The taming of the shrewd.

Byline: Abdul Moiz Jaferii

IN a recent interview, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi narrated an eyewitness account of how the establishment expressed its unhappiness with Nawaz Sharif's government. He spoke of the time when the PTI and Tahirul Qadri were staging protests in Islamabad. Abbasi, in an office with a view of the Federal Secretariat gate, saw some plainclothes men turn up and disperse the police. The protesters then assumed charge, inspecting every vehicle coming or going. The goal was to embarrass politicians and bureaucrats as they emerged from their offices.

Abbasi has been constant in his line of attack. But overall, the PML-N has been less consistent.

Shahbaz Sharif is keen to talk about anything but the establishment and its supposed meddling in PML-N affairs; he focuses on that part of the PML-N slogan which is about his hard work and ignores claims of interference in the people's right to choose.

Meanwhile, Maryam Nawaz, the Sharif family member once supposedly all in favour of taking on unelected meddling, broke her five-month silence on Twitter on Jan 8 to voice her congratulations. She also changed her profile picture to different photographs of her father without comment.

Since tweeting good wishes for Shahbaz Sharif before his recent return to Pakistan in March, she has praised the Lahore School of Economics for condemning lavish weddings, and expressed her sorrow at Rishi Kapoor's death and Friday's plane crash. There is no political commentary, let alone the expression of a desire to 'respect the vote'.

Former PM Abbasi has been constant in his line of attack; the PML-N, less so.

A senior journalist once turned up late for a televised special transmission, evidently groggy from the night before. He had flown back from a live mic tour of flooded rural Pakistan in the morning. When planning a party with alcohol and dancers, the local influential host would send the first few invitations to a high-ranking member of the local police, the preferred local politician and the local reporter. The invitation to the policeman ensured there would not be a raid, the politician so that he would not call out the policemen for failing to act, and the journalist to prevent bad press.

During the last leg of the tour, the groggy journalist had been invited to such a party. Because you knew what you were planning was illicit, you made sure everyone who mattered was involved. The groggy journalist had threatened enough by way...