This is election year in Pakistan. The battle-lines are drawn. There is a lot of noise ahead of the political showdown and even by local standards of chaos, polarization hasn’t ever been this bad.

Pakistan’s general inability to choose between an agreed formula of performance-based merit or the seniority principle as deciding factors in top appointments to the two most powerful establishments in the country – the judiciary and the military – is wreaking political and economic chaos. 

India has its Gandhis, the Sri Lankans their Bandranaikes and Rajapaksas and Bangladesh its Sheikhs and Zias. Pakistan, similarly, has its Bhuttos and Sharifs. Dynastic politics runs through the South Asian political landscape, like pedigreed DNA.