The heat is on — and by that we don’t mean the weather. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto thinks the people are with her and nothing else matters, so the opposition can huff and puff for all she cares but it doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of upsetting her apple cart. But opposition leader Nawaz Sharif believes she’s living in a fool’s paradise, the people are actually with him and it’s only a matter of time before her end comes. Both are so confident of their positions that neither is prepared to speak to the other because any initiative for dialogue might be construed as a sign of weakness. Nor are they too worried about what might happen if both sides continue to stick to their guns and end up plunging the political system into yet another abyss.
Meanwhile, the country continues to bleed.
Consider, for example, the plight of Karachi. Industry has been hit with power shortages and work stoppages. The city is plagued with crime. The army doesn’t know whether to stay or go. The PPP government doesn’t have a clue about how to deal with the MQM. The MQM hasn’t a positive thought in its head apart from spilling into the streets to battle it out with the police. The current deadlock is looking ominously like the one in 1990.
Or examine the new government of Mr Aftab Sherpao in the NWFP. It is hanging on for dear life by the skin of its dentures. If Mr Sherpao intends to spend his time buying off MPAs and keeping them happy, or running to President Farooq Leghari whenever the courts find against him, when will he find time for government? We have seen it all before — in Balochistan (1989), Sindh (1991) and Punjab (1993) — and we know it leads into a dead end.
Or take the threats given by Mr Nawaz Sharif. He has boycotted the provincial assemblies of Punjab and NWFP as well as the national assembly. Now he is toying with the idea of handing in the PML(N)’s resignations and calling it a day. It is a nasty tactic, to be sure. But it has been borrowed from Ms Bhutto’s well-thumbed diary. Islamabad may like to pretend that it is business as usual but in fact the PPP is simply putting on a brave face. No one is fooled for a minute. The current deadlock is, potentially, rather like the one in 1993 in which the executioner ended up by being executed himself.
It is pretty gloomy on other fronts too. The internecine war in Afghanistan is threatening to spill over our borders as Pushtoons on both sides of the Durand line jockey for a larger-than-life role in the region. Yet Islamabad has been so immobilised by the legacies of the past and the gridlocks of the present that it is unable to chart out a firm plan of action. On Kashmir, it seems that there is no life after Geneva. US-Pak relations are frozen and there is no sign of the F-16s. Central Asia has been all but forgotten, Turkey is bristling over the cancellation of its contract to build part of the Motorway and Iran and China are busy mending fences with India. The economy is in a deep recession, foreign businessmen have decided not to invest in Pakistan even on a rainy day and Pakistanis are increasingly fearful of the hardships that are in store for them when the next budget is announced.
Meanwhile, anger and frustration are mounting all round. An under-trial Christian was gunned down outside the Lahore High Court and the Bishops of Lahore are threatening to strike against the unjust blasphemy laws. The majority community has responded by stoning and burning to death one of its own, allegedly for mishandling the Holy Quran.
Now Mehrangate has erupted to remind us just how rotten the whole system has become. The leaked FIA report, understandably enough, is focussed only on luminaries of the former IJI. But we all know that the buck doesn’t stop there. By the time Mr Yunus Habib is through, it will be difficult to find a single Mr or Ms Clean around. Mr Sharif wasn’t joking when he recently waved a sheaf of papers and claimed that the high and mighty are about to be tarred with the brush of Mehrangate.
Neither Ms Bhutto nor Mr Sharif can possibly relish this situation. Far from it. There was a purpose behind Mr Moeen Qureshi’s recent visit in which he publicly gave some unsolicited advice to both parties. And there is purpose to the continuing revelations about Mehrangate (which certainly don’t flow from the PPP camp). In both cases, it is clear even to the uninitiated that Someone somewhere is sending some pretty strong signals to both the government and the opposition: “you both have your snouts in the same trough give us good leadership and good government, or else!”
It is a message which Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif can ignore only at great peril. They must start talking to bring the temperature down. Otherwise it is going to be a long, unbearable summer.