As we move towards a possible election early next year, the political discourse continues to hover around the old issue of corruption, overwhelmed by debates on who is more corrupt than the other.

And while there are legitimate reasons for this focus, the real issues of the country lie elsewhere. They lie in the fact that almost 50 per cent of our children are stunted and many will not develop sufficient IQs to make any kind of mark in their academic or social life. There are other harrowing figures: one out of 20 children and 63 out of every 1,000 children born in the country will die before they attain the age of five.

The maternal mortality rate is as shocking as are other figures indicating the state of the people in the country. If we think in terms of the lives our citizens lead, these issues are of greater significance than the illegal actions of politicians. Yes, corruption should be punished under the law; but it should not be the sole political agenda on which we base our ideas.

The PTI has played a major role in labelling all its opponents as corrupt, and during its tenure in power it focused more on bringing cases against them. While some corruption cases may be genuine, others were based on insufficient evidence or a simple error in the management of business. And now this is true for the PTI which has multiple cases against it. Again, some of these may be genuine while the rest lacks sufficient evidence to back the claims made against the party.

We need to expand the scope of dialogue and think about how we can rescue people from the perpetual misery in which they live. Anyone who has visited a government hospital will........

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