IT is the first morning of a new year. An astrologer on television forecasts great strides for Pakistan in 2015 which he says will bring prosperity to the country. It is the state-run PTV, and not surprisingly the luckiest man in the fortune-teller’s book of famous people happens to be Mian Nawaz Sharif. By habit, doubts cloud your mind, which you quickly shrug off. It is as important an inauguration of a unit of time as any. No negative thoughts. It is a promise one would want to believe in.

A war within, a few military courts born out of extraordinary circumstances, and one judicial commission to probe a suspicious election.… These are the main themes carried over from the year 2014, the discourse on New Year’s Eve would suggest. Also, of course, a celebrity marriage that appears all the more ‘genuine’ now that rumour has been processed through the Western presses. And the test on his bowling action that Muhammad Hafeez has just gone through in Chennai, which must bring to fore all the conspiracies Pakistanis believe they are frequently the target of.

There is one fundamental correction that needs to be made at the outset here. Pakistanis must decide whether they want to play the game, which will require them to abide by the rules, or whether they want to quit the system and build one of their own in isolation. They can’t always play the victim of some grand global design and still hope to win. This is as true for sport, as it is for everything else. If this basic is fixed right, this year could well turn out to be different than the times gone by. Otherwise, we would be better off spending our time in wondering who Imran Khan has married and what kind of impact the union will have on his revolution.

The national agenda for 2015 has variety. But one of the most fundamental issues raised in the new-year resolutions period came from the Election Commission of Pakistan and it did not relate to the contested general polls held in 2013. It was a warning, hopefully a policy statement, from the chief election commissioner appointed not so long ago to the provincial governments.

One would be tempted by positive projections for 2015 to hope that this will be the year where the PM starts his journey back to his celebrated status of statesman.

The CEC, reports said, had been forced by delays in the staging of local government polls to remind the provinces about the authority his commission enjoyed. Many would be looking forward to him using the authority vested in his office — in forcing those who are just too obsessed with concentrating power in their hands to let some of it be transferred to the local level.

Already, precious time has been lost in the delaying tactics adopted by Punjab and Sindh. Reports say Punjab is still in the process of providing district-specific data to the Election Commission for the delimitation of constituencies whereas Sindh has yet to come up with necessary legislation for cradling the would-be local bodies. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has been insisting on having a biometric system available for the vote which could mean putting off the polls in that province until September 2015. That’s just too late for what should have been in place a long time ago, to complement all these boasts and vows from politicians about establishing democracy in the country on sound footing.

The same politicians who collect behind the military courts citing extraordinary circumstances for departure from democratic norms have been an irritant in the way of a national consensus on local bodies. They are just too comfortable wielding powers from the top, the PPP in Sindh and the PML-N in Punjab and at the centre. They are too afraid of standing the local bodies’ test and of sharing territory with others, and are not likely to allow organised participation of people in politics at the grass-roots unless they are forced to.

The people could as yet play a pivotal role by committing to a campaign which forces a local government poll in the near future. Otherwise, if these polls are held simply under the force of the law, as the ECP appears to have suggested with its strongly worded statement, it will be another case, a reconfirmation, of how incapable the politicians are of acting unattended and on their own.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was seeking to deliver a positive New Year’s Eve message with his recounting of the relief his government has provided by reducing the prices of petroleum products since Aug 31 last. Whereas that must have been a proud moment for him, he should try and extend his good spell by not only taking up urgent work in areas such as energy generation, but by showing required interests in empowering the people at the basic level.

One would be tempted by projections of Mian Sahib’s good fortunes to wish that this be the year where he starts his journey back to his celebrated status of a statesman, after a series of occurrences since his third coming had brought out the familiar, old, prone-to-compromises politician in him. But perhaps it would be too much to expect that he will dramatically agree to the formation of a judicial commission, for restoring some Pakistanis’ faith in his government, and not as a concession, under duress, granted to a party in the opposition.

It would also be a little too much to expect that the civilian system under the prime minister will be able to reclaim the territory it has conceded amid grand vows about protection to the people. It is an area where the normal rules have already been suspended. It is the next worst thing to quitting or perhaps as bad.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2015