IMPASSE though there may be in the ongoing struggle between the PML-N federal government and the PTI, at least the government appears to be waking up to the reality that it is an undesirable state of affairs.

Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid suggested over the weekend that the PML-N is willing to restart talks with the PTI on, presumably, electoral reforms and reviewing the disputed results from May 2013.

The information minister could not resist a dig at Imran Khan, suggesting that the PTI chief should unshackle his chief negotiator Shah Mehmood Qureshi, but it does indicate that the government is thinking of ways to find a negotiated settlement to end the anti-government protests that have dominated the national political discourse since the summer.

Problematic as many of the PTI’s tactics and some of its demands have been, the fact remains that there is much in the party’s original set of demands that are worth acting on.

Elections in Pakistan may have incrementally improved in terms of transparency and acceptability, but they remain far from being free and fair — even if the PTI’s allegations of mass and systemic rigging in the last election still stand unproven.

There are genuine barriers to entry for those aspiring to represent the public and the ideal of every vote counting hardly applies because illegitimate ballots do corrupt the process and not every vote that is valid is properly accounted for.

Addressing the deep-rooted electoral problems would go a long way in improving the quality of democracy in the country. The PML-N government seems largely uninterested in reforms, but perhaps it would do well to consider that much of the aura of an unexpectedly decisive electoral win in May 2013 would not have dissipated in little over a year as a result of a sustained protest campaign by the PTI if the elections had been more transparent and individual results conclusively verifiable.

Yet, Mr Rashid also has a point: the PTI needs to return to the negotiating table and understand that electoral reforms should be the focus of talks rather than the ouster of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Overreaching itself, seemingly because of Mr Khan’s intransigence, means that the party has achieved virtually nothing in substantive terms. The PTI needs to revisit its own strategy: the politics of protest may produce a spectacle, but it does little to actually improve the democratic system in the country.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2014