Any contemporary thinker of any significance cannot be in any doubt on the three salient aspects of the evolving political scenario in Pakistan, viz: (1) the manifest political operations through which Zardari has entered the portals of absolute power, (2) the apparently harmful response that Nawaz Sharif has exhibited thus far to the continuity of the Musharraf brand of governmental retention of power in presidency to the exclusion of Parliament, and (3) resultantly the bleak future of the country because of the lack of Opposition to the government which is the sine qua non of parliamentary systems. People of Pakistan invariably make the right decisions for the ultimate betterment of the country. Time and again this phenomenon has been established. They demonstrated this public conception of the General Will, as Rousseau called it, in 1947, 1970 or, as most recently, in 2008. Did we not witness the same phenomenon again when the people by their vote demanded for a change on February 18? Did they not vote for Musharraf's ouster and affirmatively condemn his consistent acts of usurpation since 1999? Was it not tantamount to a mandate for the restoration of the Musharraf-purged judiciary? We cannot simply forget that but for that "NO" that came from one CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry on March 9, 2007, all these present rulers and many in the Parliament would still be sitting in foreign lands as exiles or absolute nobodies within the country itself? It is thus most bothersome that none of the outcomes which ought to have occurred has taken place. For most in Pakistan including the genuine PPP supporters it is clear that this course of politics is against the mandated intentions of the people of the country. Conversely it is equally manifest that in effect that the PPP leadership is now an incarnate continuum of the philosophy which Musharraf stood for if not worse. In parliamentary system whose constitutional and political duty it is to bring out such matters into the public's focus? Clearly it is the duty of the Opposition to do so. Since that mantle as of right and by the mandate of the people now belongs to Nawaz Sharif, it is to him that we look for bringing such issues into public's attention for a debate. Yet, I feel almost embarrassed to say that the country's Opposition, and particularly Nawaz Sharif, seems to extend all niceties to the ruling party to the dismay of those who have struggled to have regime of rule of law established in this country. Nawaz Sharif seems to be a character out of Shakespearean play who is torn between doing the right thing but who has all the ambivalence to do it in the manner expected by conventional wisdom or practices. I am reminded of Macbeth: To go in Opposition stricto sensu or not is the question? I fully understand that given his own most congenial personality which is inclined to charitable and gracious mannerism, he is reluctant to perform the part that as Opposition he must play. In many addresses and interviews after saying that he is disappointed in Zardari reneging on three crucial undersigning with him, he still hopes that he has nothing but good wishes for the federal government and for Zardari It is clear that these two sentiments are directly in opposition to each other and could be logically said to be mutually self-destructive. As an Opposition it is the foremost constitutional duty of its leader to offer an alternative to the people of the country. It is a politically established doctrine, enunciated by such celebrated British authorities as Gladstone or Walter Bagehot that there has to be an effort to take over the government should the Opposition succeed. What is more demoralising for the people to comprehend is that such graces are being extended personally to President Zardari which is simply staggering in navet. From Shakespearean plays one has as to keep the role portrayed by Brutus: "Not that I love Caesar less but that I love Rome more." Mian Sahib should keep in focus that whatever makes him beholden to Zardari he has a higher and a more sacred duty to Pakistan and its 165 million people. Indeed people have now openly begun to suggest as much, in my view wrongly, that this "opposition" to Zardari is really a sham. I have heard some prominent leaders say so on TV interviews and talk shows that were the PML-N Opposition fundamentally genuine, and then there is no question of there being a "coalition" in the Punjab province. I think the real test of Mian Sahib is fast approaching that he has to decide on the right course of action for the masses he commands. I hope that for the sake of the millions of people in the country, and particularly in the Punjab he acts judiciously with appropriate counsel. Despite clear and unambiguous promises to withdraw the 17th Amendment, and restore judiciary, nothing has taken place. I also think that in the foreseeable future it will not occur either. For if the17th Amendment goes, so does the bar injected in the constitution by Musharraf also goes with that mandates twice premiership being an embargo for the third time. I cannot see that the president will easily agree to this scenario in which he has an unshackled Nawaz Sharif directly opposing him in the Parliament. As such I would submit to the Opposition to perform its time cherished role in accordance with the established norms of this system. What is now happening in the country is in a way dereliction of one's duty in Opposition; it has created in a way an analogous sedition towards propriety and the exigencies of the time. It is artificial and creating manifestly a kind of oligarchy that is gravely threatening to the democracy itself. The incumbent political elite is not just intellectually and morally bankrupt, it is also devoid of ideas and is slaves in thought to outside influence or to those that it professes to have replaced. It is beyond my analytical skills to put it in any other way except to say that such good intentions notwithstanding, such a pursuit in politics are novel phenomena. Regrettably this is bound to create more difficulties for the country and indeed for PML-N and Mian Sahib himself than are right now needed. The writer is a senior advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, attorney-at-law (US), barrister-at-law (UK) and professor at Harvard University