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Thursday March 28, 2024

Chessboard

Capital suggestionPM Nawaz Sharif knows his chess better than the rest. The three-dimensional chessboard that our politics has now become, PM Sharif makes one move that titillates the Pindi boys and the other that rescues the Charter of Democracy from the clutches of the boots. That is textbook ‘delay-and-derail’ strategy

By Dr Farrukh Saleem
July 05, 2015
Capital suggestion
PM Nawaz Sharif knows his chess better than the rest. The three-dimensional chessboard that our politics has now become, PM Sharif makes one move that titillates the Pindi boys and the other that rescues the Charter of Democracy from the clutches of the boots.
That is textbook ‘delay-and-derail’ strategy being played out almost to perfection (the Charter of Democracy reads: “No party shall solicit the support of military to come into power or to dislodge a democratic government”).
On June 23, the PM met the COAS. On June 24, ex-president Zardari was allowed to cool his heels in the safe confines of his palace in Emirates Hills. Almost in concert, the FIA, under Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, gets additional powers amounting to an ‘attack on Sindh’s provincial autonomy’.
Major-General Bilal Akbar, DG Pakistan Rangers (Sindh), has managed de facto (meaning: as a matter of fact) control over most of the three thousand five hundred kilometres of terrain we call Karachi. But, the GHQ lacks de jure control (meaning: under the law of the land). That is where FIA and NAB would come in handy.
Most of the moves and counter-moves are out in the open for all to see. The Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA), the generator of hard cash, was raided by the Rangers on June 15 (a major role expansion for the Rangers into the domain of financial corruption).
On June 16, the generally calm Zardari panicked. On June 17, the fossilised CM wrote a letter to Major-General Bilal Akbar that the raid on the SBCA amounted to ‘exceeding authority’ (the DG has opted not to reply).
Some of the moves and counter-moves need some imagination to decipher. K-Electric, which was handed over to Abraaj by Zardari, has come under attack by the federal government. On June 30, Air Indus was grounded by Air Marshal (r) Muhammad Yousaf. Lo and behold, the air marshal was grounded the following day. Or is it that too many contracts are at stake?
The GHQ may have bitten off more than it can chew. Zardari cooling off his heels in Emirates Hills sends out a wrong message to two constituencies: the rank-and-file and the public at large. For the GHQ, time is of the essence.
The PPP is down as well as out. Zardari has done to the PPP what the boots could not over the past three decades. Voters between Rawalpindi and Multan, with a hundred National Assembly seats, are not buying what the PPP is selling – martyrdoms and jail terms. Voters between Multan and Rahim Yar Khan, with four-dozen National Assembly seats, once a PPP stronghold, are also not buying what the PPP is selling.
The only region where Bilawal may have impact is the voters between Sukkur and Thatta (that region has some three-dozen National Assembly seats; low literacy and high poverty). To be certain, the PPP being down and out is not a good omen for the PML-N.
The Government of Pakistan, in the meanwhile, let 19 more of its citizens die from a hundred year old, grossly under-maintained, criminally neglected railway infrastructure. The Government of Pakistan is letting 5,000 of its own citizens die every year from traffic accidents; 5,000 more die from terrorism every year; 2,000 more die every other year from floods; 1,500 died in the heatwave and a thousand more from factory fires every year. None of this has anything to do with nature. These are all preventable deaths.
Budget 2015-16 allocated a colossal Rs326 billion for the “running of the civil government”. But, the government is letting its citizens die, blaming the deaths as nature’s will. If the affairs of the Government of Pakistan are to be run by nature then might as well save the Rs326,000,000,000.
Someone intelligent once said, “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts”.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com.
Twitter: @saleemfarrukh