PRIME Minister Nawaz Sharif is able to maintain his old reputation — that he always has someone else to do the difficult part of pulling him out of a potentially embarrassing situation. In recent days, there have been three instances in quick succession where allies or colleagues have come forward to bail him out of a tough spot.

In one of these cases, Balochistan Chief Minister Abdul Malik took the stage to declare that it was him — and him alone — who had appointed the son of former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry as the vice chairman of the Balochistan Investment Board. The selection and the speculation about any linkages between the ex-chief justice and Mr Sharif’s party had threatened to cause some embarrassment to the government. Dr Malik’s timely intervention put the record straight for all except a few scandalous minds that are forever caught in the marshes of their dirty imagination.

The second instance where a colleague promptly rose to shield the prime minister was when the federal information minister Pervaiz Rashid took it upon himself to angrily answer the questions raised by Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI). Mr Khan has been repeatedly referring to a ‘victory’ speech by Mr Sharif on the eve of the election, insinuating it was aimed at turning the results in the PML-N’s favour. Mr Rashid has now clarified that it was he who was behind the speech and has offered himself for any legal action that the PTI chief would want to pursue, thus freeing his leader to undertake the more onerous tasks confronting the nation.

The clarifications by both Dr Malik and Mr Rashid have been worthy endeavours but these pale in comparison to what great service friend Asif Ali Zardari has extended to the prime minister over a tricky issue. We have always been too generous and kind in giving the PPP credit for championing causes it never actually did. The image has progressively defied performance to a point now where the party is not too keen on keeping up appearances.

What use is a so-called progressive party if it cannot even feign opposition to a law that justifies a police state?

The PPP’s abject surrender to the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance (PPO) in the Senate is a milestone in its journey under Mr Zardari, who it appears is not good at all at distinguishing political maturity from the voluntary dormancy that spells doom for his party. Let alone the impact of the PPO on people generally, he shows no signs of having any inkling of how support to it would affect his party. Or he understands but doesn’t care or is helpless. All of these are far from flattering scenarios for the PPP.

Following the run of play it could be predicted that Mr Zardari’s brand of reconciliatory politics will have the men under his charge submit to this demand by the Nawaz Sharif government, under the excuse of this black law being a need of the times. Thus, the approval from the PPP senators is the completion of a formality. At the same time, it marks a big occasion in the PPP’s journey to make itself as irrelevant to Pakistani politics as possible.

What use is a so-called progressive party if it cannot as much as feign opposition and resistance to a law that justifies a police state? It can hardly hope for a second opportunity to prove that it is in any way different from the rest of the pack. That distinction has in recent past been reserved for parties such as Jamaat-i-Islami, and later on the PTI.

The PPP has been obediently delivering to the PML-N. It has been obliging the PML-N in a manner that betrays not just a desire to act maturely but a sense of resignation about its own capacity and a total lack of confidence in its abilities.

This lack of confidence on the PPP’s part is wrapped clumsily in grand chants about unity in political ranks. All that is heard by way of argument from the biggest opposition party in parliament are a few critical statements on some popular issue or the other such as privatisation. There has been no real effort in evidence to add substance to these occasional questions.

A charitable explanation would be that the PPP has been waiting — is waiting — for an opportunity to reassert itself. In the meanwhile, it is conceding more and more ground to the PML-N and other political parties, pushing itself into a corner from where it will find it extremely difficult to bounce back and be counted among the real contenders. It has wasted many opportunities to be relevant, the latest one offered by the PPO, which it could have blocked due to its numbers in the upper house of parliament. It chose not to, settling for the role of a PML-N accomplice in the passage of a law that could lead to chaos perpetuated and patronised by the state.

The PPO is a cruel law that spawns gory images of excesses and abuse by the state functionaries. It deprives people of their basic rights and throws them at the mercy of an over-empowered machinery. It is a law that has been officially necessitated by the circumstances, an admission that the legal system it has superimposed was insufficient to deal with the current situation. There could not have been a more powerful example of a system dysfunction.

This is precisely the argument of those asking for a reform: this is an unjust, inefficient system. By coming up with a new law that tramples the old system of laws in place, the PML-N and its chief accomplice, the much-celebrated and ‘liberal’ PPP, have actually conceded a huge point to the opposing camp. Only those who insist that the black law was essential to cleanse the country of today’s militants will find it progressive.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2014