Like poltergeist former General-President Pervez Musharraf won’t go away.

Nawaz Sharif thinks the only way to effect a closure is to hang, draw and quarter Musharraf. Some of his party leaders want to extend the courtesy to other former dictators also. Since, except Musharraf, all are dead, the PMLN wants to do a Cromwell on them. That’s the problem with selective reading of history, in this case of Great Britain’s and Cromwell’s place in it.

But while Sharif and his cohorts need to push this line for political reasons, finding it deliciously propitious that it also syncs with the slogan for constitutionalism, Musharraf himself is equally to blame for not letting the waters go still.

He has continued to speak, Oracle-like, on Pakistan and its various problems; he threatens to return and play a political role and, to that end, is actively trying to put the Q-League Humpty together.

The PPP government, meanwhile, is trying its best for a lockdown on the whole affair and is seeing its political fortunes take a dip as Sharif’s go up. So, where do matters stand and what about the army?

The army has signalled that it would stay neutral if Musharraf returned and was tried. There’s dilemma here for it. Musharraf has become a steel-ball around the institution’s ankle. When he was in power, the army went along with him even as dissent over his policies grew. His November 3, 2007 decision was very unpopular and the top brass knew, for the most part, that it was the clichéd beginning of the end. Yet, they supported him for institutional imperatives, perceived or real is another debate.

... contd.