There is no need for Nawaz Sharif to stop Imran Khan from doing long or short marches, and there is no need for Imran Khan to stage the long and short marches. If both take their affairs to the parliament, then Pakistan as a whole will thank them. If they cannot do that, at least they should give it a pause for at least until we take upper hand in Operation Zarb e Azb. On the face of it, the electoral reform demands of Imran Khan are justified. PMLN also consider them justified but they want to do it slowly through the parliamentary committee. Imran Khan wants to do it outside the parliament quickly asking Prime Minister to fire the Election Commission, arrest former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhary, and afterwards have a midterm election.
PML-N must not get angry here and should show big and open heart. Instead of locking horns with the PTI chief, they should replace the Election Commission. ECP is an autonomous body, but we know that government can dissolve and reenact it if they want to. Just like they can play with the PEMRA at whim. So they should ask ECP members to go home gracefully while making sure they don’t feel humiliated. As far as Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the former chief justice is concerned, there is very little this government can do. And fairly, why should they do anything at all? There was no role of Iftikhar Chaudhry in the elections. Imran is angry with Iftikhar Chaudhry, because Chaudhry didn’t bend the law for him and decided the cases of four constituencies. He couldn’t because there is a proscribed way in law for that.
Both PML-N and PTI have to blink. PML-N must stop being tough, while PTI must stop being arrogant. If they take it to the roads, nobody will get anything, and there will be military takeover and nothing less than that. Even during that military takeover, Imran won’t be able to become Prime Minister, because he is an unstable character and military has at least that common sense to see that. That is why even an idiot like Musharraf preferred Shaukat Aziz and Chaudhry Shujaat over Imran. For the sake of democracy and country, these two parties have to take their affairs into the parliament.