BOTH the government and the opposition seem to be more receptive to the need for dialogue, but can they break new ground? On Monday, the prime minister’s aide on political affairs invited opposition lawmakers to rejoin the parliamentary committees they had earlier resigned from, noting that this could help restart the reconciliation process. “Let us sit together to strengthen and take forward the Charter of Democracy,” Rana Sanaullah suggested, stressing that the government wanted to strengthen democracy and wished to avoid further confrontation and deadlocks. “We are ready to sit with you for the betterment of the country,” he said. Seen in isolation, it was very positive messaging from the ruling party. Talks between major stakeholders have been proposed repeatedly since the start of the ongoing cycle of political instability yet have found very few takers. It is encouraging to note that the idea has not yet been completely abandoned. But are gestures alone enough?

Before Mr Sanaullah, Opposition Leader in the Senate Raja Nasir Abbas also sent positive signals when he assured the government that the opposition would not conspire to topple the government on the dictation of any dictator, even if it felt that the legitimacy of the present set-up is questionable. He did, however, regret that parliament was besieged last week to confine the lawmakers staging a protest on its premises, and suggested that he viewed this as an “insult to parliament”. He also warned the government that the health of incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan was a serious issue for the opposition, and that it should not be allowed to turn into a full-blown crisis. He said the protesting lawmakers’ only demand was that the PTI founder be provided treatment in the presence of his personal physicians and to the satisfaction of his family. That is not a very big ask.

Which brings us, once again, to the question: who can or, indeed, will start the process of rapprochement? It is regrettable that neither side has the confidence to take the first step. The chasm of trust is so wide that no one is willing to shake an extended hand, no matter how sincerely it has been extended. To complicate matters, the social media brigades, commanded by armchair conspiracy theorists, see either great treachery or great surrender in every effort made by opposition leaders to solve political problems with politics. The government, too, has made things difficult by almost criminalising even routine political expression. In such an environment, there can be no space for respectful dissent and disagreement: everything either seems like a grand conspiracy or a threat to national security. The national leadership must realise this and work to address these issues before it can hope for any improvement. All else will follow.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2026