Chess is played in more than one ways. Even the world of Harry Potter had a wizard’s chess. I have never been a master at the game but at a very young age I did manage to beat several of our elder relations and family friends. I can of course glaring situation of check-mate when it occurs even anywhere other than the chessboard. Politics in this country is also played as the game of chess, often as wizard’s chess where the loser pieces have to lose their heads. The assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was a tragic reality of this chess-board.
The NRO’s detailed verdict that was released yesterday shows that the President has been badly check-mated. For someone who has seen PPP as a beacon of hope in the Islamic republic and advocated vociferously in support of the present government it is very painful for me to concede this fact but there is no point crying over the spilled milk. I am sure the President also understands as much.  Where my and his perception may differ is that he considers it a wizard chess board, whereas I think it is an average everyday chessboard. In the usual game the player survives to try  another day.
Why on earth did this moment ever come to pass? It is one of the strange situations where the losing side has brought  this day on itself. I am getting more and more convinced of the wisdom of the prime minister who had repeatedly advised against the displacement of the Punjab govt and in the support of the reinstatement of the deposed judiciary. Maybe the President’s accepting his office was also a mistake. But I wouldn’t know that. The government’s recent decisions regarding the provincial judiciary following the NRO verdict and the president’s Lahore yatra were seen as the final act of war.
I am not going to discuss the details of the government’s stumbles and tumbles here. I will spare it for a column. In Lahore High Court’s case I believe it was right to assert itself. Yet it is a characteristic weakness of the current situation that the government after posing belligerent for a while has to surrender. The ultimate reason is the president and a segment of the cabinet’s vulnerability on the NRO issue. Now it seems that the president’s advisors who have brought this day upon him are lining up to cajole him into a confrontational pose.  Since after a while of chaos the government will have to surrender and re enact a Musharraf like situation and concessions made especially in that scenario would be catastrophic for Pakistan. So time is opportune for the government to face the reality. It can save the government and the President after installing a liberal president can face the courts, get a reprieve and finally re-enter direct politics in a future set up. Meanwhile a PPP government. I believe situation is not as dire as the president suspects and the threat to his presidency is not the threat to his life. He can save the day by compromising and not sacrificing his post for the time being. People often forget that in such an eventuality no one other than Farooq Naik would be president. This is a card that the president has played well. He should look towards the future. He is not Musharraf and there is no need to act like one. For the sake of democracy he has to choose quickly and all those who have forced him into a corner will regret later. Any harm to his person will be considered a direct assault on democracy. If democracy weakens today the right wing get stronger and stronger, and that to me is an unmitigated disaster. (To be updated later. Keep checking this space for more.)

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