After first 100 days, despondency

The meeting which Mr Zardari is going to have with Mian Nawaz Sharif in London is being held in his peculiar style: no preparation, no proper choice of teams, and no agenda. There is therefore little hope of the outcome being any different from meetings of the sort held earlier. The participants will exchange greetings, hug one another, have a sumptuous dinner and part without achieving any purpose. Worst still, the meeting might this time end up with a recognition that the departure of the PML-N from the federal cabinet being final, the vacancies thus created are to be filled up.

At the end of the first hundred days of the ruling coalition one finds widespread despondency gripping majority of the population. Hopes that things will improve for the common man are gradually withering away. Cracks in the coalition are widening. First, the PPP and PML-N split over the question of the restoration of judiciary. PML-N leaders are now increasingly distancing themselves from the steps taken by the federal government blaming it for not taking the allies into confidence. Statements emanating from the ANP leaders indicate that unless the PPP leadership treats them with greater consideration, they too might decide to part company. A perception is fast being formed that Mr Zardari lacks the capacity to hold the allies together and that he is no more than a somewhat refined version of Ch Shujaat Hussain. Interestingly no meeting of the four coalition partners has been held during the last three months.