Sharif knows this. He also knows that he has been forced to do what he has done because of his rhetoric on the issue of restoring the judges. He may well have hit bottom and that only means bouncing back.

If he doesn’t opt out, very unlikely unless he throws everything to the wind, he will most probably let the PPP get on with the constitutional package it wants to put together. Once that has happened, the PMLN could support it on the basis of the argument that it could not have stayed out of a process that led to the restoration of judges.

It can make cautious noises about the PMLN’s inability to get the judges restored through a parliamentary resolution and an executive order but it has a good excuse: it doesn’t have the headcount to do so and it has done whatever could be done to pressure the senior coalition partner to fall in step. Since that was not to be, it had to choose between “all or nothing” and one being impossible and the other impractical, it would go for what can be salvaged.

The PPP, for its part, realises that the pact it has with the other power centres is not a straightforward affair. Also, while the judges’ issue may have generated much heat, there is much else on the plate: terrorism, power shortages, food and oil crisis, etc. So it will do everything to keep the flock together.

Simultaneously, however, it has made arrangements for the alternative. If the worse comes to the worst, it would make a bid for Punjab. The postponement of the by-elections, and the cloak and dagger manner in which that was conducted, was primarily meant to keep Shahbaz Sharif out of the political arena until matters could be decided on the judges’ issue.

... contd.