WE will soon reach an outcome long desired by anti-democracy actors — the political exit of our top four leaders. This won’t occur due to the former’s ploys though but simply due to the march of time. Imran Khan, the Sharif brothers and Asif Zardari are all 70-plus and may quit politics in five to eight years.

The same is true for their top deputies like Shah Mahmood, Pervez Elahi, Ishaq Dar, Khwaja Asif, Rana Sanaullah, Khurshid Shah, Pervaiz Ashraf and Yusuf Gilani. It’s true too for most other key party heads: Shujaat Hussain, Fazlur Rahman, Asfandyar Wali, Pir Pagara, Altaf Hussain, Mahmood Achakzai, Jahangir Tareen, Pervez Khattak and Abdul Malik. We rarely get octogenarian top leaders. So, most top politicians of the last three to four decades may quit soon in quick succession.

This will be our third such shift. Our first political cohort included the freedom leaders. Unlike their success in gaining freedom, their governance and political roots were weak and unelected actors trumped them in seven to eight years. The next cohort rose in Gen Ayub’s era. It espoused leftist politics to address the socioeconomic complaints the first cohort and Ayub had created, following global trends at the time. Four provinces in 1970 chose........

© Dawn