Even his worst critics privately concede that Bill Clinton is fast proving to have been the most successful president of the United States since the 1990s. Many columnists of influential newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post have also begun to weigh the possibility of Clinton contesting for another presidential term, constitutional provisions notwithstanding.

Bill Clinton is all about charisma and the ability to generate a feel-good mood for his people. Serious observers of his politics, however, believe that the real secret of his appeal is the knack of “usurping the cause” that his potential rivals can adopt and use to upstage him.

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who seems more reclusive and arrogant, is no patch on Clinton. Yet he did succeed in playing many winning strokes on a day when celebrity cricketer-turned-politician, Imran Khan, finally came to the national assembly to take oath and deliver a 40-minute speech.

The crowd-pulling strength of the charismatic Khan was on display the moment you reached the main entrance to parliament Wednesday morning. There hardly was any space left for parking vehicles and visitors’ galleries were full to the capacity.

Although in his speech, the PTI leader kept repeating the dreams and desires that he had been selling to the nation through his solo appearances on popular TV shows and later via the fiercely-led election campaign, he was still heard in absolute awe. Only the hearty desk thumping from the PTI benches, occasionally joined by the rest of the opposition members, intermittently broke the pindrop silence. He would certainly have gone home like a conqueror after his maiden showing in the national assembly.

As a hardened player of parliamentary games, Nisar denied him the pleasure, though. Immediately after Imran took back his bench, the interior minister took the mike to dampen the feel-good edge of his political rival. Nisar was deceivingly humble in admitting at the outset that Imran had not spoken like a bigot partisan. “He has rather expressed feelings that all patriotic Pakistanis cherish in their hearts,” pronounced Nisar to earn a hearty desk thumping from both sides of the house.

After softening the other side with appeasing words, Nisar went on to demolish the core points of Imran Khan’s narrative with deadly manipulation of words. The hardcore PTI zealots strongly feel that the elections held on May 11, 2013 were not free and fair and that the PML-N candidates won thanks to some insidious game. Perhaps for the consumption of his diehard fans, Imran Khan had to reiterate the demand that the Chief Justice of Pakistan should take the initiative to facilitate a comprehensive review of at least four national assembly constituencies.

The PTI strongly feel that forensic analysis of the polling day activity in these constituencies and recounting of the votes polled with digital re-checking of thumb impressions can produce substantive content to their suspicions. Imran, however, also sounded sincere in repeatedly stressing that he was not pressing for selective recounting to question the legitimacy of governments established after May 11. His real and ultimate objective was to set up a fault free system that ensures free, fair and impartial elections in times to come.

Hardened politicians like Chaudhry Nisar do not go by noble intentions, however. They are in politics to grab power and continue holding it. The forensic review of poll results in four national assembly constituencies that Imran would identify can lead to unintended consequences. Involving the Supreme Court to supervise the said process may also affirm the status of our apex judiciary as the ultimate arbitrator regarding all political disputes in this country.

Nisar was brilliant in preventing the flight of this idea. He acted being gracious by suggesting the establishment of “an independent commission of people with impeccable repute that the government and the opposition should select by consensus.” This commission can review not four, but ten to twenty national assembly constituencies identified by all political parties having representation “in this assembly.” He was also willing to adopt “any law”, wholeheartedly, which the PTI legislators desired to be passed by the national assembly for ensuring free and fair elections.

Stopping drone attacks is another core point of Imran Khan’s politics and on this count Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan sounded more passionate than the PTI leader. “Soon,” he revealed, “the prime minister would invite various heads of political parties to collectively brainstorm for a strategy that leads to stopping these attacks and convey it to the world that Pakistan is not a country ruled by (a dictator) Musharraf anymore.” Imran had no choice but to profusely praise Nisar for passionately “owning” his ideas.

Both also recalled the good old days, when they played cricket together as students of Aitchison College, Lahore. As if to reaffirm the bonding among bosom pals, Imran invited Nisar to his seat and warmly shook his hand for cameras before leaving the house. Things have never been so hunky-dory between the two. I seriously wonder how the zealot fans of Imran Khan would take it. Perhaps it is time for me to browse the facebook and twitter accounts.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2013.

Over the years, Bollywood has perfected the technique of producing a super hit movie that revolves around the daring doings of an obsessive crime buster. Although a born rebel, the hero of this genre somehow joins the police force and then finds himself posted in a mafia-run territory. Of course, his seniors and usually corrupt politicians patronise the criminal gangs and bad boys of his area, but our hero prevails in the end and seldom cares to follow rules and procedures prescribed in the book of conducting police business.

Pakistan has yet to produce such a cop-connected film but in real life, it savours the privilege of having some police officers of the dedicated variety that provides stuff for Hollywood hits. Zulfikar Cheema remains the most talked about police officer in this respect.

As officer-in-charge of Gujranwala Division some years ago, he had zealously introduced and ruthlessly pursued crime-control by instant public humiliation and punishment of hardened criminals. Being a brother of a PML-N member of the national assembly, he always felt doubly secure in executing his mission. The caretaker government posted him as Director General Passport and soon the media was flooded with stories, excitedly praising him for delivering in that capacity.

Thanks to the rush of such adulatory stories, most people in Islamabad began to presume that the third Nawaz government might select Cheema to head the Islamabad Police as its Inspector General. People close to him, however, niggardly believed that posting in a “small-town” like Islamabad was far below Cheema’s status; he should either head the provincial police of Sindh or the KPK. They were really disappointed to hear the news that Cheema had literary been “sidelined” by being posted as the Inspector General Motorway Police.

Regretting “the loss of such a fine officer and a deliverer by shifting him to an insignificant position,” Cheema’s admirers conveniently disregarded an important development that happened Tuesday morning: The national assembly had to accept and hold in order a privilege motion tabled against none other than the same Zulfikar Cheema.

Khawaja Sohail, an MQM legislator, alleged that he had failed to get his passport renewed through the normal procedure within the required time. In sheer frustration, he tried to meet the DG Passport in his office. Instead of patiently hearing the grouse of a public representative, Cheema became furious and rudely asked Khawaja to get out of his office.

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was not willing to defend the conduct of his subordinate officer. The interior minister instead warned officers working for departments attached to his office that they must learn to behave politely, especially while dealing with elected representatives. Khawaja’s complaint was passed on to yet-to-be-formed privileges committee of the national assembly for appropriate action. Meantime, Chaudhry Nisar Ali also ordered an official inquiry into the alleged incident.

Although Cheema has seemingly failed to take off in this term of Nawaz Sharif, the fan club of characters like him from amongst the crime and corruption fighting media persons continue to lobby overtime for the appointment of another officer from the police service as Chairman NAB. In the interest of safe driving I am withholding his name, but if appointed, the same person is certain to “bring back the looted money that various cronies of Asif Ali Zardari have accumulated during the previous five years”. Nawaz Sharif is yet not willing to select the said person as his accountability czar. He continues to resist the temptation of returning to the “ruthless accountability days” of Saifur Rehman during his last term that ended with another martial law in 1999.

After being elected for the first time to the national assembly, Shafqat Mehmood of the PTI delivered his maiden speech. Without any sound and fury, he tried hard to project Dar’s budgetary proposals as pro-rich and punitive for the salaried classes. He was lethal in exposing the reality that while taxing the salaried classes, the government focused more on people earning in lower slabs, while executive positions in higher income slabs were pampered with remarkable relief.

Not once but twice, the PPP had tried to Syed Naveed Qamar to work as the finance minister for its successive governments. Sardar Farooq Khan Leghari had scuttled his flight in 1996 by dismissing the second Benazir government, but Asif Ali Zardari always preferred to go after high-profile wizards like Shaukat Tareen and Dr Hafeez Sheikh. Forgetting and forgiving the whimsical and often dismissive treatment of his talents, Naveed Qamar furnished a solid defense of the ‘fiscal management’ by the previous government. Quoting statistics provided in the budget-related documents, he spun a believable story to prove that Dar’s predecessors from the PPP government did succeed in bringing down inflation from 24 to around 7 percent, besides achieving many other things to stabilise the macro-economic scene. In spite of delivering a forceful speech, Syed Navid Qamar did sound too late in spinning a feel-good story, though.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2013.

In spite of many engaging speeches, Mehmood Khan Achakzai stole the show in the end. Without raising his voice or garnishing his speech with grim and heavy words, the Pashtun nationalist from Balochistan was radically blunt in saying what he thought should now appear obvious to the “incurably delusional elements of our establishment.” In the everyday language of an average Joe, Achakzai kept pleading that it was time to realize that Pakistan could not “dictate its terms to all its neighbors and the rest of world, simply because Qadeer Khan has made an (atomic) bomb for an army of 500,000 personnel.”

Starting from the disastrous consequences of Japan’s adventurous attack on Pearl Harbor, he moved on to recall the miseries Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi had brought to their countries. “The world will never allow us to use our atomic bomb. For God sake, forget the dreams of blackmailing the world with this nuclear capability,” he continued.

Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, he believed, the military oligarchs of Pakistan have developed the habit of dictating their agenda, not only to the hapless people of this country but to neighboring countries as well. From all across the world we collected thousands of bigots and trained them to destroy schools, bridges and infrastructure in “enemy territories.” The Soviet Union withered away in Afghanistan and the US abandoned it. Yet, “we continued to look for strategic depth in Afghanistan” and in the process pampered and facilitated elements who eventually provoked the US-led war on terror by staging 9/11.

Being a diehard Pashtoon nationalist, Mehmood Khan did sound very convincing by vehemently insisting that after the US invasion of Afghanistan, “we (the Pakistan establishment) forced people living in our tribal areas to act as hosts of Muslim warriors running for their lives from Afghanistan.” In the end, the international community forced Pakistan to send its troops to these areas to sort out the same guests, thus provoking most residents of FATA to declare a war on Pakistan and its armed forces.  The war waged in the name of Islam has now reached every nook and corner of Pakistan.

A good number of legislators were present on the PTI benches when Achakzai was spinning a hair-raising tale to name and shame. Not one dared to stand and challenge him when he further strengthened his argument by claiming that, motivated by a sheer need for revenge, some residents of Pakistan’s tribal areas “volunteer to point out houses where hardened elements wanted by the US live as guests. These same houses later become drone targets.”

Achakzai was not just giving a monologue. He did offer a doable-looking strategy to get out the bloody mess Pakistan seems to have created for itself. The key point of his recommendations remained focused on the point that elected representatives must take full command and control of areas considered “strategic” thus “off limits to bloody civilians.” Before ending, he made a firm commitment that if this assembly failed to assert its sovereignty in another year or so, he would resign and go home with the clear intent of never trying to return to an elected house.

Notwithstanding my heartfelt praise for Mehmood Khan’s telling it all with in-your-face bluntness, I feel forced to express the fear that perhaps he would not need to wait for long to move on his pledge of quitting an elected house. During the last weekend, we had witnessed not one but two startling incidents of terrorism in Balochistan. The dispassionate observers strongly suspect that these events were staged to ruin the feel-good mood that Nawaz had created by facilitating the placing of Dr Malik as the chief minister of a chaos-hit province. The state of Pakistan must employ all its resources to locate the perpetrators of these events and for that purpose both the civilian and the military institutions need to be on the same page.

During their fact-finding visit to Balochistan after the recent events, however, Nawaz Sharif’s aides heard stories that insidiously blame Deep Penetrating Agents (DPAs) of some hawkish elements from within the establishment for “staging” high profile incidents. The Residency in Ziarat where the founder of Pakistan had spent his last days, most political workers in Balochistan strongly suspect, was destroyed by remote bombs to provoke a massive and ruthless chase of Baloch separatists. By walking into the alleged trap, Islamabad would certainly ruin the feel-good mood that Dr Malik’s selection as the Chief Minister of Balochistan had stirred. 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2013.

Before moving the house to general discussion on budgetary proposals Sunday morning, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq clearly explained that public representatives were not supposed to confine their speeches to economic and fiscal matters only. Issues such as the two nerve-shattering incidents of terrorism in Balochistan the other day deserved their comments as well. No legislator paid any heed to his suggestion.

For more than two hours, I remained glued to my seat in the press gallery and keenly listened to speeches delivered by a large number of legislators. Most of them preferred discussing the proposed budget only and delivered cliché-laden speeches. Most pathetic and frightening was their absolute indifference to perennial incidents of terrorism in Pakistan.

Maulana Sheerani of the JUI-F was particularly disappointing. He is an experienced political worker from Balochistan. Most of his fellow-Maulanas from his province blame him for being ‘soft’, when it comes to asserting a distinctive sectarian identity by various Deobandi outfits. Some even go to the extent of suspecting him as an “Iranian asset planted in” an exclusively Sunni party of the religious-right. Sheerani knows everything regarding the origin and spread of the dreadful Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Quetta and its suburbs. Instead of educating us on this count, the focus of his anxiety remained fixed to condemn the interest-based economy of a country established in the name of Islam.

From the JUI-F benches, the surprisingly pleasant speech came from Akram Durrani. He had been the K-P Chief Minister during the MMA-government from 2002 to 2007. His accumulated experience fully reflected itself when he began elaborating the economic potential of his province by specifically discussing the untapped reservoirs of energy found in vast swaths of land from Kohat to Bannu.

Amir Haider Hoti, his successor from the ANP, was doubly impressive in the same context. He also proved an exception by passionately discussing the issue of terrorism. Very cunningly, he did attempt setting the economic agenda for the PTI-government in his province by pointing out issues related to energy and water management. The K-P, he stressed with a hurt heart, produces huge megawatts of electricity through multiple but hydro-based sources. Yet, the federal government maintains a punitive regime of load shedding for this province and WAPDA is not willing to pay a penny more than the amount fixed way back in 1991 as royalty for electricity production. Appropriate funds were also not provided for completing a water-lifting canal at Chashma that can develop at least 300,000 acres of additional agricultural land in poverty-stricken southern belt of K-P.

Except these two former chief ministers, none of the legislators seemed to have done any homework to discuss the first budget of third Nawaz government in an engaging manner. Also-ran type speeches were horribly drab. Ayaz Soomro of the PPP attempted to first explain and then take on the presumably capitalist-friendly policies of the PML-N, but miserably failed to spice his story with hard but embarrassing facts.

The ruling-party legislators were equally clueless in defending their budget. Off the record, most of them candidly admit to journalists that Ishaq Dar hopelessly failed to inject any energy and to provide feel-good content to budgetary proposals that the sterile minds of hardened bureaucrats had prepared for him.

At least three of the PML-N legislators separately told me that their government had miserably failed to convey an energizing message through its first budget. Its main priority does not appear aimed at generating hyperactivity on the economic front. Instead, the focus seemed to have moved on revenue collection for a near-bankrupt state.

More than a score of senior bankers, they told me, have clearly conveyed to the prime minister that empowering “the corrupt FBR babus” to get arbitrary and at random details of any citizen’s bank account might lead to crashing of a visibly thriving sector, banking, in Pakistan. They sounded very confident in predicting that while winding up the general discussion on budgetary proposals, Dar would have no choice but to announce the withdrawal of such powers to ensure prevention of a mad rush on banks.

The finance minister has already succumbed in case of the salary increase for government servants. Shahbaz Sharif, my sources claimed, pressed for instant announcement of some relief in this respect and Dar had to announce ten per cent increase for government servants without waiting for recommendations from the 3-member committee he had established for this purpose. Too early in the formative days of this government, therefore, we can easily discern surfacing of two competing camps. The heartlessly bureaucratic one appears to be led by Dar, while Shahbaz Sharif continues to intrude in issues of fiscal management by the federal government with agitated mind of a budding populist.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2013.

The 30-plus crowd of youthful rebels and elderly converts to radicalism that was elected to the National Assembly on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) tickets must realise that parliaments are not designed to facilitate ‘revolutionary politics’. Elected houses in usual democracies function under rules of a laborious procedure and inviolable set of etiquette developed by many years of parliamentary practices.

Once the finance minister presents his budgetary proposals in the House, the opposition leader in the National Assembly is giventhe privilege of initiating general debate on the proposals. No other member should prevent or delay the process by raising disruptive points of (dis)order.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi is not a novice to this custom. As the finance minister of the Punjab government in the early 1990s, he has rather been deftly handling discussions on his budgetary proposals. Yet the same Qureshi surprised the press gallery on Saturday by aggressively taking the floor at the outset to push Ishaq Dar in a defensive corner by his taunts and shouting.

Without seeking parliamentary approval, the third Nawaz government has already enforced one per cent increase in General Sales Tax in its maiden budget. Even the Supreme Court had taken stern notice of it. Before coming to the House, Dar had done his homework, though. He kept on flaunting a law, which successive governments habitually abused to introduce “provisional taxes.” Being a veteran of parliamentary debates, the finance minister also acted smart by repeatedly admitting that the said legislation in essence was a “bad law.” His government would love to change it, if the opposition also desired that. Qureshi did not call his bluff by instantly switching to demand a firm pledge from the government to scrap the said law. He preferred to keep scoring points with bombastic words and then walked out of the house.

The government was not pushed over by the PTI walkout. Hardly a minister cared to rush after Qureshi to bring the PTI legislators back. The speaker felt embarrassed over this show of arrogance on the part the government benches and had to ask the ministers to make some reconciliatory moves. Rana Tanvir went out with three second-tier legislators from the PML-N.

Dr Shireen Mazari took command of her comrades huddled in the lobby, and continued to stonewall the government’s pleas. Eventually, Syed Khursheed Shah went out in spite of being the opposition leader. He might have failed as well, but former speaker, Dr Fehmida Mirza, showed grace by personally going out to calm and appease the PTI crowd.

Delivering his maiden speech as the opposition leader, Khurshid Shah did not pretend to sound like a profound economist and preferred lambasting the budgetary proposals in a layman’s lingo and logic. Often, he stirred loud and long spells of giggles by rubbing points with rustic humor and street hardened wisdom.

Ministers, known for being close to Nawaz Sharif, were looking tense and agitated, though. They were feeling uneasy in the formative days of the government and the one and only cause of their anxiety remains the hyperactive judiciary. Besides censuring the government for enforcing the one percent increase in GST, the Supreme Court has also conveyed its discomfort over the high-profile role that Shaukat Tareen seems to be relishing these days.

Nawaz wants the highly acclaimed banker, who also had served the PPP government as its finance minister, to assist him, formally, in finding answers to core issues like power shortage and revamping of the national flag carrier. But the Supreme Court needs Tareen to tell nothing but the whole truth to the NAB accountability boys, assigned to probe into the explosive scandal of rental power projects.

That is just the beginning. I have it from highly reliable sources that the usual clique of elements from within the ‘deep state’ has worked upon some corruption-hating media persons to start howling for “ruthless accountability.” The idea is to get some known cronies of Asif Ali Zardari and make them uncover the evil doings of their patron.

Nawaz still prefers to set a revamped system and institution for accountability with full involvement of both houses of parliament. Until the passage of a comprehensive anti-corruption law, preferably with consensus between the government and the opposition, he does not even want to appoint any acting or new chairman of the NAB. The “corrupting-hounding” cliques within media and the deep state do not approve of this cautious conduct of Nawaz. Already, they have short-listed two names to get to the “corrupt politicians.” Apparently, the prime minister is being pressurised to appoint either of them as the accountability czar to kickstart the cleansing process on a fast track. Welcome to the mutually destructive games that politicians continue to play.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2013.

Since 1985, I have been attentively listening to all the successive finance ministers delivering their budget speeches while sitting in national assembly’s press gallery. Being an economic-illiterate, I am yet to figure out why so much media hype is created about this day.

My cynical ignorance does not deny the reality that the chattering classes of Islamabad were waiting for the first budget of the third Nawaz government with too many hopes and expectations. Although a peculiar crowd of ‘economists,’ ever willing to deliver for non-elected governments, continued to behave dismissively. For them, Ishaq Dar is nothing but a “munshi (private accountant) of the Sharif family” and people must not expect headline making initiatives and tough but unpopular decisions to reform Pakistan’s economy, both on macro and micro levels, from him.

Dar, for sure, was neither bombastic nor rhetorical while unfolding various tasks set for the immediate, medium and long term turnaround by the PML-N government. He studiously maintained the posture of a task-driven manager presenting his work plan before a yawning and half-asleep crowd of public representatives. While placed in the government by a respectable-looking mandate too close to the presentation of the budget, Dar and his boss hardly had any time to focus on its preparation. Yet, they instinctively fathomed the need for improving and enhancing the revenue collection capacities of a near-bankrupt state. For the moment, though, their priority is to kick-start the flat economic activity in Pakistan. The unbearably long hours without electricity are rightly considered the main hurdle in this context.

Without clearly saying so, the finance minister wants to address it by paying off the circular debt in one go by printing more money. After passing this hurdle, the government intends to rationalise electricity prices. People will certainly find the intended increase very hard to swallow, but it can no longer be avoided. After moving on much awaited structural reform in the power sector, the government is all set to approach the IMF, somewhere in October-November this year.

The PPP candidates had used all ploys to spread the feeling that after coming into power, the government of a “ruthless industrialist from Lahore,” would immediately stop doling out financial support to the marginalised segments of society. Dar appeared to have baffled them by proudly announcing that instead of terminating the social support program, he would increase the dole amount and bring more people under its protective net. It certainly was a smart political move despite sounding like a populist gimmick.

Often, when Dar was rushing through his speech my mind would drift to wonder about Dr Hafeez Sheikh. For three years from 2010 to early this year, he had been calling the shots as a self-absorbed ‘professional’ with a Doctorate from Boston University. I vividly remember the noon of May 27, 2010, when I had a one-on-one meeting with President Zardari in his office. During the course of our conversation, I bluntly asked him to explain how he had discovered the said wizard. “Darling,” he candidly replied, “they (read the local and foreign establishment) made it either/or for us when it came to finding a new finance minister after the resignation of Shaukat Tareen. Hafeez Pasha and Hafeez Sheikh were the people they named and I preferred the Sheikh, also because Khurshid Shah informed me that his father had been a founder member of the PPP from Jacobabad.”

It is a different matter that since late 2011, the same Zardari would badmouth and criticise the doings of “this babu sitting in the finance ministry” to those he felt comfortable with. In this column, I also started dropping hints regarding Zardari’s disappointment with Dr Sheikh after listening to multiple sources. He, however, preferred to presume that the President was personally leaking the negative stuff about him to me and began throwing tantrums in official meetings.

He could still survive by convincing the PPP government that, through his inimitable skills of negotiating with Americans, he would get a massive amount of US dollars by restoring the punitively delayed Coalition Support Fund. Before going to the polls, the PPP government could spend the major chunk of this amount to settle circular debt. People would no more endure long hours of load shedding and thus “reward” the party by voting for its candidates in the election. By selling the said story, he single-handedly managed the restoration of supplies to NATO forces based in Afghanistan via Pakistani routes after their blockade for seven months. The PPP government did not get what it expected in return and the rest as they say is history.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2013.

Even the belatedly resurrected rebel and rabble-rouser Sheikh Rashid Ahmad of Rawalpindi did not seem to be itching to create a scene that would have made for a juicy story for the media.

There hardly was anything newsy in the 20-minute address of the President. In broader context, though, it did affirm the reality that the democratic system is fast stabilizing in a country that endured long spells of brute military interventions in its brief history.

Finally, a duly elected civilian President succeeded to oversee the transition from one to another elected government. The routine and thus dull looking happenings at the parliament Monday have invoked hopes and surely forced many a hardened cynics to review their defeatist prognosis for Pakistan.

However, the smooth sailings of Monday will still not stop me to report that swelling ranks of the lifelong loyalists of Pakistan Peoples Party have begun desperately desiring that Asif Ali Zardari must leave the Presidency ASAP.

May 11, 2013 has made their party to appear irrelevant for future politics. It retained hold over Sindh, for sure, but in the process appeared as if reduced down to a dying breed of clubby landlords confined to various swaths in rural areas of that province.

Most of the average jiyalas of Pakistan Peoples Party are keen to see Asif Ali Zardari switching and focusing all his energies in giving a new birth to this party. Although fully conscious of their dreams and desires, Zardari doesn’t seem too eager to stage a second coming.

Sources close to him continue to insist that he remains adamant to complete his term until September of this year and duly handover to an appropriately elected successor.

One of his diehard loyalists beseeched me to carefully read and ponder over the fine print of his ‘usual-sounding speech’ of Monday. With a ticklish tone he referred to remarks where the President seemed to hint that a particular pillar of the state, read: the judiciary, had gradually begun encroaching into “others’” territory” through its ceaseless initiatives.

The elected parliamentarians are feeling compelled to reclaim that lost speech. Mehmood Khan Achakzai, an ardent defender and promoter of the idea of parliament’s supremacy, had already talked about it, almost bluntly, while delivering a welcome speech over the election of Nawaz Sharif as the prime minister of Pakistan. President Zardari’s remarks in the said context subtly committed full support and cooperation, if the PML-N wants to make any substantial moves.

In the same context, the conspiracy theorists of Islamabad seem very keen to find out ‘the person’ who had persuaded the prime minister to appoint Munir A Malik, a lead star of the pro-judiciary movement in 2007, as the Attorney General. A plethora of stories are being narrated in this regard, but I will prefer to ignore all of them at this stage.

Disregarding the quest to find out nothing but the whole truth regarding the appointment of Munir A Malik, one has to report that in these too early days of the third Sharif government, the ruling party seems to be splitting into two visible camps. Khawaja Asif and Ishaq Dar are obvious patrons of urban based, mostly professional PML-N types from Central Punjab.

They would want to pursue the notion of good governance by corporate management of the energy and economic crises. Discreetly biding their time are the usual electables from rural and semi-urban constituencies who seriously believe that, in the end, all politics are local.

You cannot sustain your relevance to the electoral scene by disregarding the clannish compulsions of your ‘biradri’ and ‘dhara’. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan is the person they are fondly looking up to for getting back into the power games. The forthcoming budget sessions will certainly crystallize the brewing tensions between the two camps but until then we will have to wait and see.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2013.

There indeed were times when the usual icons of our defeatist and bankrupt elite would strain their lungs to convince luckless romantics like me that Nawaz Sharif was history; that the national and international establishments were adamantly determined to block his return to the office of Pakistan’s prime minister.

And yet, here came a day when that same Nawaz Sharif was sitting on a front row seat, calmly waiting for the inevitable. Doubly amusing seemed the anxiety of those members of the national assembly who had diligently served and defended the doings of General Musharraf throughout his reign; they were far more eager to reach the lobby reserved for those willing to mark their support for Nawaz Sharif.

One was still not surprised to find the MQM and Jamaat-e-Islami voting for the man they had been laughing at so assiduously since his fall in 1997. Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his JUI-F simply reflected their crafty pragmatism by doing the same and so did Aftab Ahmed Sherpao.

After Nawaz Sharif’s delivery of a cautiously drafted ‘acceptance speech,’ various heads of different political parties were invited to hail his election. Mehmood Khan Achakzai certainly outclassed and outshone the rest. Clinically restrained but sagacious, he was to plead to everyone elected to the house that it was time to sincerely assert the supremacy of a house elected by the people of Pakistan.

In this country, we now have a fiercely independent judiciary and hyperactive media. No problems with that; but all of them, including the national security elite, must now bow before the supremacy of an elected house and work within the parameters clearly defined in our constitution.

Achakzai showed his generosity in recalling that there had been judges from the superior judiciary who went home for not endorsing the successive and frequent subversion of Pakistan’s constitution and its democratic process. They returned home and died unsung. It was time to acknowledge their heroism. Similarly, there have also been Army Chiefs like Jehangir Karamat. In 1998, he too took no time in submitting his resignation when the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, felt uncomfortable with some of his remarks delivered at the end of a seminar at the Naval College of Lahore. “He could also have taken over like the rest of the usurpers and we must praise his conduct,” Achakzai demanded passionately.

Discussing those uniformed usurpers, one can certainly not forget General Musharraf, currently pining for the good old days while detained at his palatial house in a high-end sector of Islamabad. “Musharraf was not alone in subverting the constitution,” thundered the ardent democrat from Balochistan, “yet we must not forget that a coterie of military officers, bureaucrats and politicians shamelessly collaborated with him.”

Most journalists in the press gallery instantly suspected that Nawaz Sharif had ‘winked’ at Achakzai to “suggest a bailout package for General Musharraf” through these remarks. I tend to believe otherwise. Nawaz Sharif is not feeling comfortable with the return of the former military dictator and his problems with the judiciary. Our national security elite also feel jittery about his “humiliation” these days. Both the newly elected prime minister and the national security elite would want to move on by forgiving, if not forgetting, the past and focusing on the present. Yet, the question is: how to go about it? I don’t think the very deep and politically correct speech of Achakzai can help in this context.

While the PkMAP chief was delivering his passionate speech, many eyes from the press gallery were riveted to a front row in the gallery reserved for the guests of the speaker national assembly. Dr Maleeha Lodhi looked conspicuous while sitting there. Arif Nizami and a former senator, Enver Beg, were sitting on her right and left and the person sitting next to Nizami was none other than Tariq Fatmi. After retiring from the Foreign Office, Fatmi has been assisting Nawaz Sharif in dealing with diplomats since 2010. Many in Islamabad feel that while retaining the Foreign Office with him, Nawaz Sharif can appoint Fatmi as an advisor with the status and powers of a federal minister. A lobby of retired diplomats is already working overtime to scuttle the possible appointment of Fatmi and a crowd of self-declared experts of the delicate art of diplomacy is seeking Nawaz Sharif’s attention for being appointed as Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington. By discreetly surfacing in the Speaker’s gallery Wednesday, Dr Lodhi made many journalists speculate that, like Nawaz Sharif, she may also soon relish her third chance. I have doubts, though. The man to watch in this respect is none other than Sartaj Aziz; provided, Nawaz Sharif does not ask him to head the soon-to-be-restored office of a National Security Advisor.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2013.

Imran Khan had stunned most observers of our political scene with his huge public rally in Lahore on Oct 30, 2011. In sheer excitement, many of them rather saw the legendary cricketer turning into a crowd-swaying populist after this rally.

Ms Benazir Bhutto had also been a crowd-puller once upon a time, but Khan’s admirers compared his rise with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the late 1960s and feverishly projected his potential to emerge as the much-awaited ‘third force’ set to flood the power scene with ‘new faces’.

We were told that people of Pakistan are sick and tired of “the turns” that the two mainstream parties, the PPP and the PML-N, have been relishing in power since 1988. Now was the time to move beyond them.

The internet-savvy devotees of Imran Khan took such assessments rather seriously.

With accumulated experience of covering all elections held in this country from 1985 to 2008, I never felt convinced by such projections; they didn’t relate to ground realities. Discussing elections, we often tend to forget the political culture that General Zia had introduced and strengthened with obsessive hatred of political parties with definite ideas to execute.

After enforcing ruthless ban on political parties and strict censoring of media for eight years since 1977, the praetorian managers of our political scene spotted, groomed and promoted a new breed of ‘notables.’ Instead of looking at big political picture, this breed was encouraged to focus on ideas to provide Sarak-Panni-Bijli (roads, water and electricity etc) to their respective areas.

The state patronized these ‘agents of local development’ with generous funding. Groomed via long years of essentially apolitical local governments, most of these agents were then facilitated in getting to the national and provincial assemblies through the election held in 1985 on non-party basis. Even after reaching there, the neo-political elite was hardly given any chance to discuss and decide on vital issues when it comes to running a state and governing the country.

Both Ms Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif miserably failed to discard this trend during their turns in the government and during eight years of another praetorian dictator, General Musharraf, rather consolidated the same trend with fancy ideas of ‘grassroots democracy.’

Three consistent decades of the ‘development-driven politics’ have created vast swaths of constituencies left to the whims of so-called ‘electables’. They have ‘territories’ to rule with state patronage that you manage to get after elected to various assemblies.

Until now, we have seen seven general elections in Pakistan since 1985. The frequency of elections has enabled the state sponsored notables to build and consolidate a huge network of supporters for warlords-kind ‘electables’ vying to fight against each other for reaching the state patronage-delivering national or the provincial assemblies. You cannot smash and conquer these networks by just being hyperactive on social media or frequent babbles on the screen of infotainment-driven 24/7 channels.

If in doubt, just consider the PTI’s dealing with the election scene of Rawalpindi. Its downtown has two national assembly seats: NA 55 and 56. Until 2008, Sheikh Rashid Ahmad had remained an invincible master of this territory. As a “poor street boy”, Rashid’s main constituency had been the numerically strong but clannish Kashmiri community of Rawalpindi. After building his ‘base’ in this community, he gradually went on to speak for the traders and shopkeepers of this town as well. Nawaz Sharif is the ultimate spokesperson of the same communities. Little wonder, Rashid lost their support in Rawalpindi after presumably “betraying his mentor.” After losing not one but two elections in his ‘home constituency’ since 2008, he remained lost in wilderness.

But he now feels lucky that Imran Khan the budding “symbol of change,” is supporting him to contest the national assembly seat of NA-55. In return, Rashid has promised to help the victory of Imran Khan for another national assembly seat from the neighbouring NA-56.

If the so-called “youth bulge” and the “message of change” that the PTI social media activists had been drumming nonstop were so relevant, NA 55 and NA 56 were the most appropriate constituencies to test the worth of these theories on ground. Imran Khan has failed, however, to find ‘new faces’ with no political baggage but potential to think new and big to launch from these constituencies and this forces me to predict “no surprises” on May 11, 2013.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2013. 

The government has finally revealed its choices for the caretaker prime minister through a prime ministerial letter to the opposition leader. Dr Hafeez Sheikh and Ishrat Hussein, two economic managers that the World Bank and IMF, etc, feel comfortable in dealing with, are present on that list. Naming these names, the government had clearly admitted an acute “foreign pressure” for the selection of an economist as the interim prime minister.

Yet many PPP members were strongly hoping for the appointment of Mir Hazar Khan Khoso, a retired judge from Balochistan. More than a score of them confessed to me in separate meetings that powerful lobbies from Washington and Rawalpindi were only supporting Hafeez Sheikh.

The foreign and interior ministers have also been “selected by them, already”.

If appointed, Sheikh would retain the portfolio of finance as well while things will probably be the same in case of Ishrat Hussein’s selection. An editor with nine years of ambassadorial experience in two important countries surfaced as a hot favorite for heading the foreign ministry. The interior appears as if “certainly” going to a retired general. As a former head of both the ISI and the MI, he is considered fit to ensure relatively smooth sailings during campaigning for the next election.

Seasoned players of the power scene from all the major parties, however, feel strongly that selection of the above-explained trio will instantly send a clear message that elections, somehow, would not be held on time. To offset their insecurity, these politicians were desperately trying to get Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to say yes to Khoso’s appointment.

My sources, however, claimed that a big tycoon connected with banking and cement manufacturing had established SOS contacts with Nawaz Sharif to persuade him for the selection of Ishrat Hussein. No one from the PML-N is even willing to discuss the name of Dr Hafeez Sheikh and probably the president feels the same way from his heart of hearts.

I was astonished to notice that while eagerly searching for the name of caretaker prime minister, reporters were paying no attention to the question of caretaker setups in the provinces. We seem oblivious of the reality that the judicial, police and administrative officers, posted in our districts, deal with the real heat and dust of general elections. They seek guidance from their chief secretaries and journalists should have closely monitored developments on that front.

Similarly, stories that are far more interesting relate to the last-minute switching of political parties by some leading players of the electoral battles. As predicted in this column, Sheikh Waqas formally joined the PML-N on Thursday. The Sharifs need him desperately to refute the image of being friendly with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. In the same context, their hard focus has now shifted to a vocal PPP MNA from the area that connects Sargodha via Mandi Bahauddin with Gujrat. From Okara, the PML-N seems somewhat keen to allure a blunt scion of an important shrine. The PPP does not seem confident of generating stunning stories in this context.

At least four leading ‘electable’ types from the PTI are also getting confused. Awais Leghari may contest the next election as an independent, although his senator brother Jamal is dying to join the PML-N. The Bosans of Multan are keenly awaiting the impact of Imran Khan’s public rally in Lahore on March 23 to announce their final decision.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi seems lost in the wilderness and neither do things appear rosy and comfortable for Javed Hashmi. Both cannot ditch the PTI at this stage, but the mood in their home constituencies does not promise much for them.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2013.