slamabad winters are like Pakistani politics – pleasantly warm around noon and chilly after sundown. When offices shut and employees head home, eateries and cafes start buzzing. Upscale restaurants and basic bistros come alive and turn into miniature debating chambers discussing every possible topic under the sun. Politics, however, beats them all.

Last Sunday evening, I sat in the Super Market square in F-6, sipping jaggery tea. Seated on the next table were six or seven young men, trying to drown each other’s reasoning in their dissection of the Shahbaz Sharif-led coalition administration. Whenever someone mustered the courage to make a positive remark, others sprang to shootdown the compliment with loud boos or counter analyses. The country, they said, had been turned into a “beggar state” by its power-hungry elite. “We are a nuclear state running on remittances, IMF loans and alms from a handful of Middle Eastern countries.”

Most of the comments were verbatim repeats of what is churned out daily in cacophonous TV talk shows – bloated bravado or hangdog statements. But a couple stood out for novelty. To collective laughter, one of the participants said that when spoken about Shahbaz Sharif, the acronym PM doesn’t mean a prime minister. “It means a ‘project manager’ running from pillar to post, trying to deliver an assigned outcome.” Another speaker said: “Nawaz Sharif has consistently picked generals who have booted him out.”

On paper, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has been the most successful political party........

© The News on Sunday