'FRANKENSTEIN', 'doctrine', 'combine'. The three words don't rhyme. They do here. There was a time when everybody thought that only the judges could hand it to struggling politicians out of favour and out of power.

Sullen-faced deposed prime ministers would turn up in a court of law resigned to the verdict they were about to receive.

If they were lucky they would earn for themselves the consolatory remarks their dismissal would be found to be in violation of the law ... but the doctrine of necessity would block their return to power and they had to lose the next election before they could stake a claim in government again.

It would be fallacious to say that things have changed only because this time it is the judges who are fighting for supremacy and survival. If anything, the premise on which they have been prevented from continuing is the same that has been used to justify the politicians' separation from power — in the name of continuity.

The politicians are paying back. There is a deposed chief judge the prime minister hails as the 'imam' of all judges. But his government cannot restore the deposed claimant since there is another gentleman who has entered the chief justice's office in the interim.

Continuity and technicalities, the prime minister and his depleted treasury benches seem to suggest, demand that the government persevere with the set-up as it exists.

There are other signs which confirm that this is a mere shuffling of the cards. The trends remain the same just days after the cries and prayers for the long life of the coalition were submerged in the new possibilities arising out of President Pervez Musharraf's exit. One side thinks that it should consolidate its hold on power after toppling the president in what now appears was infighting in the American camp.

The other cannot help aggressively presenting itself as the always safe alternative now that the man that obstructed its links with the establishment is no more around. This is all right since this is politics. It's not the end but the lack of innovation in the selection and application of the means that makes one desperate. A short while ago we were talking about reconciliation. We should have been talking manners before we reached a point where we were left wondering whether Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif would ever turn up at the Lahore airport to receive Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Of the many definitions of democracy, one locally and contemporarily relevant explanation describes it as a process to select and identify the respective shares of groups in a country's resources and its decision-making. This is what should have happened in Pakistan and we should have by now reached a stage where even the losers had a sufficient share in the spoils for them to behave in a civilised way.

This has not been the case and consequently even those who have ruled this country are hard pressed to prove their patriotism, and before that, their chastity. It is not an issue between two political forces, it's a war between good and evil.

Amid the breaking up of agreements and the offering of gentlemanly apologies, the signatories to the Charter of Democracy have let loose their armies on each other. Any advances made by Salman Taseer are summarily met by the likes of Khwaja Saad Rafiq who is not content with or who finds his labelling of the Punjab governor as a karobari admi (a trader) too ironic.

So he chooses to add that before Mr Taseer kowtowed to Gen Musharraf's line, and in the process found his way to the governor house in Lahore, he happened to be a comrade. The message is loud and clear some people never learn.

The political idiom has failed to evolve and we are left with identifying the foreigners in a batch of militants who hold the Frontier hostage. It would be too dangerous for the state to address them as rebels. It would be politically incorrect to use force against your own people and it is never advisable to paint them as Islamists. 'Foreigners' does give us the room to manouevre — just as in another part of the country, foreign help that some people are supposed to be getting has prompted men in authority, from Gen Musharraf to Rehman Malik, to promote an old theory that has been forwarded by all governments without benefiting any.

Okay, it is not a supposition but a statement of fact what is being done to remove the factors that compel Pakistanis to play into the foreigners' hands? The biggest problem with the 'foreign hand' formula is that it absolves the local government operatives of all responsibility to try and overcome the problem. This is precisely why it is a good idea to snatch from them the excuse that they are subservient to the whims of the superpower. God, even the dreams are the same as they were before.n