Mian Sahib is in serious trouble. His body language says it all: he is terribly upset. He is like a drowning person trying desperately to clutch at the last straw to save his political life. There seems to be nobody around who could save his bacon. The Inquiry Commission on which he is pinning too much hope might succeed in dragging the issue till the dust kicked off by the Panama leaks settles down but irrespective of its final verdict, whatever it might be, he has certainly lost his high moral ground by dilly dallying in resigning from his position, not coming clean in the matter and beating about the bush. Many corrupt people who moved in the corridors of power surround him who deserve the same treatment which the Army chief has meted out to senior army commanders. Small wonder in every public function where the PM and the Army chief happen to be present together the commoners raise laudatory slogans for the latter and ignore the former.
Democracy doesn’t give you a blanket cover to indulge in any financial shenanigan you like to involve yourself in. The politicians no longer can get away with the plea that the people carry out their accountability at the hustings and that’s that. To many the politicians of this country have been, to a great extent, responsible for the rule by the jackboots in the country. Isn’t it a fact that whenever a martial law was imposed in the past in this country many people were so happy that they could not hide their happiness and openly distributed sweets among themselves? Ayub Khan had stepped in after the politicians made a mess of this country between 1951 and 1958. Again it was the political turmoil in the country in 1977 that forced army to intervene. History was to repeat itself when massive corruption left the army with no option but to take over the reins of power in 1999. It is another matter that the army dictators too couldn’t come up to the expectation of the common man.
What worries more now the patriotic people of this country, holding interest of their country close to their heart than anything else, is the umpteen developmental projects which are in the various stages of their execution in the country with the Chinese aid. If God, forbid, political instability in the country stymied their progress it is going to cause terrible loss to the economy of this country. It would have been much better if the PM instead of making it a prestige issue left the citadel of power on his own volition in the larger interest of the country, his political party elected a new leader of the House in his place to run the affairs of the country uninterrupted and, in the meantime, he should have got a clean bill of health from the court in case his claim that he has not done anything wrong is correct. That step would have been in the best democratic tradition also. Odds are that if no serious and sincere attempt was made by the PM to get his name cleared and he clinged to power till 2018 the country is not going to enjoy political peace. He has decided to take on his political adversaries by addressing a series of public rallies in the areas where his political party enjoys sufficient public support. He is also busy taking into confidence his political allies on his party’s stand on the Panama leaks and hopes they would stand behind him foursquare in the manner they had supported him during the days of sit- ins of Imran Khan.
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