If I were Nawaz Sharif, I too would have looked exhausted, unbuttoned my collar and loosened the tie-knot. The image during his press conference in Lahore May 12 was a good visual for coalition woes.

The question now, and the obvious one, is: where to from here?

Speculations abound even though Yogi Berra famously said that “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future”.

To begin simply, Sharif has two choices. He can either take the logic of what he has done further, which will be a political risk, or allow the PPP to woo him back, which the latter has said it will do.

Let me stick my neck out and say that, objectively speaking, Sharif should exercise the option of returning to the fold rather than taking the present course to the tipping point. Here’s why.

Sharif has been circumspect, up until now, in dealing with the issue. There was no name-calling and no accusations at the press conference. The PPP has been equally mature. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has refused to accept the resignations of the PMLN ministers; earlier, Asif Ali Zardari had said that he would request the prime minister to keep the portfolios open so their ministries could be returned to PMLN ministers.

The only ministry to get a new minister was to be finance. And that too because of the appropriations bill. Chances are that Gilani might ask Ishaq Dar, the PMLN finance minister, to continue even as other ministers do not, for now, attend to their ministries. If that happens, and if Sharif allows Dar to continue working, it would be the strongest signal that the rough the coalition has hit will not flatten it.

... contd.