A governor gone

After serving for nearly 14 years as governor of Sindh and becoming the longest serving governor of any province in the country’s history, the time for Ishratul Ebad to be replaced was perhaps long overdue. But nobody here is foolish enough to think that this is the reason for his departure.

It was not clear any longer if Ebad had any constituency left. His ties with the MQM were strained last year when Altaf Hussain accused him of standing by idly as the party’s Nine Zero headquarters were raided. His long tenure and his sudden removal now have a lot to do with the long ups and the sudden downs of his party – the MQM. In the time he has been in office, with nary a peep from the establishment, Karachi has been through a lot that was brutal and violent – and most of it was rightly attributed to the MQM. It is only now – after the priorities of the establishment and consequently the political forces have changed, and the ‘politics ‘ inflicted on Karachi in the shape of the MQM has now been broken into fragments – that Ebad has been shown the door. This will not be the first time that one is forced to contemplate not only on the MQM but the nature of our power structure, the state and our politics on the whole. PSP leader Mustafa Kamal, Ebad’s enemy of today and his party comrade of not very long ago, had recently launched a stinging attack on Ebad, ‘revealing’ to us how, among other things, how corrupt to the bone was. Obviously Kamal had no reason to worry that each and every word that he says about Ebad, reveals something about Kamal as well – if any revelation about Kamal was ever needed at all. Yet Ebad may then have realised that his time might be up and made more of an effort to be active in Karachi to show he could be useful. To that end, he even boasted of being a member of the establishment, hoping perhaps that this would save his job?

Ebad’s replacement, Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui, is associated with the PML-N but he is far from being a loyalist. He enjoys widespread respect among all political parties. He was the party’s candidate for president against Asif Zardari after the 2008 elections. As the chief justice of the Supreme Court when Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999, Siddiqui was among those who refused to take an oath under the first PCO. Siddiqui had nearly become the president of Pakistan in 2013 when the PML-N initially wanted to select him as their candidate but replaced him with Mamnoon Hussain since Siddiqui never officially joined the party. Siddiqui was such a popular choice for president that the PTI’s nominee Wajihuddin Ahmed said he would step down should Siddiqui be selected. Both the PTI and the JUI-F had named Siddiqui on their shortlist of interim prime ministers in the run-up to the 2013 elections. The only party which does not seem overly enthused about the appointment is the PPP, which has complained about not being consulted before the decision was made. Still, Siddiqui is about as good a consensus choice as is available in Sindh.   The only drawback to his appointment may be that the rough and tumble of politics in Karachi may not suit a person of Siddiqui’s temperament and age. That aside, there will be little grumbling about the selection and most of the focus will be on the timing of the decision.