JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: The sudden departure of President Zardari for medical treatment in Dubai has caused much confusion in Pakistan and none more so than among the government circles on how to explain his ‘apparently’ sudden departure. This, in turn, has only fed the rumour mills, since lack of credible or official information regarding this has meant that people’s imaginations have run wild.
The fact of the matter is that the present government is under siege by an umbrella of right-wing parties and a hostile judiciary and military. The government has been facing one crisis after the other, some genuine while a number of them are cooked up, to discredit it, or to discredit civilian governments in general. At the same time, the government’s performance has been hopelessly below the mark, leading to a general disillusionment among the masses about the very democracy for which they struggled for years.
All kinds of scenarios are apparently being talked about. These range from a straight military coup, or the so-called Bangladesh model; wherein the judiciary takes over the government for a year or two as a front-man for the military, or an in-house change at the top, while keeping the parliament intact.
Only time will tell whether the elected civilians will be able to protect themselves from these attacks by non-democratic forces.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, December 12th, 2011.
