It is becoming increasingly clear that President Zardari will not be suffered to keep on holding dual offices of PPP Co-Chairperson and the country’s President after the Lahore High Court’s fresh notice informing him that it was a violation of the Constitution. The court has given him till September 5 to resign from the party office and urged him to cease political activities in the presidency.

Mr Zardari who has often complained that the judiciary is at loggerheads with him may well interpret this as a move to clip his wings. The courts seem keen to defend a constitutional requirement that the petitioner wants protected. The President is as much subject to law and Constitution as any other citizen but also enjoys immunity, which too has become a matter of debate after the Supreme Court struck down the NRO. Mr Kaira’s comments on Wednesday that the office of the President was political left no doubt that he and the boss remain unfazed. While the extraordinary attention paid to political cases is escaping no one’s attention, the dogged determination with which Mr Zardari pursues his course while with equally determined efforts the democratic boat rocks more and more wildly, the safest course to save the system and himself may be to relinquish the office to his son and heir Bilawal. The office of the President as head of state should definitely be non-political. But in days of 20 hour loadshedding and increasing political instability, is that Pakistan’s most pressing problem?