The pride of the present government is passing legislations and the pride of our President is the political skill with which he has kept his coalition partners together and under his thumb. Neither of these accomplishments has, however, succeeded in arresting the rapid economic decline, deteriorating civil disorder, total political isolation in the world or uniting the nation and its institutions. The present ruling dispensation has excelled in pragmatic political manoeuvring that will take them to the end of their statutory term, but has failed in all other aspects of governance. This is demonstrated in various polls, ratings and economic indicators. The state is malfunctioning as a consequence of its founding pillars pulling in different directions.
The judiciary-executive tussle should have been ringing alarm bells for any sane government with the nation’s interest as the foremost priority overriding personal considerations. Instead, Parliament deems the weakening of the judiciary to be its strength. The parliamentary majority translated its frustration with the Supreme Court rulings into steamrolling the 20th Amendment (the contempt of court bill) through the National Assembly on July 9 and tabling another of dual nationality a day later. Rushing through Parliament with a brute strength of majority the contempt bill is clearly mala fide and looked with suspicion by a majority of our people.
The pride earned by the PPP by passing the 18th and 19th Amendments through consensus after long deliberations has been diluted by the presentation of these two amendments with a hurricane speed amidst fierce protests and walkouts by the opposition. These have generated further controversies, deep divisions and speculations about the fall of the government and the system. Don’t we already have enough problems of much higher magnitude and importance for the welfare of citizenry and improving our national image that need the attention of the government?
The army, considered the third pillar of the state, has held its fort by persisting with a neutral stance in our domestic politics. It is bogged down amidst numerous hostilities from within and from external forces, and has been engaged into fighting its own people as well as hostile neighbours to salvage the territorial integrity. The politicians abdicated their responsibilities and passed the buck to the army, due to their incompetence, lack of foresight, and courage or will to reach out to the militants to bring them into the mainstream of Pakistan’s political system and work out political solutions.
Externally, the army is under constant pressure of the Americans, whose target is to neutralise our stockpile of nuclear assets that they see as a threat to their domination of the region. The USA’s strategy to undermine Pakistan’s regional significance by keeping it out of the loop of any negotiated settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan has been resisted by the army by reducing its cooperation with the American intelligence and the Nato armed forces. Failing in their attempts to subdue our army high command, the Americans seem intent on destabilising the country. They have held back the pledged financial assistance and a smear campaign is in full swing in the American and Western media against Pakistan. While the Obama administration is clueless about how to handle an important friend-turned-adversary, our government is oblivious to the repercussions of enmity with a superpower and reacts only through its ill-considered, knee-jerk policies.
Karachi is in the grip of an undeclared limited civil strife where tens of people are routinely killed every day in turf and mafia wars. The Baloch nationalists are openly defying the state, roaming around freely in armed convoys and are a law unto them. The government cannot touch the insurgents or the various groups of troublemakers and has been unable to bring them around the negotiating table or to introduce any reforms. The Balochistan ministers prefer the safety of Islamabad to their home province. Likewise, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and its adjacent tribal area is the stronghold of militants, who are running a state within a state and are frequently in combat with our troops; many of which have been kidnapped or killed in action. Miscellaneous light and heavy weapons, mostly illegal and unlicensed, have found their way in all parts of our country that has been labelled as the “most dangerous state” in the world.
The most peaceful province of Punjab has just survived a three-week long young doctors’ strike during which the doors of the emergencies, outpatient departments and other areas in the government hospitals were forcibly shut down. The patients were denied all routine treatment, procedures or referrals to specialists. Many of them had travelled long distances at considerable expense and a few in critical conditions did not survive. The Young Doctors Association refused to budge from their demands of change in service structure, despite the persuasion by their senior doctors that lost them all sympathy of the public and the media. Eventually, the High Court had to pass an order to end the strike.
The urban areas have only limited positions and most young doctors are reluctant to accept the ‘hardship’ of serving in rural areas. The attention they impart to poor patients in government hospitals is known to be less than caring. As they progress to the level of specialist consultants in a few years, their incomes increase with geometric progression and become out of reach of the average citizen. Where have the professional ethics and the passion for public service gone? Perhaps, it is the ‘get rich quick’ syndrome that has trickled down to the professional cadre from the parliamentarians and our ruling circle, all of whom assume their personal benefits to supersede the interests of the public they are expected to serve. The decay of healthcare system and the heartlessness of young doctors reflect the general degradation of values and sense of purpose that has come to prevail in the entire nation.
The Nato supply trucks that were stranded for seven months were allowed transit to Afghanistan, as the government capitulated under US pressure and took a unilateral decision to open its borders without reverting to Parliament or addressing the stringent conditions it had applied. Why does Parliament not question the government on disobeying its unanimous recommendations? What did we gain by straining our relationship with the world’s sole superpower? Why are we entangled in opening new fronts while we should be endeavouring to apply brakes on our economic and social slide? What strategy does our political wizard have up his sleeve? Or is he on a checkmate?

The writer is an engineer and an entrepreneur.
    Email: k.a.k786@hotmail.com