Disappearing act.

IT is most unusual for the Sharif clan to have collectively disappeared from the picture right before the PDM government readies itself to announce arguably its most consequential decision to date. With one brother, the prime minister, incapacitated due to a bout of Covid-19, the other has quietly set off on a 10-day leisure trip to Europe with his sons, daughter and grandchildren in tow. Just why the entire family thought it wise to pull a disappearing act in the midst of roiling political instability and economic uncertainty back home is anybody's guess. It surely makes for poor optics. Should the elder Sharif - who appears to have leveraged his familial standing to prevail over a decision that was otherwise for the country's prime minister to make - have absented himself right when that decision was being put into play? To proceed on a family vacation at such a crucial time smacks of disregard for the country's affairs - the same country that he is seen to control through proxy.

The former prime minister appears to have made use of a...