THE party has not split asunder yet, but the forces pulling the PML-N in opposite directions are significant.

Chief Minister of Punjab and recently elected PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif chaired his first parliamentary meeting of the party on Thursday in extraordinary circumstances.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s explosive comments in an exclusive interview to this newspaper a week ago and in multiple public appearances since then may have radically altered the PML-N’s poll prospects and the electoral landscape itself.

The younger Sharif brother has been put in an untenable position: trying to lead a national party into a difficult election campaign for the first time while having family loyalty tested to a staggering degree by his brother.

Whatever the elder Sharif’s compulsions and whatever justifications he may feel he has for unburdening himself of issues pertaining to civil-military discord at this juncture, he has arguably done a disservice to his party and perhaps the democratic project too.

The younger Sharif brother’s eagerness to strike some kind of deal with the security establishment that permits him to fight a relatively open election for the PML-N may be problematic in its own right, but the elder Sharif’s act of political arson has potentially dangerous implications for democracy and the PML-N.

Nawaz Sharif’s recent remarks may be the subject of much debate, but it also appears that Mr Sharif has decided that if he is going to be removed from frontline politics and perhaps sent to jail too he will not allow his eponymously named political party a separate existence and immediate political relevance.

His approach of ‘either I will be the leader of the party and the country or the party will be condemned to oblivion’ is a thoroughly unnecessary and destructive approach to politics.

More is expected of a three-term prime minister, the quaid of the largest political party in the country and de facto leader of a party that, for all of Nawaz Sharif’s personal problems with the law, was until days ago widely considered to be the front-runner in the upcoming general election.

Political and campaign strategies are for parties to decide themselves and for the electorate to embrace or reject.

In this wrenching phase of the PML-N’s politics, however, it is not clear that the Sharif rival factions, if they can be termed as such, are even able to communicate with each other, let alone seek internal compromise.

Alleged shouting matches and harsh remarks across camps suggest total disarray and confusion.

If Nawaz Sharif is determined to continue down the path he has recently and explosively chosen, perhaps he could formally and publicly distance himself from the PML-N campaign and allow the party and candidates that remain to chart their own electoral course. Now is not the time for the politics of chaos and disarray.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2018