Being pragmatic

Now that the 100-day 'honeymoon' is almost over, the coalition partners, both at the Centre and in the provinces, may like to sit back and take stock of their performance.
THEY SHOULD ASK THEMSELVES: Are the people better off now than before the elections? How is the law and order situation in the country? Has the industry picked up its tempo? Are the foreign investors coming or leaving? What is the progress in the war on terror? Everybody would be interested in honest answers to these and such other questions.
BUT IF THEY FAIL TO COME UP WITH HONEST ANSWERS, NEVER MIND: their failure being so colossal and obvious nobody is really interested in knowing what the coalition leaders think of their performance.
For most of these 100 days the attention of the ruling coalition elite has been riveted, on issues of their personal welfare and self-preservation. It seems every elected member wants to be a minister; so provincial cabinets are expanding on day to day basis.
The federal cabinet, however, is suffering from stunted growth as the PML (N) ministers are neither in it nor out of it, so much so that an overburdened petroleum minister made a laughing stock of himself - if not intentionally - the other day over the CNG prices.
Then, there are appointments to ministerial slots as advisors, ambassadors-at-large and CEOs of various government bodies to compensate old buddies for their sacrifices.
While people are crying to be rescued from the demons of hunger, lawlessness and unemployment, the top elected leadership is busy playing the political chess, some setting their sights on the future.
They keep raising diversionary antes as if the day to day problems of the people are of no concern to them. The most ubiquitous of these is the judges' issue, which refuses to be sorted out. One may ask if their differences over it are so fundamental to their political morality, then why to go hand in hand enjoying power as coalition partners?
Another issue that is being excessively used to deflect people's anger is the future of President Pervez Musharraf. He is not acceptable to the PML (N) at all, but the party can do nothing about it on its own. Its senior coalition partner, PPP, wants the President to leave the stage of his own accord so that it doesn't have to impeach him.
ANP and JUI (F), the two junior coalition partners, are not much interested in Musharraf's political future. Maybe, Asif Ali Zardari wants to retain Pervez Musharraf, says well-informed American journalist Fareed Zakaria. But in the face of these divergent stands President Musharraf is consistent in daring his detractors to impeach him if they can.
That has created a sort of stalemate that tends to turn the Head of State into a butt of international ridicule. Shorn of power as he is after doffing his military uniform, is President Musharraf still a threat to anyone? No; and he said so, many times in so many words. Given the myriad problems the country is facing, the political future of Pervez Musharraf should be no real issue.
But thanks to the vigilantes that are in no short supply amongst us the issue as to what should be 'done' to President Musharraf often takes precedence over many more serious problems.
One may differ with Richard Boucher, the US Assistant Secretary of State who was here early this week, on a host of other things, but his remark that President Musharraf is not the problem that Pakistan faces right now, is not wide of the mark.
It is difficult to disagree with his perception that the problems Pakistani people face today are of terrorism, militancy, food inflation, power outages and high-cost energy inputs. Of the things that fly time is the fastest. With three months gone our government has yet to find its feet on the ground.
It appears to be still in the pre-election mode with its leaders' long-worded speeches, rosy promises and huge portraits hanging by the roadside. In fact, someone should tell them that they have won elections, they are in government and now it is time that they should deliver.
That also calls for shifting the focus from politics of settling scores to confronting the emerging challenges. When pragmatism demanded of the people to put up with the NRO, they did. Now if the judges' issue and Musharraf's future are required to be put on the back burner so that the government could move forward and single-mindedly grapple with impending challenges, let it have that chance.