A CURIOUS element of the national discourse at the moment is that the greater the political focus on accountability, the less there appears to be a concerted effort to try and fix the accountability mechanism in the country. It is almost as if the political leadership in the country considers accountability to be more of a campaign slogan than a process of incremental, meaningful, positive change. The skirmishes with the National Accountability Bureau of members of the PML-N government has transfixed the political landscape and could go on to have shattering effects on the biggest political party in the country ahead of what is expected to be a fiercely contested poll, but it will do little to address systemic flaws in the accountability mechanism. Ten years into the transition to democracy, that is an unacceptable state of affairs and it does not appear to be a problem that the political leadership is keen to address.

Consider the vast, and often correct, criticism that has been directed at NAB over the years. There has been no organised attempt to clamp down on corruption in the public sector. But since the revelation of the Panama Papers, the problem of accountability has become progressively worse. It was necessary that the Sharif family, led by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, be investigated first. Mr Sharif failed to provide satisfactory responses to questions about his family wealth, even if the grounds eventually chosen for his ouster were questionable and politically controversial. Yet, the accountability mechanism did not proceed further. There were several hundred Pakistani nationals implicated in the Panama Papers and none have been investigated satisfactorily since the bombshell revelations of 2016. It is simply unbelievable that an issue that has shaken the political foundations of the country has coyly been sidestepped by the entire administrative, legal and political setup in the country.

With a general election scheduled for later this year, it is likely that two consecutive parliaments will have failed to improve and strengthen the accountability mechanism in the country. Five years were wasted under the PPP-led coalition government in the last parliament, with arguments between the PML-N and PPP delaying legislative change. This time round, nearly five years have been wasted in denial and then Mr Sharif fighting his ouster by the Supreme Court. Surely, no political government will be able to satisfactorily address public, even anti-democratic, complaints if it does not create a mechanism that sees genuine, high-level, across-the-board accountability. Ten years is enough. If this government does not agree to fundamental, positive change, the next parliament must commit to immediate improvements. The democratic project itself is at stake.

The PML-N and the rest of the national political leadership need to do better, and better now than never.