Republic of fear.

SMELL the dread. Inhale the disquietude. Absorb the angst. Something rumbles on the horizon.

Welcome to the republic of fear.

The Judge demands a corpse to be strung up on D-Chowk. The Advocate ransacks a hospital and rips off oxygen masks from patients. The General warns of the malevolent designs of external and internal enemies. Violence, danger and foreboding make a frightful cocktail. And yet we sip from it.

Isolated incidents these are not. When law power collides with raw power, be afraid. Be very afraid. In this land today, this fear is percolating through the perforated arteries of the system. What is the judge, advocate and general telling us?

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The death sentence handed down to former president and army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf has rocked the republic. Para 66 of the detailed judgement has ravaged the sensibilities of the republic's citizens. The muted roar from the establishment has triggered apprehensions of greater institutional turbulence. The system is overheating.

How do you referee the referees?

The complexity of the situation is uncoiling itself like a giant anaconda.

Fact: a former army chief has been convicted of treason and sentenced to hang.

Fact: a spokesman of the armed forces has said on the record there is deep pain and anguish in his institution as a result of this verdict.

When law power collides with raw power, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Fact: a chief justice (former from today) has stated a campaign has been unleashed to defame his institution.

Fact: a current army chief does not know if he will remain in office after six months.

Fact: no one knows how the government and opposition will agree on a legislation of the army chief's extension.

Fact: the Election Commission of Pakistan is dysfunctional in its decision-making because it is short of a chief election commissioner and two members.

Fact: the government and the opposition have failed to agree on these three appointments and there is little chance of a breakthrough.

Fact: no one knows how these appointments will happen because the law is silent.

Fact: a judge of the Supreme Court is being judged by his brother judges while the government is planning to send a complaint of another judge to the Supreme Judicial Council.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Is there then a crisis of confidence in the system? Is there a fear that the system - for all its constitutional safeguards and institutional balances - is incapable of absorbing the...