BY any reckoning, it is rather depressing to note that at the end of the eight-year-long stint of the Musharraf government, the country continues to stand at a crossroads, while a bewildered people fail to make out where it is heading. The state of good governance and right policies that lie at the root of public support of leadership are reflected in a latest opinion poll conducted by the International Republic Institute, a US think-tank, of 4,000 men and women in the country's 60 districts. The exiled leaders, who were betes noires of President Musharraf, have turned the table on him in the public imagination, though with one of them he has arranged a marriage of convenience. General Musharraf gets a bare 21 percent approval of the people as against 36 percent claimed by Mian Nawaz Sharif and 28 percent by Ms Benazir Bhutto. That the PPP Chairperson has fallen to the second position on the popularity graph is unquestionably because of her deal with the President. Similarly, there is little doubt that Mian Nawaz has gained ground because of the fact that he has stood his ground, consistently refusing to compromise on principles.
The challenges that the present regime is up against have, in cases, become more complex and more daunting with time. Political polarisation that has dogged the state ever since it came into being has worsened. Insecurity violence and terrorism, a rather uncommon phenomenon in the past, has become pervasive, thanks to unstinted support for the so-called war on terror unleashed by the US. The state of poverty, which the government claims has dropped by 10 percentage points, in reality, looks grimmer, with food inflation spiralling up by more than 10 percent in a short span of a month. However, it is not to deny that the economy in general has vastly improved, but the benefits have remained confined to a limited range of classes. There is little on the ground to prove the effects of trickledown. Nevertheless, it goes to this government's credit that the media is flourishing with a large measure of independence. Although an abortive attempt was made to rein in the judiciary, it is by and large functioning independently. Sadly, for all the noises on Kashmir, the core issue, there is hardly anything to show that India is willing to come to grips with it.
The powers that be must spare a moment for the sake of paramount national interest to see how to turn the corner. The forthcoming general elections must be free, fair and transparent, providing a level playing field for all political parties and letting the exiled leadership return and take part to make sure that they have all the necessary characteristics of legitimacy.