A short thread on political situation in Pakistan & why I don't think there's much hope to be positive of the future.

Nawaz Sharif may have mentioned couple of names in his speech which definitely is the first time by a main stream Punjabi political leader & a huge leap, but

even he is falling well short of pinpointing the root cause. Popular narrative currently brewing is: "It's not the institution rather few people at top brass that take matters in their own hands and misuse their power".

Unfortunately this is not even half the truth.

In reality role of institution is a far bigger problem. It's no coincidence that every single head of institution in last 70 yrs has broken constitution, misused power or conspired against elected governments with full support or no opposition from within.

e.g. 1999 coup was carried out by a team while chief was airborne, or reaction on Musharraf's case verdict. Even rigging in 2018 elections wasn't possible without planning, logistics & inclusion of institution at every level. There have not been even 10 resignations in protest.

Therefore resignation of one or two would only be a ripple in water and eyewash. Faces have changed in past as well. Yahya replaced Ayub, Kayani replaced Musharraf. Such gimmicks are damage control efforts to improve public perception rather for the rule of the law.

That's why nothing ever changed besides optics, rather it evolved in more sophisticated effort to control the whole system.
The only ray of hope would be if political parties continue to push towards change & reforms at institutional level and not concentrate on just few faces.

Examples would be budget audits, reducing agencies influence, shattering myth of ideological boundaries of this country, adding extra layers of scrutiny over business empire, barring higher rank retired officers from accepting any job for at least 5 years and lot more.

And this is why I am not hopeful at all. Result of current movement might be the resignation of a few but if history teaches us anything, unfortunately no-one wants to go further. In just a matter of time before things would get back to normal.

No political party is serious in fighting for a substantial change. It is an infinite spiral where elected prime ministers would keep on losing their jobs every few years and we are destined to keep protesting perpetually.