In every bazaar, every city, village, town and motor crossing in Pakistan, beggary persists. Some old and sick, but most of them young children, holding something in hand to ‘sell’ while walking quickly through aisles of waiting cars. 

Whatever meanings and implications one draws from Pakistan’s recent elections, the hard political fact is that the weight of the establishment is behind the results, and it will oversee that stability and order prevails by continuing to play a supportive role behind the scenes.