There is just no good news coming to us from anywhere. The national and international press and electronic media are harbingers of gloom and doom. If indeed the country's creator and maker, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, did predict shortly before he died that each successive government of Pakistan would be worse than its predecessor he was a man of prescience and his words that have held good for over 60 years are truer today than ever before. No one, just no one, other than the members of the PPP-Z who attempt to glorify their inaction, is denying that the system, as it is, is rotten to its core. It has rotted with incredible swiftness since the disastrous 2002 elections which brought in the government of the Gujrat Chaudhrys and Shaukat Aziz, surely the pits, which seemingly made the nation believe it could sink no lower. But we seem now, as a result of the February elections, to have brought ourselves even lower than the proverbial pits. There is no government " there is one in name only, which is run by a medley of mainly unelected or indirectly elected people with little connection to the PPP of the Bhuttos. There is a prime minister, an elected man, who, poor chap, is far more hamstrung than Shaukat Aziz was and who has no say in the governance or non-governance of Pakistan, and the same goes for what passes as his cabinet. The prime minister has of late taken to travelling, at the behest of his leader (who himself spends far more time out of the country than in it), having no good reason to remain in the homeland. The PPP-Z, brought into power by a cruel twist of fate, has nothing to offer in the way of governance. It, and thus the country, is run by an unelected person, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, whose sole aim is to clear his name in the courts using that most perfidious NRO thrust upon the nation in shameless manner by the US and President Pervez Musharraf. Asif Zardari, via his lawyer, was in the Sindh High Court last week filing an application for the grant of a succession certificate in respect of his late wife's assets. He claimed, inter alia, that Benazir Bhutto died intestate and despite a frantic search for her will none could be found. This is interesting in view of the piece of paper waved at us all by Zardari on the third day after his wife's death which he told us was her Will, and which he also told us consisted of many pages which could not be revealed to the public as it dealt with her private affairs. The PPP-Z raised the slogan that democracy is the best revenge. Well, the party "not of the people" is certainly wreaking its democratic revenge upon Pakistan, which under its tutelage has turned into a veritable basket case. Zardari, as part of his democratic revenge, has thrust upon the nation an unelected man of disputed repute in the form of Rehman Malik who is incharge of all matters pertaining to the interior and to the advancing Taliban. Now, Malik may have been a prime negotiator between Benazir Bhutto, President Musharraf and the Americans, cooking up dubious deals and possibly putting into play his negotiating skills to use Benazir to get himself back in. But when it comes to negotiating with militant bigots who operate quite on another tack his particular skills seem to be only making a further mess of an already messed up situation. And, as the man incharge of the country's security, what on earth possessed him to allow the commemorative "conference"' of the Lal Masjid survivors and supporters to be held at the Lal Masjid in Islamabad on July 6? Could he not foresee that it could only encourage acts of terrorism? Did he not anticipate that whatever speeches would be made by the hardcore militant Islamists would be inflammable and an attack upon the weak writ the state now wields? He is directly responsible for the deaths of 19 people, 11 of them policemen and for the many injured and maimed. The coalition, again a coalition only in name, is skidding on the rocks, with the PML-N as paralytic as is the PPP-Z due to Mian Nawaz Sharif's unrelenting vengefulness against Musharraf. His is a one-track mind. The only signs of life are in the Punjab, where Shahbaz Sharif is attempting to get on with things, though he has an awkward governor to deal with. Meanwhile the jihadist cult is flourishing. As said the Texas-based Stratfor in its July 7 diary, "A year after Red Mosque operation, Pakistan appears to be spinning out of control. It is difficult to say with any clarity what will happen in another year, other than that there do not appear to be many arrestors to counter the current trend toward anarchy " even if the military steps in." What prospects do we have of improved governance or of any signs of an imposition of law and order? The writer is a freelance columnist E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk