NO reform agenda is likely to emerge while the country runs under a so-called hybrid regime. Almost by its definition, such a set-up rests ultimately on a series of compromises made by its constituent parties to reconcile themselves to a simple fact: the country is being run by the bureaucrats with the establishment playing a significant role in ruling it. The political parties have been reduced to little more than a pantomime, to run the ceremonies of power.

With all their defects and problems, the parties are still the only carrier of the people’s aspirations, and today they are in more disarray than they have ever been in the past quarter century. Under these circumstances, the state will only tighten its grip on everything it can get its hands on — the citizenry and the economy — and is not likely to find the will or the inclination to make any changes.

Consider their predicament one by one. Start with the ruling party, the PML-N. This party has the single longest running streak of returning to power after every sort of defeat that Pakistani politics can possibly serve up. Their first government was dismissed by a president, and they dragged him down with them. Their second was overthrown by a general in a coup, who then swore on national TV that he would never allow it to return to power. But the general, later convicted, died in exile while the Noon league ruled in Pakistan. They were torn down by........

© Dawn