If anything, the meeting between Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former president Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday sent out a strong signal that democracy in Pakistan is alive and would, if pushed to the brink, be able to raise a united voice — despite party differences and ideologies — against elements that were conspiring to pose potential threats against it.
The meeting of the two high-profile Pakistani leaders may also send out a clear signal to the army that the various facets of government were functioning cohesively and that a common platform for stability had been created. No institution would therefore have the need to violate, or upstage, the functioning of another and that the parliament would be the sole determining authority in matters of governance.
Pakistani society needs to galvanise itself, socially, economically, culturally and politically, in order to cast out the shadow of extremism. The respective political parties led by Sharif and Zardari exemplify the interests of the common man, albeit through different values, and in providing for the well-being, security and stability, there should be no room for petty politics to play itself out.
