In defence of PPP, Shazia Marri attacks the double standards of others

Sindh’s information minister says her party always respected institutions.

KARACHI: Sindh Information Minister Shazia Marri sarcastically noted that there are politicians who “roam around with Gucci and Prada aunties”, who are then “sent on TV to recite qaseedas.”

Who Marri was referring to is anyone’s guess since all parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party, have a number of fans of designer brands. Marri was speaking to reporters after the session of the Sindh Assembly, as part of her usual briefing on Friday.

She also said that politics is not just about wearing “starched kurtas”. “Sometimes you have to get your clothes dirty too. There are politicians who wipe their hands after they meet the poor.”

Marri said that a “perception was being created about a conflict between institutions” which was incorrect and had been clarified by the party, including Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

She criticised politicians who had taken the support of the dictators in the past and were ‘fake politicians’ because they were damaging democracy.

Marri also noted that “we are hurt at the choice of words used by some honourable judges of the Supreme Court about the prime minister”. The information minister said that justice in Pakistan was being delivered ‘selectively’, with petitions such as Asghar Khan’s (on the role of intelligence agencies in manipulating elections) still pending, or cases involving allegations of corruptions against other politicians not being opened.

“The Punjab government is still running on the basis of a short order – we have never seen the detailed order of that case,” Marri noted. “The court’s attitude has to be the same for everyone. Our members have been going to the courts and appearing in the cases against them.” She said the courts could not be politicised and this was a view shared by senior lawyers such as Asma Jahangir and Ali Ahmed Kurd.

Marri reiterated her criticism of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, highlighting that while the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had stormed the Supreme Court, the PPP had always “respected institutions and given the country the 1973 Constitution”.

The Sindh information minister also spoke out against the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairperson, Imran Khan, asking whether he had ever visited the flood-affected areas in Pakistan or sat with a flood survivor in their house. “These people live in palaces... you should see the house he has in Islamabad. They don’t know how to behave among people, what to do. What change will they bring?”

When asked about how confident the PPP was of support from its allies, given the reports on Friday of a no-confidence move from the opposition, Marri said that, “it is a grand coalition and whatever plan of action has been developed has been with consensus. There have been talks with all our allies.”

“As far as the no-confidence move is concerned, Nawaz Sharif seemed to have confidence in Pervez Musharraf, that’s why he entered into a plea bargain with him. And Imran Khan also had confidence in Musharraf, which is why he sided with him and selected him in the referendum.”

“A dictator,” Marri said, “is always a dictator. There is no good or bad.”

As far as her political career is concerned, Marri told The Express Tribune that she has not applied for a Senate seat. “I haven’t, but my sister has applied. She is 30 and it’s not that she is my sister, she is able to run on her own abilities.”

The information minister also said that the killing of Wali Khan Babar, the Geo TV reporter who was shot dead last year, was a loss to everyone and should be treated as a “symbolic tragedy” by the media, above considerations of who he was employed by. She said that the Joint Investigation Team report and the arrests made in the case are on the record.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2012.