PPP in ICU?
PPP has told people of Karachi to take a hike. How smart is that for a party that claims to be a ‘people’s...
PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. PHOTO: AFP
Something stinks in Sindh. Could it be the government?
The stale joke that parades itself as the mandated government of Sindh still elicits a few chuckles. Yes, in fact, it’s hard to take the government seriously. It really is. Even incompetence has its limits. Or maybe — as evidenced in this province — it doesn’t.
But it is only when this legendary incompetence of the Pakistan People’s Party is combined with ill-intent, that the true extent of the rot makes itself visible.
Ask the Rangers. For years they sat in their barracks armed with guns and a limited mandate. Every so often they would patrol the streets and help the rapacious police when it reached its natural level of mediocrity and ineptitude. Meanwhile, the city of lights slowly drowned in a sea of self-perpetuated darkness.
After two weeks: Sindh extends Rangers powers with a caveat
Until the Rangers grew claws. Then things changed. Lights came back on. Life came back on. Mirth and laughter rolled in with the waves and sneaked back into the city of dread. This was how it used to be in the days of yore before the dirty, rotten scoundrels dragged it down into the abyss.
And now grotesqueness is trending yet again. The PPP has done what only the PPP can do: sacrifice the greater good of the people at the altar of self-preservation. The PPP’s abrasive ill-intent is only surpassed by its utter and complete contempt for the rule of law, and the spirit of law.
And so we have a Shakespearian tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes — minus the prince of Denmark. The Rangers have been ordered — via a resolution — to seek permission from the chief minister before raiding any government office. The Rangers have been de-clawed.
Or so thinks the inept PPP high command.
While the PPP was licking its electoral wounds and wallowing in its own pity and misery, Pakistan moved on. Perhaps unbeknownst to the mandarins of the party, the federal government and the army took key strategic decisions to clean up the mess in Karachi and enforce peace without fear or favour. The bumbling PPP watched helplessly from the sidelines as the national leadership unfurled new aggressive policies that led to crackdowns on target killers, mafias and criminal networks. There was applause aplenty from people sick and tired of bumbling, incompetent, ill-intentioned and corrupt rulers. For instance, the PPP.
There was reason enough for this applause.
The tales of ravenous and merciless corruption greedily practised by those within the PPP became legend in this urban metropolis. The brazenness with which contracts were doled out against favours; the audaciousness with which state land was carved out and distributed among cronies; and the shamelessness with which taxpayers’ money was looted — all this was a shock even to a populace numbed by the trauma of existing under a PPP government.
Blame game: Corruption not exclusive to PPP, says CM
For which other political party worth its name would use the power of the government and the legislature to subjugate peace in order to save one man? Which other political party with any self-respect would unabashedly twist and manipulate the spirit of the mandate for the sake of a friend of its leader? Which other political party with an iota of smartness would take on the combined power of the federal government, the army and public opinion to shield corrupt people within its folds.
Which other political party has within it those who are simultaneously corrupt, incompetent and dumb?
And so what now? As the smart alecs within the party slap each other’s backs and high-five in glee, they should consider the following:
First, the resolution curtailing the powers of the Rangers will change nothing on the ground. There is an ominous silence from the federal government and the army high command, and among other things this may be reflective of a realisation that the resolution does not impact the legality of the Rangers’ mandate as well as their operational effectiveness.
Second, the operation in Karachi will not slow down, and in fact may pick up momentum as a reaction to the PPP’s strategic blunder. The entire spectrum of political parties in Sindh — including the MQM — is howling in protest against the PPP and the streets of Sindh are also reverberating with pro-operation rallies. The PPP stands. Truly alone.
Third, the PPP has severely damaged its relationship with the Establishment yet again. In normal times, its leaders may have boasted about this defiance, but today the public opinion overwhelmingly backs the operation in Karachi, and therefore the PPP has just successfully sawed off its own feet. It has depleted whatever trust it had built over the years with the Establishment. That’s not a very intelligent thing to do.
Fourth, the PPP has basically told the people of Karachi to take a hike. How smart is that for a party that claims to be a ‘people’s party’? Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have cleansed themselves from the PPP’s presence, and now local government polls in Karachi have delivered a similar blow. The party that once straddled the federation like a behemoth is slowly crawling back to the interior of Sindh — shrinking like a puddle of water under a blazing sun.
This Shakespearian tragedy is far from over. The worse is yet to come. The PPP boasts some of the finest political minds in the country; men and women who have enriched Pakistan with their ideas, words and deeds. Today they stand diminished in a party that is barrelling headlong into oblivion. Titans within the party are being replaced by pygmies and caricatures that continue to feed off a past that is losing relevance by the day.
The blunder of curtailing the Rangers’ powers is surely not the last nail in the PPP’s coffin, but it surely is a reminder that a sickness has pervaded this political entity; a disease that is slowly gnawing and nibbling away its insides till it collapses in a heap of nothingness.
Beware: there is something stinking in Sindh.
Yes, it is the government.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 20th, 2015.
The stale joke that parades itself as the mandated government of Sindh still elicits a few chuckles. Yes, in fact, it’s hard to take the government seriously. It really is. Even incompetence has its limits. Or maybe — as evidenced in this province — it doesn’t.
But it is only when this legendary incompetence of the Pakistan People’s Party is combined with ill-intent, that the true extent of the rot makes itself visible.
Ask the Rangers. For years they sat in their barracks armed with guns and a limited mandate. Every so often they would patrol the streets and help the rapacious police when it reached its natural level of mediocrity and ineptitude. Meanwhile, the city of lights slowly drowned in a sea of self-perpetuated darkness.
After two weeks: Sindh extends Rangers powers with a caveat
Until the Rangers grew claws. Then things changed. Lights came back on. Life came back on. Mirth and laughter rolled in with the waves and sneaked back into the city of dread. This was how it used to be in the days of yore before the dirty, rotten scoundrels dragged it down into the abyss.
And now grotesqueness is trending yet again. The PPP has done what only the PPP can do: sacrifice the greater good of the people at the altar of self-preservation. The PPP’s abrasive ill-intent is only surpassed by its utter and complete contempt for the rule of law, and the spirit of law.
And so we have a Shakespearian tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes — minus the prince of Denmark. The Rangers have been ordered — via a resolution — to seek permission from the chief minister before raiding any government office. The Rangers have been de-clawed.
Or so thinks the inept PPP high command.
While the PPP was licking its electoral wounds and wallowing in its own pity and misery, Pakistan moved on. Perhaps unbeknownst to the mandarins of the party, the federal government and the army took key strategic decisions to clean up the mess in Karachi and enforce peace without fear or favour. The bumbling PPP watched helplessly from the sidelines as the national leadership unfurled new aggressive policies that led to crackdowns on target killers, mafias and criminal networks. There was applause aplenty from people sick and tired of bumbling, incompetent, ill-intentioned and corrupt rulers. For instance, the PPP.
There was reason enough for this applause.
The tales of ravenous and merciless corruption greedily practised by those within the PPP became legend in this urban metropolis. The brazenness with which contracts were doled out against favours; the audaciousness with which state land was carved out and distributed among cronies; and the shamelessness with which taxpayers’ money was looted — all this was a shock even to a populace numbed by the trauma of existing under a PPP government.
Blame game: Corruption not exclusive to PPP, says CM
For which other political party worth its name would use the power of the government and the legislature to subjugate peace in order to save one man? Which other political party with any self-respect would unabashedly twist and manipulate the spirit of the mandate for the sake of a friend of its leader? Which other political party with an iota of smartness would take on the combined power of the federal government, the army and public opinion to shield corrupt people within its folds.
Which other political party has within it those who are simultaneously corrupt, incompetent and dumb?
And so what now? As the smart alecs within the party slap each other’s backs and high-five in glee, they should consider the following:
First, the resolution curtailing the powers of the Rangers will change nothing on the ground. There is an ominous silence from the federal government and the army high command, and among other things this may be reflective of a realisation that the resolution does not impact the legality of the Rangers’ mandate as well as their operational effectiveness.
Second, the operation in Karachi will not slow down, and in fact may pick up momentum as a reaction to the PPP’s strategic blunder. The entire spectrum of political parties in Sindh — including the MQM — is howling in protest against the PPP and the streets of Sindh are also reverberating with pro-operation rallies. The PPP stands. Truly alone.
Third, the PPP has severely damaged its relationship with the Establishment yet again. In normal times, its leaders may have boasted about this defiance, but today the public opinion overwhelmingly backs the operation in Karachi, and therefore the PPP has just successfully sawed off its own feet. It has depleted whatever trust it had built over the years with the Establishment. That’s not a very intelligent thing to do.
Fourth, the PPP has basically told the people of Karachi to take a hike. How smart is that for a party that claims to be a ‘people’s party’? Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have cleansed themselves from the PPP’s presence, and now local government polls in Karachi have delivered a similar blow. The party that once straddled the federation like a behemoth is slowly crawling back to the interior of Sindh — shrinking like a puddle of water under a blazing sun.
This Shakespearian tragedy is far from over. The worse is yet to come. The PPP boasts some of the finest political minds in the country; men and women who have enriched Pakistan with their ideas, words and deeds. Today they stand diminished in a party that is barrelling headlong into oblivion. Titans within the party are being replaced by pygmies and caricatures that continue to feed off a past that is losing relevance by the day.
The blunder of curtailing the Rangers’ powers is surely not the last nail in the PPP’s coffin, but it surely is a reminder that a sickness has pervaded this political entity; a disease that is slowly gnawing and nibbling away its insides till it collapses in a heap of nothingness.
Beware: there is something stinking in Sindh.
Yes, it is the government.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 20th, 2015.