The KhyberWatch

How will elections change this awful situation, especially since ethnic Baluch parties have done poorly? Talk of reconciliation with Baluch nationalists comes cheap, but trust is lacking

Pervez Hoodbhoy – ViewPoint

Thankfully they are over and done with, and only a few hundred – not a few thousand – lives were lost. The PPP’s rout was extremely well-deserved. It is headed for the dustbin of history unless, by some miracle, it miraculously reinvents itself as a non-dynastic mission-driven party. One feels somewhat sorrier for the ANP in spite of its general ineptness and inability to deliver on honest governance. But it was targeted by TTP fanatics and, in the words of Asfandyar Wali Khan, the election campaign became a matter of “picking up the dead, carrying their funerals and taking the wounded to hospitals”. The long anticipated tsunami, it turned out, belonged to Nawaz Sharif. This victory of a center-right leader may not be much to celebrate but, at least for now, he is acting as a statesman and saying many of the right things. Meanwhile a certain disappointed cricketer, who kowtows to the Taliban and justifies their every atrocity, is venting his spleen from his hospital bed. Read the rest of this entry →