Nightmare?

Soothsayers’ nightmare

By Abbas Nasir

POLITICIANS are akin to bravado but, with scheduled elections in Pakistan still some 15 months away, can commentators predict the results with certainty?

Imran Khan`s Lahore rally forced many of us to acknowledge that he needed to be taken seriously. For, till he assembled that huge, and more significantly, diverse crowd, he was seen as no more than a joke, even if couched in all seriousness. It can also be said that many of us crave change but also carry within us the fear of ending up `out of the pan into the fire` as our desire hinges on the negative, on what we think we don`t want, rather than an embrace of a well-founded promise.

Regardless, some have already started to hail Imran Khan as the man destined next to rule our land.

Frankly, personally one doesn`t care who wins at the hustings as long as the exercise is free and fair with the national security establishment not striving for a `positive` outcome. All such efforts in the past have resulted in disaster.

But our establishment`s planners and handlers have often given the impression they`d like to be certified insane by Einstein because they keep repeating their follies in the hope of a different result all the time. …

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