Fighting phantoms

With Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in attendance Mehmood Khan Achakzai informed the National Assembly the other day that outside the gilded chamber political weather is bad as 'ominous clouds hover over democracy'. Go and do something, 'we have to protect democracy whatever the circumstances'. Given the Pashtun leader's unblemished political past and his passion for undiluted democracy one would hate to challege his weather forecast. But then there is the question: what is it that what the politicians see the ordinary people do not? On the political horizon, the only noticeable developments are some of Imran Khan's public rallies and Tahirul Qadri's announcement to descend on Pakistani soil, or Sheikh Rashid's promised train march - and the Chaudhris of Gujrat clapping from the ringside. Khan would be the last person to throw out his first-born with the tub water; his political stakes in the status quo are quite precious - his party is in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and his 30 party members sit in the National Assembly. Who is Tahirul Qadri? He is an 'outsider' barred by the apex court to have anything to do with national politics - what to talk of ordering armed forces to guarantee him risk-free landing. The Chaudhris plus Qadri plus Sheikh Rashid it hardly constitutes a viable threat to the Nawaz Sharif's government, or make for the 'ominous clouds' that Achakzai sees. Is it that the tail is wagging the dog?
Democracies are never cut and dried pieces of governance; confusion abounds and ship of democracy seems to be sinking, but it doesn't sink. On the face of it, there is not much for the prime minister to fear, but him joining the cheers from both sides of the aisle the mystery still remains. If at all something is cooking then Nawaz Sharif should himself stand up and take the parliament and the nation into confidence on the 'ominous clouds'. As to what makes the PkMAP chief believe that the government and the army are not on the 'same page' the people should know because the people don't see the two reading from different pages. Piqued by repeated terrorist attacks, one as close as the GHQ, the military very much wanted to take them on without any loss of time but it did not, conceding the civilian government's point of view. The military would retaliate if during talks interregnum terrorists struck at security forces that has the government's authorisation. With Nawaz Sharif being the country's chief executive and armed forces fully committed to carrying out his orders there is no need for the theatrics that he and army chief General Raheel Sharif to give a 'clear message to the world together that Pakistan is a democratic country and its political and military leaderships are on the same page'. They are already on the same page ever since the end of Musharraf era, though the opportunities for Bonapartism were never in short supply. As if the elected parliament as such is not pro-democracy front, Mehmood Khan Achakzai wants 'immediately, before anything happens we should form a pro-democracy front', and suggested convening a joint session of parliament if needed and initiation of consultations with opposition parties in the house. Yes, the treasury and opposition members and senators should meet now and then and plan 'defence of democracy', but more than that they should also do some introspection - the whole year passed without a single piece of legislation done. What for they were there costing the nation no less than a billion bucks. Spell-bounding speeches from the floor of parliament, we have had enough of it. Even on issues as critical as terrorism all that the parliament did are a few good-intentioned but impossible to work out resolutions. There should have been an issue-specific law, but it could not be legislated. Isn't there the lingering problem of quorum in the National Assembly during the debate on the budget? Instead of speaking their mind from the floor of the elected houses the members prefer the media forum to express them. There is an aspect of surrealism to democracy as it obtains in Pakistan today. The issue is not what a certain institution thinks as a solution to a certain problem - be it the executive branch or judiciary or the armed forces, each one is within its right to nurture its own perceptions and perspectives on national issues - the issue is as to what is the end product. There we don't see the two Sharifs reading from two different pages - thus precluding the need for Achakzai's 'wake-up call'.