point out that there has been ample evidence in the recent past proving that the entire party leadership is not averse to negotiating and dealing with the establishment. And rightly so.And if both Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz, who personify the defiant side of their party, can fall quiet to ensure some reprieve, be it bail or travel abroad, why is it so much worse if Shahbaz Sharif was in discussions with the establishment to acquire power?After all, the party dealt with the same big, bad establishment in 1988, 1990, and even in 2008 and 2013. As has every other mainstream party in the country.This is because the hybrid system which has been in force in Pakistan, for decades (and not just since 2018) is one in which elections are regularly held, governments formed to run the country, and behind the scenes they share (or try to share) power with a dominant establishment.From the 1990s onwards, most political parties have had to contend with this. Once in power, most of them have found it difficult to govern but have made this clear once they have let go of the reins. The PML-N is no different but despite its loud pronouncements on the difficulties of this formula and their rhetoric during interviews and political rallies, their actions show they think there is no alternative available.They are not willing to, say, boycott elections and take to the streets to battle it out till the establishment gives up. They are not willing to opt for violence and defeat their ‘opponents’ either. The PML-N, after all, is a political party and political parties will usually opt to take part in a political process, however flawed and unfair.The PPP, as one of the oldest parties around, has tried the alternatives and not found them worthwhile; it boycotted the 1985 election and regretted it later. Some members of the party opted for a more violent route post the Zia coup and found little success, even with the public.Indeed, parties opt for violence only when the state leaves them with no political space — as has happened in some Middle Eastern states. But the state in Pakistan has usually not pressured the mainstream political parties to this extent. And perhaps contained the resistance it may have to contend with, otherwise.In other words, the PML-N is not too unique in its habit of playing hide-and-seek with the establishment. But then, this is why its revolutionary rhetoric should be taken with a pinch of salt by those watching or even voting for it. For its own leadership is itself very pragmatic about it — if the party behaviour rather than speeches is observed.And for this reason, the party accommodates and owns both the approaches of Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif, including the two brothers themselves. Chances are that the siblings realise that there is a time and place to whip up defiance and then to replace it with hard-nosed pragmatism. They have done this in the past and they will continue to do this in the future, as well.(The PTI also does it as it accepts to share power — rather publicly — and govern. And so did the PPP, post 2008. But perhaps in a closer parallel to the current PML-N strategy, the PPP under Benazir Bhutto ably finalised a deal with Gen Pervez Musharraf to return to power in 2007 and then immediately struck a defiant tone on the dismissal of the judiciary after the latter imposed an emergency and sacked the judges.)It is simply good politics. And we would do well to remember it rather than investing too wholeheartedly in the rhetoric of Nawaz Sharif or turning our noses up at Sharif junior. For neither’s approach is going to be eclipsed anytime soon. Such is the nature of politics in our land of the pure.  Compunode.com Pvt. Ltd. ().Designed for .Copyright © 2020, DawnScribe Publishing Platform

Arifa Noor Latest Talk Shows and Vlogs Videos

Columns