TALIBAN Khan vs the Dengue Brothers, Pakistan’s version of David and Goliath, is coming soon to a (Punjab) city near you.

Have the Sharifs overreacted or reacted just in time to energise a base that was wistfully looking at the effervescence of Khan’s Little Monsters and wondering why their own party wasn’t doing the same?

Such are the sands in which Pakistani politics are scripted that even before the Battle for Lahore there is a sense that the Sharifs may have, for now, stalled what could have been the beginning of a virtuous cycle for IK.

The bigger the crowds Khan mobilises, the better the quality of candidate he will attract to his party in the mercenary world of Punjab politics, and the better the candidates, the bigger the crowds.

But with the Sharifs awakening the slumbering PML-N and activating the provincial administration, Punjab’s mercenaries will already be reassessing their options. Ungainly as the N-League’s tactics may be, they are looking effective, and effective may be good enough to keep voters and candidates onside.

But solve one problem and you create another.

Mian Sahib is now stuck with a Goldilocks problem: he’s turned up the heat on the PPP, but what’s the right temperature to ensure he and his own party don’t get burned in the process?

The immediate decision: Sharif has another month or month-and-a-half to figure out if he really wants to topple the government and go for early elections, or if he’ll settle for slamming the PPP to the mat and keep his hands wrapped around the PTI’s throat, campaign mode without triggering the election itself. But the immediate decision is predicated on a more complex assessment.

Assume for the sake of argument that the government is felled by a combination of street action and gaping holes in the composition of key assemblies. It would have to be replaced obviously, but by what and when?

Here’s Sharif’s real problem: lurking in the shadows are the extra-constitutional forces, the boys in uniform, who may have ideas of their own.

Wary of Sharif and burned by the epic mismanagement of AZ and his dissolute lot, could they come up with a Bangladesh-lite option: a caretaker government for say a year to implement some reforms and steady a creaking, tilting ship?

Elections would still have to be held after that, but under a caretaker set-up with major input from the boys in Pindi and Aabpara. At that point, even if Sharif were to retain his substantial support in Punjab, would the popular will be allowed to manifest itself?

The hawkish elements within the PML-N are urging Sharif to go all out, smack the upstart IK around, topple the government and make a bid for power through immediate elections. But many of those same hawkish elements could quickly become poodles obeying their uniformed masters if things don’t go to plan. Sharif alone has an empire to protect.

So does he hold the PPP’s feet to the fire or does he have the fire consume it and set the stage for an uncertain replacement?

Holding the PPP’s feet to the fire does have an extra benefit that could tilt Sharif’s decision. By whipping his base into campaign mode, Sharif is also sending a signal to the army high command. I’m here, I’ve got the numbers, I’ve got the support, accept that reality and what it means for whose turn is next is Sharif’s message.

Remember, the army’s options aren’t unlimited. Already caught up in strategic games regionally, within the domestic political milieu the army isn’t the sole arbiter of what does or doesn’t happen.

If a political party is able to present the army with a kind of fait accompli, say, in the form of significant popular support, it will be hard to resist such an argument. What today is packaged as a drive against the PPP to prevent haemorrhaging of support towards the PTI can also be repackaged as ‘defence of democracy’ campaign if need be.

Of course, there is also a limit to how much the politicians can push the army in their quest for power, so there’s a need to keep the signalling polite and less overt. Plus, anyone who seeks power in Pakistan is by definition forced into seeking some kind of working relationship, or at least a tacit understanding, with the army high command.

So while he’s busy trying to pound the PTI into the soil of Punjab and harassing the PPP into missteps, Sharif will be calculating and recalculating what the army’s game may be.

The end of this year is crucial because of the necessary run-up to a general election. Miss the Nov/Dec/Jan window and the Senate elections will likely be held on time, locking the PML-N into tiny minority status until at least 2015 and ensuring the PPP gains in the 2008 general elections won’t be washed out of the legislative apparatus until the 2018 Senate elections.

Sharif will also be aware that the army has the delicious option of simply letting the system run to keep both the PML-N and the PPP weak. By quietly vetoing the idea of a general election before the Senate elections, the army would have an upper house in the PPP’s control and a lower house likely in the control of the PML-N after the next general election in late 2012 or early 2013.

Or does Sharif go for broke in the next couple of months, calculating that the boys will be aware that the business of government needs to be attended to, that an extended caretaker period will be politically and constitutionally risky and that legislative gridlock caused by opposing majorities in the lower and upper houses of parliament will be worse than handing power to Sharif?

The scene in Lahore may suggest otherwise, but Sharif’s got bigger issues than Taliban Khan to mull over.

The writer is a member of staff.
cyril.a@gmail.com