ISLAMABAD: This is with reference to your editorial of February 12 titled “The end of the Swiss letter saga”. The analysis contained in it perhaps inadvertently gives a clean bill of health to this regime by saying that the true threat to democracy in the country comes from anti-democratic forces and not the PPP.
This assessment can be challenged on, at least, three grounds. First, there is no such thing as the PPP. The party which heads the ruling coalition is ‘PPPP’ headed by Amin Fahim. This contradiction shows the moral bankruptcy of the ruling coterie. Second, the performance of this set-up under the PPP has nothing to show for itself in terms of improved governance and so on. Third, the Pakistan of 2013 is much worse than the Pakistan of 2008 when the PPP came into power.
Nobody, including the incumbent president, is indispensable. Sooner or later everybody leaves the stage but all of them leave behind a legacy. And the one left by the current government will be a most sorry one. The current regime endlessly claims the completion of a five-year term without realising that a full term is conditional on a peaceful transfer of power to the next government via a fair election.
Can the government be trusted to preside over a fair election? This remains a multi-million dollar question which has no answer for now.
BA Malik
Published in The Express Tribune, February 13th, 2013.
