The deliberate hash of local govt to reflect the diverse demographics of the ruling Coalition, PPP in the rural areas and MQM in the urban, Sindh Peoples Local Government Ordinance (SPLGO) was essentially a hybrid measure. The vertical integration of local govts with the Provincial level was never resolved. Condemned outright as a sell-out of ethnic Sindhi interests by Sindhi nationalists, there was reaction even among diehard PPP loyalists in interior Sindh.
Using the pretext of PPP’s political activists from Lyari accused of committing heinous crimes being set free, MQM quit the Coalition. This caused no sweat among those used to their frequent walkouts from the Federal and Sindh govts over the past 5 years. With less four weeks for the Assemblies completing its full five year term the other political parties had reason to cry foul, alleging this to be a stage-managed ploy for MQM to nominate the “Leader of the Opposition”, and usher in a friendly “Caretaker Chief Minister (CM)” in “consultation” with PPP’s CM Sindh. Or is there more than meets the eye than what the “conspiracy” theorists opine? That Governor Ishrat Abad did not resign immediately added to the skepticism.
The PPP-dominated Sindh Assembly did not take even one day to overwhelmingly repeal the SPLGO hardly four months into its inception. The fact of the matter is that the MQM bailed out Zardari politically by giving him a convenient backtrack to dampen the thunder of Sindhi nationalists using it as potent election issue. Moreover it even seemed possible a restless PPP could implode in its own Sindh stronghold around a rebellious Zulfikar Mirza. To dampen his rabid ethnic fervor, Zardari probably made Mirza made an offer he could not refuse. One can safely bet SPLGO 2012 will be back in some form or the other once the elections were over. For public consumption the former (and future) Coalition partners kept going at each other hammer and tongs, the fine print probably not visible to party stalwarts lower down the ranks. The “fog of politics” is far more murkier than the “fog of war”!
PML (N) Chief Mian Nawaz Sharif recently reposed full confidence in the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), and why not, by vacillating about crucial issues till they have become infructuous because of the short time now available, ECP has tacitly stacked the deck against those who could possibly replace most present legislators even if the next elections are genuinely free and fair. The elaborate mode of scrutiny of candidates under Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution notwithstanding, Justice Fakhruddin Ebrahim knows very well that detailed scrutiny is not possible in 15 days. Apropos the “scrutiny” by ECP going on for the last five years, the very insistence about the short time period makes the process suspect! Incidentally, public officials all over the world must declare assets, why is one not surprised that the Sharifs never question the ECP about Zardari being the only holder of public office in the world who does not declare his assets or sources of income? Abiding strictly to the letter of the Constitution, if not its spirit, it does not oblige Fakhru Bhai to ask such inconvenient questions either! According to declarations under oath by our parliamentarians, most are living below the poverty line, such lying under oath makes for “perjury”. How many of those caught lying through their teeth under oath before the Supreme Court (SC) have been convicted by the SC for perjury?
Discussing this curse in ”TRUE OR FALSE” on Sept 2, 2000, “most of our problems can be traced to the willingness of those under oath to tell lies with impunity, to forge documents, to erase, alter, deface, mutilate, etc evidence as may be required. For personal gain, whether monetary or otherwise, false representation of facts and distortions, a gentlemanly phrase for “outright lies”, is the order of the day. In the Oxford Dictionary perjury is “an act of willfully telling an untruth when on oath”. Simply put, a perjurer is a criminal and in most countries, perjury carries exemplary punishment, ruthless enough for people to avoid giving false statement under oath. On the other hand our frustrated common citizen very rarely consents to bear any witness, for fear of being persecuted by the forces of evil”, unquote. Legal history of the developed world shows that the drop in corruption has been commensurate with repeated convictions due to perjury and acts as a deterrent of sorts.
Recalling the sorry history behind bribery and corruption sustaining the feudal system in “The Genesis of Corruption” of November 15, 2000, “Uptill 1857, the British bribed their way into power across South Asia by seducing recalcitrants among the close relatives/associates of various rulers. After 1857, they created a new “loyal” elite by distributing vast tracts of land that became theirs by default of having defeated the vestiges of the old Mughal Empire, generously gifting away land that did not belong to then in the first place. This newly-landed gentry owed their loyalty to the British Raj, aping their customs and traditions these loyal feudals helped the core white British community of 300000 civil servants, soldiers, etc rule a vast country of several hundred million people”.
Quite a number of our politicians in Pakistan are horses for sale to the highest bidder. Asif Zardari is at his devious best exercising the politics of compromise but it is in the politics of expediency that he has truly excelled, successfully clubbing together rural feudals, urban socialists and religious parties alongwith political opportunists despite vehemently opposing ideologies, a patented Zardari’s “horses for courses” solution. The people continue to suffer under atrocious governance, deliberately resorted to in order to promote feudalism, alive, well and flourishing in this the only country in the world. Local Bodies being the anti-thesis to feudalism has no chance in this country, how can feudals ever allow the representatives of who they consider serfs to rule?
Gen Kayani has a dream – of free, fair elections. He must be commended for his strong belief in democracy and maintaining it is “the prerogative of the people to elect competent or incompetent rulers”, his soldiers need to be commended for being blindly loyal to their Chief who has successfully kept a corrupt govt in power for five long years. The last time an Army Chief “dreamed” of a free and fair elections (1970), it turned into a nightmare for this country, the country as it was than ceased to exist. Will history commend those in uniform today for blandly ignoring the corruption rife around them to contributing enormous amounts of illegal money thus acquired being spread liberally to win “free and fair elections”?
The headlines last Monday, “major power breakdown plunges most of country into darkness”. Rampant feudalism keeps us prisoners in the “heart of darkness”, the real question is whether those who should will ever see the light before this country plunges permanently into a dark abyss? One can remain deaf and dumb for democratic reasons but closing one’s eyes to the rampant corruption in place is going “above and beyond the call of duty”. Remember the saying in the Army, “better wake up!”
Courtesy: The News
