- The threat not to cooperate does not solve anything
PML-N parliamentary leader Khawaja Asif has reason to be irate at the government, or rather the PTI. After all, its supporters staged a demo in front of the Avenfield Apartments where ex-PM Nawaz Sharif and his stand-in as party chief, brother Shehbaz, are staying, and used threatening language. However, that misbehaviour does not justify his threat not to cooperate with the government in the legislation that has been mandated by the Supreme Court on the matter of the COAS’s extension. It is not that the COAS’s fate is at stake so much, as the futility of such a threat. After all, Parliament is meant to be the place where dialogue is carried on until a problem, no matter how difficult, is solved, and it has been one of the objections the PTI has faced that it has not engaged in that dialogue with the opposition that it needs to, out of a misplaced sense of self-righteousness. Now, it seems, the PML-N has engaged on the same course.
It also appears that Kh Asif might have engaged on a solo flight, which would lead to cracks in opposition unity, as other parties refrain from following suit. Just as much as the government lacks the numbers to pass an Act in the Senate, the PML-N lacks the numbers (in both Houses) to frustrate any legislation on its own. Kh Asif is also embarking on a journey which would lead logically to resignations from Parliament. That would fulfil the demand of the JUI-F during its Azadi March, but that demand had been turned down by the combined opposition’s Rahbar Committee. Kh Asif may well find that even his own parliamentary party would be too reluctant to do what he says. As the Rahbar Committee is meeting, Kh Asif would do well to take his demand there. The Committee can best serve the case of democracy by persuading him against following through on a demand which does not set a good precedent. The government and the opposition should both remember that problems are solved only through dialogue. The consequences of avoiding dialogue are not just obvious, but have cost the country too dearly to bear repetition.
