IT is a right royal mess that is hard to clean up. A hung parliament through a controversial election has pushed the country deeper into the mire. It has been almost two weeks since the general elections were held on Feb 8, but as yet, there is no sign of a new dispensation taking shape. A thick cloud of uncertainty continues to hang over the country’s political landscape.

While the PTI is still not out of the race, the two other major political parties — the PML-N and PPP — are engaged in hard bargaining for the formation of a new coalition arrangement, amid widespread protests against alleged poll rigging. The confession of the Rawalpindi commissioner, who resigned from his post, about his role in vote manipulation has raised more questions about the legitimacy of the entire electoral process.

It is certainly not the outcome of the long-awaited polls one wanted to see. It is the unravelling of the entire political power structure. But re-engineering work is on to prop up the old order already rejected by the electorate. The intermittent shutdown of social media seems to be a part of the effort to stifle opposition voices. One is, however, not sure whether these efforts will bring any political stability to a country in deep turmoil.

With the official result of the elections now almost fully compiled, the PTI-supported independent bloc is clearly ahead of the other political parties in the next National Assembly, despite the alleged electoral manipulation. The PTI’s latest decision to merge its parliamentary party with the Sunni Ittehad Council in the........

© Dawn