Country starved for a paradigm shift
In a ground-breaking decision, the ECP has annulled the by-elections held in Tando Mohammad Khan and slapped a two year ban on the PPP MPA-elect Waheeda Shah for hitting two female polling staffers. It was a split decision with ECs from KP, Punjab and Balochistan supporting the disqualification and the EC from Sindh and the CEC, also from Sindh, opposing it – a split along provincial lines which casts an ominous shadow.
Elsewhere, the SC has directly ordered the prime minister to write the letter to the Swiss court irrespective of any advice received. The order was given in response to numerous depositions by the prime minister’s attorney and his former principal secretary that he never meant to disobey the apex court’s adjudications, but only followed the rules of business as the summaries put up in the matter advised him not to write the dreaded letter. Will Aitzaz Ahsan have another trick up his sleeve and will he, now an honourable senator, be inclined to using it to save his client from the seemingly inevitable verdict? Indications are that a lot more may be in the offing before the final judgement is announced and a mechanism devised for its implementation.
Yet another PPP stalwart Mr Babar Awan of the fake doctorate fame is lined up for formal framing of charges on March 20 in the ongoing contempt proceedings against him. The apex court has held that he was indeed guilty of contempt and has to be proceeded against. The day is likely to be marked by considerable bravado and heroics reflecting the devious proclivities of the man who is reported to have distributed sweets on the hanging of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. His being in the PPP fold rankles with an abominable paucity of political and moral depth that has typified the working of the party since its coming into office more than four years ago.
But the real can of worms was opened by the former chairman of Mehran Bank Mr. Younis Habib. According to his deposition before the SC, an amount of Rs 1.48 billion was withdrawn from the bank on the instructions of the then-president Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the then-COAS Gen (Retd) Aslam Beg for distribution among political leaders and other personnel to manipulate the elections that were to be held in the country. Among the alleged recipients of the dole-outs, as disclosed by Mr Habib, are the lions of Punjab Nawaz Sharif (Rs 3.5 million) and Shahbaz Sharif (Rs 2.5 million). The amounts will have to be multiplied by about a hundred or more to determine their contemporary value – a staggering sum received by the claimants of moral high ground.
I think it is a matter of shame for the entire nation if such leaders stand among them talking of democracy! Born and bred in the laps of dictators, they don’t hesitate for a moment to criticise them and hold them responsible for all the ills that have befallen the country. They condemn the Machiavellian scheming of Asif Zardari in public, yet embrace him and his cronies on the quiet to perpetuate a corrupt system and ensure their slice of meat. They criticise the demeaning state of the national institutions, but have wasted billions on ill-conceived and un-sustainable schemes of their own that were either hurriedly aborted, or are in the process of being declared untenable. Their greed is inexhaustible and their politics is based on building corrupt family fiefdoms that would remain inaccessible to the ordinary mortals.
These politicians are a microcosm of the traditional political mafias that, in collaboration with dictators and the blood-sucking elite who, having enriched themselves by indulging in indescribable loot and plunder, have been denuding this country for over six decades now. This unholy alliance has brought them much reward in the past as they pang to continue the liaison into the foreseeable future unless thwarted by a surge of people-power that is fully focussed on bringing relief to this starved country and its deprived and disenfranchised inhabitants, more than fifty percent of whom have plunged below the poverty line fighting for two meals a day.
This, in no way, should mitigate the gravity of the role played by other characters, including the intelligence officials, in the formulation and implementation of the nefarious scheme to influence the elections. There is also the question of the millions that are still unaccounted for. Where did the huge amounts go and who all benefited from the state largesse vide numerous intermediaries? They all need to be brought to the dock.
The reported case may be almost two decades old, but nothing really has changed and the system may have become even more rotten with the passage of time and the gaining of experience by its principal perpetrators. The recent senate elections and the manner in which votes were purchased for staggering sums of money makes one shudder at the quality of leaders that it would continue to prop up.
This country is starved for a paradigm shift that will bring relief to the suffering millions and give them hope of a better future for themselves and their coming generations; hope that they would not continue to languish hanging on to the false promises of corrupt and blood-sucking political mafias and their self-serving attendants; hope that they would recreate the liberal ethos that the founding-father had envisioned so proudly for their country; hope that they would be able to fight bigotry, hatred and extremism and catapult Pakistan to espouse the unblemished dream of its inception as enshrined in the August 11 address of the Quaid. It is a lot of hoping, but hope we must if we are to survive the rigours of this contrived living and the chains of slavery that have been hung around our necks in the name of democracy. A sham, an utter sham!
The writer is a political analyst and a member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. He can be reached at [email protected]
