Oblivious of the people's economic miseries, growing threats to the national security and the international community's increasing concern about Pakistan's capabilities to overcome these crises, the political leaders are much more focused on moves to monopolise the power.
With every passing day, the intensity of this confrontation is growing - whatever the tools employed to reach this goal. Of late, this contest has acquired dangerous proportions to the utter disbelief of the people, who sent these parties to solve their myriad problems. Recent statements of Chaudhry Nisar Ali and Federal Law Minister Babar Awan, who is said to be the PML-N's nemesis throw up unmistakable signs that national politics has entered yet another, and more dangerous, turbulence. How this will conclude, nothing can be predicted with any degree of certainty.
The apparent factor behind the new confrontation is believably the entry of the Chaudhry brothers and the MQM's stiff stand on Sindh, PPP leader Zulfiqar Mirza's periodic outbursts - the first being Babar Awan's brainchild and the latter is Rehman Malik's worry. Both the ministers are working hard, but in the end only one can succeed. This hectic effort on the part of the ruling coalition, which is now in the danger zone, is being played out in the country and abroad. Ordinary people's faith in a democratic dispensation as an antidote to all their problems is wavering. Isn't it sufficient evidence that democratic choice has once again failed?
If the Chaudhry brothers want to rewrite their age-old hostile relationship with the PPP what's the problem? Politics is a game of the possible. How should one believe that Bilawal Bhutto, the chairman of the PPP, is not in the picture? We should desist from bringing in womenfolk in this game. On the face of it, the ongoing confrontation has brought out, in concrete terms, parochialism and a grave danger to the country's unity and solidarity as a working federation.
Before the people hear the sound of heavy boots, all legal and constitutional remedies must be tried, in real earnestness - for which time is running out. The opposition in the National Assembly and provincial legislatures should file motions for a vote of no-confidence against the sitting houses and let the members vote on them. If in the Punjab Assembly, the Speaker has declared the PML (Q) dissident's group as representative of the said majority, there should be no problem. And if Shahbaz Sharif retains the confidence of the houses, this should be accepted as his constitutional right. And in the Parliament, the government of Prime Minister Gilani should invite such decisions by the house and he should be allowed to function as the country's Chief Executive peacefully and uninterrupted for the time for which he has regained his legal and constitutional right.
The only other legal option is that the beleaguered leaders go to the people for a fresh mandate. There is no other way out of the ever-thickening quagmire. We should not forget that the people's love for democracy takes second place, as their first concern is an effective set-up, which can deliver promptly and bring relief. Yes, the doctrine of necessity has been declared dead and gone. But our history tells us that the doctrine remains alive.
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