IT doesn’t happen very often but this weekend Imran Khan did get upstaged, despite having announced D-Day for the Punjab and KP assemblies.

Before there could even be 24 hours of a non-stop postmortem of his speech and the given date, Chaudhry Parvez Elahi jumped into the fray with an outburst — he has probably given more interviews this year than he has in his entire political career — against Khan’s criticism of former chief of army staff, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Uncharacteristically harsh, not only did he warn Khan and the rest of the PTI to refrain from criticising the former chief but also threatened to speak up the next time it happened. Adding that he had thrown a PTI MPA out of a cabinet meeting for speaking against the military, he reminded the party, and especially Khan, of all they owed Gen Bajwa, and how criticism amounted to ehsaan faramoshi, or ingratitude. (And rewriting history in a way, he recounted the good general’s trips to foreign lands to ensure funds for Pakistan and not unsavoury events such as the 2018 election, as the ehsaans or favours.)

It was an interesting interview for the manner in which it proceeded. This warning to Imran Khan and the PTI came right at the beginning of the show and seemed to have little to do with the questions of the journalists; they were as much a part of the thunderstruck audience as those of us on the other side of the idiot box.

And once the piece was said, gears shifted for the rest of the interview, so to speak. For the remaining part, the old-fashioned politician who tries to be diplomatic was on display.

The ire was reserved mostly for Gen Faiz Hameed — apparently, only the chief or a former chief has feelings the politician must worry about — as well as Usman Buzdar and Shehbaz Sharif. Buzdar must be feeling miffed as well as a little happy that at least someone finds him important enough to remember, even if it is for all the wrong reasons.

Chaudhry Parvez Elahi’s interview has added an urgency to political activity in Lahore.

However, the interview has led to further conjecture about the PTI’s capacity to dissolve the assemblies by the week’s end. While some wonder if Elahi might switch sides again or resist pulling the plug, this conjecture is gaining credence because of the chief minister’s own admission about the establishment not wanting immediate elections. And this was not just a random statement, for by now, everyone knows the chief minister made a trip to Rawalpindi to meet ‘someone’ before this interview was given. No one has revealed the identity but everyone is quietly agreed on who the host could have been. He even spoke of ‘plans’ to impose an economic emergency without explaining who was thinking of it and why. And of course, once there is an open acknowledgment of what the establishment wants, who can hope or work for a different ending? Khan’s goose is now cooked is the conclusion.

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No wonder then that Elahi’s interview added an urgency to the to-ing and fro-ing in Lahore.

The prime minister visited Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, as did Asif Ali Zardari who rushed to Lahore. Parvez Elahi has already met his cousin over Friday prayers and Moonis Elahi called on Khan. And these are just the meetings we know about. There was more activity in Lahore on the weekend than the spurt of visits among relatives during Eid.

But what can all this ‘calling shalling’ lead to? Governor’s rule, a vote of confidence or a vote of no-confidence? The possibilities in Pakistani politics are always limitless (and so what, if all of them entail a complicated means to an end, reaching behind the head to tug at one’s nose).

None of them, despite the help of the invisible hands, which in Pakistan are not the ones Adam Smith wrote about, will work out all that smoothly.

Governor’s rule after the 18th Amendment needs the legislatures’ ratification. The other option is to have the governor call for a vote of confidence, but this too, in the view of some, requires some reasoning in the absence of which it may end up in court, as will the decision to impose governor’s rule.

This leaves the vote of no-confidence which can work if Elahi switches sides, because the Supreme Court ruling may make it difficult for the PTI wallahs to vote for someone other than what Khan wants. Only if the PML-Q moves over, can it go smoothly.

However, this is not to say that Khan is sitting pretty either, which is what Elahi is trying to tell him.

Considering that the National Assembly has been operating in a dysfunctional manner since the departure of the PTI, there will be motivation enough to keep Punjab going as well, be it by prolonging the stalemate or by bringing in a caretaker once the PTI departs — which is what it fears too — because the ECP and Khan are on terms as good as the ones between Putin and Zelensky.

And these are the finer details we are all caught up in. For no one wants to zoom out and accept that regardless of who gets their way — Khan, PDM or the invisible hands — there is no end to the crisis.

If the PDM manages to throw out the PTI and install its own chief minister, it will be the fourth government in Punjab in six months or so. And if Khan gets his way and forces an election in half of Pakistan, this will not lead to any resolution of the crisis, if the centre, Sindh and Balochistan hold out.

In either case, there is little chance of the exotic bird called political stability being sighted. We will continue to be caught in this fight to death à la Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb, and it might just end up occupying most of 2023, when we have already lost 2022 to the succession battle of another kind.

PS: This piece was written before the no-confidence motion against the Punjab CM was submitted.

The writer is a journalist.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2022