Daily Times Editorial Jan 4, 2013

Alarm over Qadri threat Alarm appears to be growing over the threat posed by Tahirul Qadri and his long march scheduled for January 14 if, as he says, the reforms demanded by him are not implemented by January 10. The alarm has been added to by the MQM’s throwing in its lot with Qadri, as well as another ruling coalition ally the PML-Q flirting with the dubious agenda of the Maulana. PTI’s Imran Khan has been taking a soft line on Qadri without going the whole hog in support a la MQM. What this means is that a clear divide has opened up between those political forces that stand committed to the historic opportunity for the very first time to see an elected government compete its tenure and its successor voted in under a consensus caretaker government and a consensus Chief Election Commissioner, and those, denials by Qadri and MQM notwithstanding, who seem to be touting a formula that in essence would lead to the postponement of the elections for an indefinite period. Any political party wedded to democracy and coming to power only through the ballot box stands in the first category, which means more or less the whole political class, opportunists and blackmailers like MQM and PML-Q excepted. The two main parties, the PPP and the PML-N, who have the greatest stake in a free, fair, transparent election through which a peaceful transition through the people’s votes can be accomplished, naturally are gravitating closer to each other to prevent what is increasingly looking like a sinister conspiracy to derail the system, the deep state topping the list of usual suspects behind this shadowy move. Unfortunately, suspicions aside, there is no evidence so far who exactly is the author of this extraordinary intervention. Even a politically savvy actor like Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI-F has been forced to concede that he does not know on whose behest or agenda Qadri is playing. The threat to the historic democratic transition in the offing for the first time in the country’s history has persuaded Nawaz Sharif to ask the ruling PPP to declare the name of the caretaker prime minister and setup and announce the elections schedule as soon as possible. The unwritten subtext of this message is to try and pre-empt, or at the very least defuse the impact of the long march Qadri is threatening to besiege Islamabad with. At the same time, the opposition leader has said that as long as Qadri and his supporters remain peaceful, they have the right to stage the long march and should be given a free hand. That indeed is the crux of the coming problem. Given the aggressive tone of Tahirul Qadri in his rally speeches and elsewhere, the big question is whether the emotional rhetoric he is employing will help or hinder attempts to keep the long march peaceful and within the bounds of the law. For example, assuming the marchers receive free and unhindered passage, it can be hoped that the journey at least will be without unpleasant incident. However, what is not clear is what the marchers and their organizers plan to do once they are in Islamabad. Will they hold a public rally and then disperse peacefully, will they remain and lay ‘siege’ to the capital? What will be the demands that can realistically be considered at such a gathering, given that the prior demands are unrealistic in the extreme for deadline as well as content? Perhaps the advice of Nawaz Sharif should be heeded by all and the closed door negotiations going on amongst the two main protagonists as well as other parties in parliament put on a fast track in order to put to rest all the alarmist and alarming speculations being aired, which have done more than their bit in spreading confusion and uncertainty just when the country is poised to write a new and positive chapter in its chequered democratic history.