THOUGH former president Arif Alvi seems eager to rebuild the bridges his party has burnt, he has been discovering that, in present circumstances, getting the ‘real power’ to the negotiating table can be like pulling teeth.

On Tuesday, in a talk with the media in Lahore, Dr Alvi, while delving into a long metaphor about guards, gardeners and renting houses, repeated that his party would only talk to “the owner of the house”, before qualifying that with: “if the guard has decided to be the owner, he can say so, and we can talk”.

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Though Dr Alvi conceded that he has had little success in getting the PTI and establishment to negotiate despite trying for the last two years, he remained hopeful about breaking the ice. “If there were no chances of success, I would have stopped trying long ago,” he explained in response to a question.

Dr Alvi need not be so circumspect about Pakistan’s problems as he sees them. Speaking in riddles is best left to mid-tier politicians; Dr Alvi has served as the country’s longest-serving democratically elected president and, as such, is entitled to speak his mind without having to worry about whom he may be upsetting.

Similarly, by virtue of having been supreme commander of Pakistan’s armed forces, it seems unbecoming of him to be chasing after those he wrongly considers the “owners of the house” and the “empowered”. Instead, he should be reaching out to other representatives of the people, the true owners of Pakistan.

Earlier this week, Dr Alvi explained that the PTI has three demands — supremacy of law, the release of PTI’s founder chairman Imran Khan, and the return of the party’s mandate.

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There is no reason why these cannot be discussed with the other political parties, which, regardless of what their respective numerical strengths should be in the assemblies, still do represent the part of the citizenry that does not vote for the PTI. Indeed, the PTI seems to be repeating one of the biggest mistakes it made during its last tenure, when it sought to sideline its rivals while seeking a direct line with the establishment.

Once again, the PTI is not representative of the entirety of the people of Pakistan: even if the PTI believes the current government has been formed with rigged results, it still does not mean that its rivals got no votes at all.

If for nothing else, it must respect the other elected political parties in consideration of this fact. Unless it respects the choices of those who did not and do not vote for it, and unless it engages with the representatives elected by these people, the nation will not break free of the vicious cycle of stop-start democracy it is currently caught in.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2024