The case of the missing Speaker

Governments working in a parliamentary democracy should summon an assembly session only after developing a narrative that they want to convey through proceedings of the elected house. The Zardari-Gilani government remains unique in many ways, however. From day one of its coming into power, we never had any feeling of order and stability.

For the past three weeks, the country is suffering another bout of commotion over the so-called ‘memogate.’ Haqqani’s resignation should have helped abate the racket, yet this has still not happened. There is an equally upsetting development that the media failed to follow and report on. No one else but President Zardari’s erstwhile friend for 40 years, Dr Zulfikar Mirza, is exclusively responsible for it.

After many weeks of theatrics, Mirza had left for England early this month. Lord Nazir is handling him there and keeps escorting him to gatherings, where London-based diehard supporters of the MQM do everything to stop his badmouthing their leader. The mainstream media in Britain preferred ignoring Mirza for many days. But relentless scuffles at gatherings that he addresses are now getting appropriate attention.

The government could cope with the embarrassment created by Mirza, but the MQM seemed to have had enough of it. The President has been conveyed in categorical terms that he must do something to stop his bosom buddy otherwise it would become impossible for the party to remain in the coalition.

No wonder, after having two meetings with the prime minister and three with President Zardari, Dr Fehmida Mirza has discreetly left for London. Most of her secretarial staff did not know about her schedule or whereabouts. They could only guess that she has gone to Karachi. But a person, better clued to her engagements, finally confirmed to me that she had indeed gone to London.

Although my sources have told me that she was expected to return after ten days, this person could not even suggest a possible date of her return. The mysterious disappearance of the Speaker rather forced many reporters to speculate that instead of the Speaker, her resignation might land in Islamabad.

A solid group of experienced ruling party members did not appear too worried about the activities of Zulfikar Mirza or the inexplicable absence of his wife. They were far more depressed over another development.

One thinking member of this group confessed to me that “powers that be” were equally upset regarding the possibility of the Supreme Court getting seriously involved in finding out the whole truth on ‘memogate’. How to preempt the said possibility was the one and only question, the said group was desperately trying to find a doable answer to.

Cutting across the party divide, many saner parliamentarians have suggested to the government that after Haqqani’s resignation, the Prime Minister should immediately appoint a ‘special prosecutor’ to first investigate and then try our former ambassador to the US, if he gathered enough evidence against him. Two such members of the national assembly seriously believed that if Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan was appointed as the prosecutor, the noises on ‘memogate’ would recede to a reasonable level.

Being a lead star of the movement for the restoration of a fiercely independent Chief Justice, Aitzaz Ahsan has cultivated wide and long-term pockets of trust and credibility. His appointment would have forced a large section of media and opposition parties to expect nothing but the whole truth, if he was empowered to probe all aspects of ‘memogate’ with special powers. The possibility of his taking that job has been nipped in the bud, though.

Wednesday and this morning, there have been columns by weighty writers in two different newspapers of mass circulation claiming that during a visit of Aitzaz to Washington, Haqqani was too loud and almost reckless in forewarning his Pakistani guest that around 300 sites had been marked by the Americans. They would bomb those places to oblivion, if things go irretrievably wrong between the two countries. One is not sure whether Chaudhry Sahib has really been telling startling things about Haqqani to journalists, but remarks attributed to him have certainly scuttled the chances of the star lawyer chasing the whole truth for us on ‘memogate.’

Published in The Express Tribune, November 25^th, 2011.