The News is reporting that the President has annulled an ordinance he issued a few days ago. As soon as it was issued it came under intense domestic and international criticism. Even the United States, a staunch ally of Musharraf, noted its concern. Writ petitions were issued in the SHC and the LHC seeking a quashing of the ordinance which had been issued with just 24 hours to go before the beginning of a National Assembly session. High level government functionaries met with media representatives and proprietors. The result: an almost total government u-turn. A code of conduct is being prepared apparently. Whatever that may contain and whether or not it has the force of law the damage has been done because the media have stopped live coverage of certain issues such as CJP’s ouster.

Why the u-turn? Because the damage has been done to the media (they now keep parrotting the government view and are giving less coverage to certain other issues; in other words self-censorship is the order of the day) and at the same time it looks good for the president’s image on an international level; his image has taken a battering in recent weeks and months on the international level.

The crises will be over in a few days, claims the President.

Perhaps the president knows something we don’t? Only time will tell.

On Monday the SC will rule on the maintainability of the petition. It is too close to call; the judges are clearly divided this much can be gleaned from their comments during the hearing. Is public pressure enough to get a fair result? Probably not.