As if the political turmoil in the country was not bad enough already, the ruling PPP and its coalition partners passed a resolution in the National Assembly last week for carving out a new province in southern Punjab. Not to be left behind, the PML-N unveiled its own resolution for creating four new provinces. Though the main opposition party has started a nationwide campaign against the convicted Prime Minister and his government, it decided to amplify this untimely debate in any case. As the traditional main contenders for power continue to play football with the nation's mind, kicking up new issues before resolving the plethora of contentions piling up on the table, they strengthen the public perception that their political machinations are insincere, calculated to score partisan points and not even remotely related to the welfare and empowerment of citizens whose cause they pretend to champion.
Increasing the number of federating units for effective decentralisation of governance is not a bad idea. But surely, this is not the best time to take up the matter. Besides, the current visionless bickering is not the best way to address a pressing national issue. It only adds to the chaos being cleverly nurtured by the PPP big boss to drown out serious questions about the legitimacy and functioning of his lawless government. So, why is the PML-N helping him in his distractionary tactics? The opposition party says that it does not recognise the Gilani Cabinet as legitimate after his conviction and it has refused to engage with the government even on the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner. Could it not have taken a clear-cut stance on postponing any discussion on the new provinces, until there was a legitimate government in place? Why has it been quick to add fuel to a useless fire?
The common understanding is that both the parties are garnering election points. After all, given the party composition in Parliament and the constitutional process, it is obvious that any headway on the Janoobi Punjab province is impossible without both of them being on board. It would require the kind of cooperation among the two political parties that resulted in the passage of recent constitutional amendments, something that is not a possibility given their mutually irreconcilable differences and hard positions in the present political context. It is obvious that the government used its Janoobi Punjab resolution in the National Assembly as a political gimmick and, as has been pointed out earlier, it had its perverse political reasons to do it. By moving its resolution for four provinces, the PML-N has actually helped the government in what it had set out to do, giving more ammunition to those who accuse it of being a friendly opposition.
The issue of rationalising the size of unwieldy federating units for bringing the government closer to the people and to pave the way for more effective governance is important. As the two biggest political parties in the country, the PPP and PML-N both have not only the right, but also the responsibility to put forth their vision on how they want to go about it and to what end. But the least one expects from them is that they would approach the issue holistically and with the responsibility and diligence becoming of parties that claim national leadership. The thinly veiled attempt by the PPP to divide Punjab for narrow partisan goals and the equally immature four-province rejoinder by the PML-N demonstrate the lack of vision on part of both the parties and their inability to rise above petty politics. What makes it worse is that instead of refining these ideas for inclusion in their election manifestos, they have chosen to use the floor of the National Assembly for their half-baked petty squabbles.
After all, the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the two provinces selected by the parties to score election points, are not the only provinces that suffer from excessive centralisation of power. In Sindh and Balochistan, people suffer as much because they live so far away from provincial capitals and do not get their fair share of development. The politics of new provinces can only make sense if it is underpinned by the concerns of the people and their welfare. Any blueprint for rationalising the federating units must also benefit from inputs from the people that it hopes to benefit. Unfortunately, the rhetoric on new provinces thrown at the nation by the two main parties is devoid of any depth that comes from a holistic political vision and suffers from a lack of understanding that comes from engagement with people at the grassroots. As in so many other cases, an important national task has been reduced to a game of political upmanship and power calculations.
This lack of willingness and ability to push forward the democratic process to a point where it actually starts producing some results for the welfare of the people, the very raison d'etre of democracy, is unfortunate. When democratic institutions become arenas for self-absorbed wrestling matches between political contenders, when the leadership of national political parties is not interested in creating a vision that promises the well being of the nation as a whole and they start playing calculated divisive games to endear themselves to this or that section with the hope of strengthening their vote banks and the number of seats they could win in a certain region, when they see their political survival dependent on pitting one part of the country against another, democracy becomes a farce. Together, the two biggest parties are stripping the democratic process of any remaining legitimacy or relevance due to their short-sightedness.
So, what is going to arrest this free-fall of democratic politics to the abyss? Some say that the PTI will fill the gap left by the two main political parties. Others look at the Supreme Court for salvation. There is another opinion that is getting louder by the day. Only four years into our so-called democracy, there are also those who are praying for the army to intervene and bring an end to the painful farce.

n    The writer is a freelance columnist.
    Email: hazirjalees@hotmail.com