The short of opposition’s long march

The ordinary voters blink in disbelief as they watch their elected representatives spit fire on one another. The lines have apparently been drawn.

Halting democracy in the country seems to be under some sort of a curse. After the general elections of February 18, 2008, the parliamentary show that began with a fanfare - clapping, applause, loud ovation and the rest of it - appears to have ended up with sessions of chest-beating on the highways.

Life has come to a standstill. Salesman says sorry to the shopkeeper for getting late as he was caught up in the traffic jam due to the long march.

Student says this to the teacher and teacher to the principal.

The trick works excellently well as long as the opposition parties' protest march lasts.

PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif tells media that the government has placed him under house arrest at his sprawling residence in Lahore's Model Town.

Advisor on Home Affairs Rehman Malik says the Mian is not under house arrest; the government has just beefed up his security as 'the suicide bombers have entered the Punjab metropolis'.

With silver on his temples and having instant access to world's airwaves, the Islamabad-based correspondent of CNN television, Stan Grant, listens to both the statements, shrugs his shoulders in suppressed disgust and shouts into the microphone: "It is extremely confusing!"

No less confused is BBC's woman correspondent, Barbara Plett.

She borrows the footage from sensational Pakistani channels, scans the local newspapers and tries to read between the lines.

Cell phone users in the federal capital complained that due to government's restrictive measures they could neither send nor receive messages via their tiny hand-held machines.

Peshawar-Islamabad motorway had been sealed.

Khairabad Bridge had been blocked with huge containers so traffic between Peshawar and Rawalpindi stood suspended.

Intending travellers from Peshawar to various towns of Punjab vainly roamed the bus terminals to see if they could catch an early morning bus or climb on to a late night coach.

However, Shazia Aurangzeb, PML-N's information secretary and in charge of her party's youth wing, was 'luckier'. She managed to reach Islamabad with a number of female party workers and expected more of them to arrive today.

Equally 'lucky' were some of the workers of Tehrik-i-Insaf as they hired boats in Rawal Lake and started living in them days before the deadline.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Imran Khan and Mian Shahbaz Sharif proved smart enough to have dodged the law-enforcing agencies and succeeded in making it to the capital on Sunday.

Mian Shahbaz was putting up at the Chaklala residence of PML-N leader Chaudhry Tanweer.

When police arrived to raid the place, Mian Shahbaz reportedly slipped away through the back door.

Patriotic observers like Arif Nizami, Imtiaz Alam and Professor Muhammad Waseem monitored the developments and expressed concern at the continuing stand-off between the 'hawks' of President Asif Ali Zardari and those of the Sharif Brothers.

Taking part in a television discussion, Nizami quoted Admiral Mike Mullen having said that he reportedly 'calmed down' Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani who 'felt perturbed' at the deteriorating situation.

Imtiaz Alam, secretary-general of South Asian Free Media Association, said he was just back from a meeting with Mian Nawaz Sharif, who felt different after receiving a phone call from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Nawaz Sharif no longer felt exasperated at references to President Zardari.

Imtiaz lamented the fact that Pak politicians felt proud in receiving calls from foreign dignitaries at the time of a serious crisis.

Professor Waseem said that if the feuding parties did not show flexibility in the ongoing power struggle, the 'third party' may feel tempted to step in.

The participants said that chief of the Congress Party in India Sonia Gandhi had been through far worse crises but she never waited for or welcomed foreign calls.

Apart from the views of highbrow news analysts, the common man in the country feels oddly disgusted at the way the politician on both sides of the political divide are making a travesty of the hard-earned democratic process.

One does not mean disrespect to anyone but some observers go to the extent of describing Mian Nawaz Sharif as 'inflexible' and bellicose.

In support of their argument, they recall Mian Sahib's bitter-sweet relationship with three past army chiefs - General Waheed Kakar, General Jehangir Karamat and General (Retd) Pervez Musharraf. The PPP camp has offered several options to the PML-N leaders.

Asfandyar Wali Khan and Maulana Fazlur Rehman have been shuttling between the Presidency and the suburban residence of Mian Nawaz Sharif in Jati Amra, Raiwind outside Lahore.

At one stage the Maulana complained that in private conversations, Mian Sahib said one thing while in public he said quite another.

From February 18, 2008 up to March 16, 2009, no serious effort has been made to redress any of the people's grievances.

The general public is faced with galloping inflation, rising prices of food, petrol and gas. Lawlessness, violence and militancy have been like a pain in the neck.

Unemployment has been driving more and more Pakistanis below the poverty line. Anarchy, chaos and bad governance have been the order of the day.

People want that their utility bills should be within tolerable limits but our financial messiah Shaukat Tareen says that the government will have to review the prices of oil, gas and electricity on monthly basis.

With annual exams going on in schools, the roads are being blocked.

Parents feel extremely worried over how their children will reach the place of exams on time and whether they will return home safely after they have handed back the answer-sheet.

The traders have suffered loss worth billion of rupees as the containers full of perishable and non-perishable goods have been seized by police to block bridges over the Chenab and other rivers.

One feels like ending the piece with lines from Khalid Ahmad's poetry: "Aag sarkon pe hai aur shor bhi Khalid Ahmad; Sur milay ya na milay, Rome ko jal jana tha!"