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| Who will save Pakistan? |
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Thursday, November 19, 2009
Sardar Mumtaz Ali Bhutto
While the entire focus is on the game of musical chairs being played by Zardari and Nawaz Sharif and the question being asked is "When will Zardari quit?"
The Zardari-Sharif game is easy to comprehend: Zardari, of course, has no desire to vacate the house on the hill and has devised a strategy of paying out the rope a little when the pull gets too strong in the tug-of-war for power. First of all, it was reconciliation, through which Zardari appeased the opposition and, beyond his wildest dreams, got the top job while others too received huge shares of power. Consequently, there are 90 federal ministers and advisers, compared to less than 20 during the tenure of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, each of them costing people Rs100,000 per day. Then we have the repeated agreements at Bhurban, Islamabad, Dubai and London to restore the judges, but Zardari relented only in the face of the long march. However, he did manage to get a few months' reprieve out of the wrangle. Recently there has been the matter of the NRO and finally the surrender on that too, which has again bought Zardari another respite until the fate of the cases against him and his fellow travellers are decided by the courts. But there is more salvation in reserve, such as the repeal of the 17th Amendment, Article 58 (2) (b) and the implementation of the Charter of Democracy. These should be worth a few more months in the Presidency.
On the other hand, it suits Nawaz Sharif to have Zardari there until such time as the restriction on a third prime ministerial term is removed. It serves his purpose to have a vulnerable and defeated president who melts under pressure. Besides, his brother is the chief minister of Punjab, which is the true power base of Pakistan and for which reason there is no compulsion to rush things.
So all is hunky-dory with the major players in the political field, but what is the fate of the nation?
Apart from the other grave crises faced by Pakistan, a bloody civil war rages on in the north with no end in sight, as a consequence of which the scourge of terrorism/suicide attacks engulf the whole country. Police headquarters, mosques, hospitals and educational institutions, even the GHQ, have become targets. Consecutive corrupt and incompetent governments have created a serious imbalance which has made the federation unworkable with the smaller provinces clamouring for economic and political freedom. Shahi Jirgas in Balochistan have already declared that the province is not a part of Pakistan. They have even taken their case to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Separatist movements in Sindh are stronger than ever before with the weak and useless Sindh government absolutely unequal to the task of governance. The MQM has evolved a parallel authority that ignores the Sindh government and goes its own way, as in the matter of the restoration of the commissioners' system in Sindh proposed by the government and rejected by the MQM.
As for Punjab, if there was any doubt about its being the true repository of state power, it was emphatically removed by the long march, even though it had to be aborted. Islamabad now treads softly in Punjab, as evidenced by the muzzling of the governor who was obviously put there to throw a spanner in the works.
Thus, what we should be preoccupied with is how to save Pakistan and provide immediate relief to the vanquished masses rather than Zardari's fate. Both military rule and the so-called democracy that we have seen so far have failed miserably. In particular, the role of the National and Provincial Assemblies is deplorable. They have always been used by the governments of the day for their own purposes and, with each member costing Rs500,000 per month, have become an unnecessary burden on the exchequer. Never before has this been more visible than today. Lack of governmental control and direction has made the concept of Pakistan nebulous and its foundations shaky. What is urgently required here and now is a leader who rises above the storm and steers the ship of state to secure moorings. What we need is a capable man of vision, honour and intellect who is also a born leader. In fact, we need a Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, but what we have instead is a man leading a terrified existence, deeply ensconced in the highly guarded and fortified presidential palace who, even though he is the supreme commander of the armed forces, does not come out and visit the victims of the war and the soldiers at the front. If a man like George Bush could visit the troops in an explosive place like Iraq, where shoes were thrown at him, surely there is no justification for Zardari to hide.
The writer is chairman of the Sindh National Front.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
