Whiff of edge-of-the-seat fare in the air

By Kamran Rehmat/Islamabad

This reminds one of the hit 2009 single by pop star Shehzad Roy, known for his chutzpah. Entitled Laga Reh (Keep at it), it is a pithy take on the lackadaisical mien pervading the republic. A couple of lines for inference:

I’m not worried about how the country will go on/I’m worried that it will keep going the way it is now.

At the year-end, Pakistan is poised to enter, in many ways, a defining period in 2013. In what is an election year, all the four top offices namely, the president’s, the prime minister’s, the army chief’s and the chief justice’s are up for grabs.

This will contribute substantially to the national narrative — whether it is good, bad and old or new will largely depend on the intentions of powers-that-be. But sadly, as history shows, that’s not a commodity to set much store by because of the often conflicting nature of vested interest(s) involving these holders of power.

Crystal ball gazing into 2013 won’t be easy by any stretch of imagination. For argument’s sake, even if the intentions are good and all the key stakeholders stay strictly within the ambit of law, in the land of Shahid Afridi, the unpredictable can happen anytime and completely change the game.

A very pertinent example would be that of Imran Khan, who, at this time of the year — last year — looked like he was on the threshold of ‘tsunamising’ a revolution. Today, he’s struggling to hold fort. There are plenty of reasons to ascribe this to but space constraints would not permit to go into greater details. Suffice it to say, while some of it were Khan’s own making, others not so as the ground beneath his feet shifted.

The ground realities are rooted in whether the country is politically stable or not, whether the economy is doing well or not, whether there is law and order or not. On all three accounts, Pakistan is delicately poised.

Paradoxically, the ruling Pakistan People’s Party government is nearing a milestone that every democratically-inclined Pakistani would be happy to see: the completion of a full term, and on course for a democratic transition.

However, the fact that this would be a first in Pakistan’s 65-year-history betrays how fragile the order has been. But the singular achievement does not necessarily lie at the government’s door.

The stoic role played by Nawaz Sharif, the two-time former prime minister and chief of Pakistan Muslim League-N, the largest opposition party, as well as the supporting cast of an assertive judiciary and a vibrant media in guarding against any adventure has apparently helped achieve the desirable goal.

However, this is as far as it goes. The incumbent government is accused of bad governance in the extreme with some even suggesting lack of governance at all. The dwindling foreign reserves, deepening energy crises, inflation and unemployment appear to reinforce that view.

The unflattering view holds despite an understanding and allowance for the security challenges any government would face in today’s Pakistan. Militancy and extremism took new forms this year with the shooting of Malala Yousafzai,  a 15-year-old global icon for universal education; the killing of Shias in Hazara; desecration of a minority graveyard; and last but not least the shocking killing of anti-polio vaccinators — some as young as a 14-year-old girl volunteer!

It is hard to conceive the barbarity that Malala faced last October could be transcended but the heart-rending images of teenage girl volunteers risking their lives to provide polio drops drenched in blood shocked the nation — an occurrence so dire the UN agencies summarily pulled out its staff.

But even before the country could recover from the bestial action of the obscurantist elements, Bashir Bilour, a much-admired political leader of the secular Awami National Party, was killed in a suicide blast along with his party aides.

Bilour’s death brings into sharp focus the one overriding factor that will determine what happens in 2013: the will and ability to cope with what are ominous existential threats. The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had already warned of hunting down key figures to further their relentless war on the state. Bilour appears to have been the first.

Even though the PPP government has struck a defiant note in fighting terror and extremism, doubts have surfaced about any real willingness to hold the polls on schedule.

Rumours abound about the very possibility of holding such an exercise after Bilour’s killing and the sudden but intriguing return of Tahir ul Qadri, a cleric leading Minhajul Qur’an, a broad-based welfare organisation party.

A former parliamentarian, who had resigned and canted abroad, pulled off a spectacular — if surprisingly safe — show of strength last weekend in Lahore touted “to save the state, not politics.”

The phantom rally set the tongues wagging about the “ulterior motives” of unleashing a million-man march on Islamabad “if the government does not introduce election reforms by January 14, 2013”.

The general suspicion is that both the TTP’s target-shooting and generally chaotic atmosphere arising out of stakeholders working at cross purposes may be used as a pretext to postpone the elections and a national government of technocrats formed for a substantial period to clean the house as it were before polls are conducted.

The aforesaid is often dismissed as a conspiracy theory but it is not entirely outside the realm of what’s possible in Pakistan.

Such an idea however, is fraught with dangerous repercussions because the situation can easily spiral out of control. In the Pakistan of old, such fare may not even have been a last resort action, but the country now has powerful competing forces that bring the equilibrium into play.

As always, the whiff of an edge-of-the-seat fare could not have been thicker. Watch this space!

♦ The writer is freelance journalist based in Islamabad. He can be reached at kaamyabi@gmail.com