The quiet Farhatullah Babar took most people by surprise on Monday.

Instead of holding forth about script writers or castigating the government for its arrogance, the soft-spoken senator called the spade by its name and suggested a dialogue with the military.

The speech on the floor of the house intrigued many. What exactly did he have in mind?

“The civilians can’t be expected to face the consequences of decisions being made elsewhere,” he says, when asked.

But will this not trigger a conflict with the very force that civilians agreed to share space with in 2007 when both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan after negotiations with a weakened but unvanquished military?

“No,” he says, “As the dialogue will be secret, without any point scoring in the media.”

The senior politician is suggesting a frank, direct exchange instead of messaging through press releases, vague speeches about states within states and small, secretive, closed-door meetings at the GHQ.

Babar has to be given the credit for providing a solution unlike most other parliamentarians who have simply criticised ‘namaloom afraad’ who didn’t stop the PTV attack or sneered at the “chaar ka tola” while thundering about parliamentary sovereignty.

Indeed, the shadows of military intervention have hung over the latest political crisis from day one.

The differences between the military and the PML-N led to the conclusion that the former had played a role in the two protesting parties taking such a hard stand against the federal government and the one in Punjab.

The oblique and at times clear references from the League officials (ministers argued that their troubles were linked to former general Pervez Musharraf’s treason trial) and from Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri (who gleefully spoke of umpires and their gestures) didn’t help matters as didn’t the military’s role in the Red Zone. Javed Hashmi’s allegations were simply the last nail in the coffin.

But more importantly it was the role of the military during the PPP tenure that has allowed the perceptions to be accepted as truth. From Memogate to Raymond Davis to the fracas over the Kerry Lugar Bill, it was clear then that the military was not averse to indirectly pressuring the government to protect its turf.

This is a major reason why there is little scepticism for the idea that PML-N’s heavy-handed approach to issues such as Musharraf’s trial, trade with India and the war against militancy had convinced the military that Sharif needed to be cut down to size.

The current crisis simply brings back too many memories from 2008-2013.

And against this backdrop Babar’s words strike a chord — as the former president’s spokesman he had a ringside view of all the crises the PPP weathered.

Sharif’s present struggles to weather this storm is too similar to what Zardari went through, even though the latter was in a far weaker position, dependent on temperamental and greedy allies to maintain the numbers in parliament.

Take for instance Khan’s allegations of rigging which have been endorsed by nearly every political party in the parliament. From the PPP to the ANP to JUI-F, everyone has moaned about the victory they have been cheated out of.

Even if Khan goes back without anything more than an ordinary judicial commission to investigate the 2013 elections, a stubborn Nawaz Sharif (don’t expect the leadership to miraculously share power beyond the family with “talented backbenchers” simply because of a month-long crisis), now faces turbulent five years.

Sharif is now as ‘compromised’ as Zardari who ruled with the widespread perception that a beleaguered Gen Pervez Musharraf had wiped his corruption slate clean and robbed Pakistan of its hard-earned cash, stowed away in Swiss accounts.

The NRO implementation case and the consequent litigation (which sent one prime minister home) ensured that Zardari was never able to rest easy.

If there is a hackneyed script at play, perhaps the investigations into the alleged rigging and the Model town incident will similarly cause Sharif sleepless nights. Both the PTI and PAT have demanded investigations by joint investigation teams that will have the usual suspects including representatives from MI and ISI.

But where it is always difficult to connect the looking forward, one can connect them looking backwards, said Steve Jobs.

And his words hold true for Pakistani politics, where the future is difficult to predict but the past easy to analyse.

The current crisis too can be traced to a frequently made mistake — not heeding political forces.

For an entire year, the PML-N ignored the PTI’s allegations. A frustrated PTI announced rallies and then a long march, on the eve of which the prime minister finally suggested a judicial commission.

The N didn’t think the PTI was worth taking seriously, not realising that the growing alienation between the two would eventually be exploited by others.

Would there have been a crisis if the N had announced the judicial commission six months ago?

A similar moment came in Zardari’s tenure also. Had the president not refused to restore the judiciary and had his governor in Punjab not imposed an emergency in Punjab in 2009, the slightly reluctant Sharif may not have put his entire weight behind the judiciary movement and led the march to Islamabad? Would the superior judiciary been as hostile to PPP but for Zardari’s earlier refusals to restore it?

More than Sharif, it was the military which gained from the 2009 Long March when it jumped in to save the system.

We nearly witnessed a similar moment when a nervous government asked the military to ‘facilitate’; the public manner in which this request was made and accepted led to a controversy big enough to compel the military to back out.

But despite its low visibility, there is no doubt that Sharif’s weakness will add to the military’s space to manoeuvre.

This is one reason elected governments in the centre have to stop playing by the Westminster rules where an elected majority transforms into an executive that traditionally has the right to make decisions, ignoring the rest.

This was the mistake Zardari made in 2009 and Sharif repeated in 2014.

Instead they should view decision-making as constant negotiation, where the central government has to keep the provincial governments and, at times, other political players on board.

Secondly, this approach will provide a healing touch in our fractured polity, where ethnic groups, provinces and now major political parties complain of being ignored and then resort to measures such as street protests.

Pakistan can’t afford the precedent that a long march to Islamabad is the only way to get an intransigent government to listen.

Apart from the instability this causes, this trend also means that those who don’t have the numbers or the proximity to Islamabad cannot force a government to listen. This after all is what set the Baloch missing people march apart from the PTI/PAT dharnas.

Pakistan can’t afford the perception that only Punjab can and will be able to further influence a parliament it already dominates through numbers.

And as Sharif ponders this, he should also seriously consider the frank exchange with the military that Mr Babar suggested. Sometimes, an out-of-the box solution provides the only feasible answer.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2014