Mian Nawaz Sharif’s bandwagon is resolutely splitting at the seams and running out of steam. Mr Zahid Sarfraz departed with a good measure of spite early in the innings. Not much later, Maulana Sami ul Haq sexcaped it in a whiff of scandal. Maulana Sattar Niazi has huffed off more than once and will surely leave when the ship is about to sink. Ijaz ul Haq is cunningly biding his time, if he doesn’t up and about soon enough he might well be thrown overboard. Qazi Hussain Ahmad comes and goes aft his pleasure, says and does what he likes and remains a desperado in Islamabad respected only for his nuisance value. Pir Pagara hates the PM’s guts and is appropriately nowhere in sight. Mohammad Khan Junejo may be hanging around but only just; once he has worked out where he must go and when, go he will and fleet-footedly. And now, Mr Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, the perennial pillar of the establishment, has bid a bitter farewell. Clearly, the PM has bitten off more than he can chew. It doesn’t look good, does it?
The Finance Minister says that the economy is teetering on despair. Privatisation has stalled and businessmen are no longer in love with the PM, not least because of corruption and cronyism. The IMF is downright angry because the fiscal deficit of over 6 per cent of GDP is still hugging the roof despite our tall promises last year. The Aid-to-Pakistan Consortium which meets next month is not going to give us a cent more than US$ 1.4 billion, which is sufficient to cover debt repayments of US$ 2.5 billion we need. Millions of Punjabis are hopping mad because there is no sign of the Rs 20 billion owed to them by members of the IJI in the Coop scam. The scandalous Rs 24 billion Motorway looks to be a non-starter. No one really knows where the money is going to come from and to whom it will go; nor is President Ishaq Khan terribly enamoured of the PM’s whimsical justifications for his pet project. On top of it all, the official FCBC’s floated abroad have bounced back with a nasty stench which makes the BCCI affair aromatic in comparison. It doesn’t look good, does it?
Sindh is on a potboiler and fresh Jam Sadiqs are in short supply. Mr Muzaffar Hussain Shah is hardly the man to match wits with the likes of Mr Jatoi, sooth the frayed nerves of Mr Altaf Hussain and even the odds against Ms Bhutto. The bombs which knocked out the gas pipeline also suggest it is only a matter of time before Mr Shah’s house of cards crumbles to the dust. Then what? Perish the thought of President’s rule for it can only serve as an introduction to an ominous chronicle foretold. It doesn’t look good, does it?
Powerplays in Islamabad make a mockery of government and constitution alike. The President’s pause is problematic. Reduced to a personal clique, the bureaucracy in Islamabad is grumbling aloud. Meanwhile, the diplomats in Islamabad are undiplomatically clucking their displeasures. And the GHQ remains primed to hone is where duty beckons. It doesn’t look good, does it?
And what is Mr Nawaz Sharif up to in the meanwhile? Sunny weekends are spent playing cricket at the Lahore Gymkhana, Fridays are reserved for Abbaji’s inexhaustible pearls of wisdom. In between funerals, marriages, flower shows and gallivanting abroad, the PM has time only for cutting corners, building an Ittefaq empire, huddling with his fumbling kitchen cabinet and harassing an increasingly united opposition. It doesn’t look good, does it?
Come May, and a ferocious budget will be upon us. Unlike the Coop Commission report, this most certainly will require more than just a PR job to be swallowed hook, line and sinker. When the PM bites the hand that voted him to power, as indeed he must to sustain his crony-capitalist policies, the end cannot be too far off. It doesn’t look goo,d does it?
So, what can Mr Nawaz Sharif do to redeem his position? Begin at the beginning, we say, live and let live. Mend fences with Bhutto, ditch the parasitic legacies of Zia ul Haq, halt the spiralling inflation of his private economic empire and restore the constitution to its pristine excellence. But that’s a tall order for so meagre a man, you say, he can’t do it. So we can expect more of the same. A tale of sound and fury signifying nothing. It doesn’t look good, does it?
What was that about the man who knows that he knows not? He’s a wise man, befriend him. And what about the man who knows not that he knows not? He’s a foolish man, shun him.