Waqas throws a spanner in the works
Since 2002, Sheikh Waqas had been returning to the National Assembly from a seat placed right in the middle of Jhang.
Qamarzaman Kaira and Syed Khurshid Shah are diligently aiding and assisting Prime Minister Gilani these days. For most of the time during Friday sitting of the National Assembly, they remained standing on their toes. Their eyes constantly monitored the treasury benches. Spotting any vacancy on them, Kaira would rush out to locate the missing person and bring him or her back to the house. Every other second, they would also whisper into prime ministerial ears. The hyper activity of the two clearly suggested that the government was very keen to get the 20th amendment in the Constitution presented and passed without any delay.
The day after Supreme Court’s decision to formally proceed against Gilani under the contempt of court charges, the smooth passage of the said amendment would certainly have transmitted a powerful message: Notwithstanding the myriad problems and tensions Gilani was facing with other pillars of the state, his numerical edge in ‘the sovereign parliament’ stays intact.
In the specific context of political messaging, the scheme to get the 20th amendment passed by directly elected lower house of parliament, without much ado, was indeed a brilliant idea. The government failed to execute it, however, and none other than a youthful minister from the PML-Q was solely responsible for it.
Sheikh Waqas was the spoiler. Since 2002, he had been returning to the National Assembly from a seat placed right in the middle of Jhang. During Jihad-promoting decade of General Zia, this city of the lead character, Heer, of a romantic epic, had turned into the invincible headquarter of a sectarian outfit that viciously worked for religious cleansing of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Successive governments often banned this outfit, but it keeps resurrecting with different names and lethal vengeance. These days, the fresh band of this outfit is actively present in an alliance of Jihad-promoting Maulanas. General (retd) Hamid Gul, Ejazul Haq and Sheikh Rashid Ahmad have also joined them minus the beards. They also deliver passionate speeches at rallies that the self-styled Council for the Defence of Pakistan has been holding in various cities and big towns.
Ostensibly the bearded and clean-shaven promoters of Jihad are holding these rallies to ensure that supplies to the Nato forces deployed in Afghanistan don’t get restored. After the killing of our soldiers by US bombing in late November last year, the Zardari-Gilani government had stopped these supplies. The government also announced that Pakistan needed to renegotiate the terms of engagement with the US. Our Foreign Office summoned veteran diplomats to hold brainstorming sessions to prepare the draft of new terms. Their proposals were then passed on to the Parliamentary Committee on National Security. Headed by a cool, seasoned and consensus-seeking parliamentarian, Raza Rabbani, this committee which has representation from every party having small or big presence in both houses of parliament, had been holding long sessions to prepare a formal draft to set new terms for engaging the US. Around three weeks ago, it had finalised its recommendations. The Zardari-Gilani government had promised to lay the same before a joint sitting of parliament for exhaustive discussions on the new proposals. For never-explained reasons, it rather remains shy to do the same. Supplies to Afghanistan stay blocked and the government doesn’t seem too eager to seek parliamentary guidance before approaching the Americans to discuss new terms for engaging them. But the alliance of bearded and clean-shaven promoters of Jihad is seen working hard to incite crowds. They have already announced the intent of holding a day-long dharna in Islamabad to agitate against possible restoration of Nato supplies to Afghanistan. Probably to build up tempo for the suggested dharna, the same alliance called for a public rally on Friday. Sheikh Waqas looked furious regarding their activities. He took on the interior minister with a lethal speech for letting the ‘banned outfit’ openly holding rallies “right under his nose”. Rehman Malik was surely not prepared for the bouncer; a fellow-minister had delivered through a point of order. Through a wish-washy speech, he seemed promising the corrective intervention. He never sounded credible to the press gallery and members sitting in the house. He may or may not be able to check the resurrection of sectarian militants with vengeance. But the issue raised by Sheikh Waqas prevented Gilani and his loyalists to deliver a potent political message through Friday sitting of the National Assembly.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 4th, 2012.
The day after Supreme Court’s decision to formally proceed against Gilani under the contempt of court charges, the smooth passage of the said amendment would certainly have transmitted a powerful message: Notwithstanding the myriad problems and tensions Gilani was facing with other pillars of the state, his numerical edge in ‘the sovereign parliament’ stays intact.
In the specific context of political messaging, the scheme to get the 20th amendment passed by directly elected lower house of parliament, without much ado, was indeed a brilliant idea. The government failed to execute it, however, and none other than a youthful minister from the PML-Q was solely responsible for it.
Sheikh Waqas was the spoiler. Since 2002, he had been returning to the National Assembly from a seat placed right in the middle of Jhang. During Jihad-promoting decade of General Zia, this city of the lead character, Heer, of a romantic epic, had turned into the invincible headquarter of a sectarian outfit that viciously worked for religious cleansing of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Successive governments often banned this outfit, but it keeps resurrecting with different names and lethal vengeance. These days, the fresh band of this outfit is actively present in an alliance of Jihad-promoting Maulanas. General (retd) Hamid Gul, Ejazul Haq and Sheikh Rashid Ahmad have also joined them minus the beards. They also deliver passionate speeches at rallies that the self-styled Council for the Defence of Pakistan has been holding in various cities and big towns.
Ostensibly the bearded and clean-shaven promoters of Jihad are holding these rallies to ensure that supplies to the Nato forces deployed in Afghanistan don’t get restored. After the killing of our soldiers by US bombing in late November last year, the Zardari-Gilani government had stopped these supplies. The government also announced that Pakistan needed to renegotiate the terms of engagement with the US. Our Foreign Office summoned veteran diplomats to hold brainstorming sessions to prepare the draft of new terms. Their proposals were then passed on to the Parliamentary Committee on National Security. Headed by a cool, seasoned and consensus-seeking parliamentarian, Raza Rabbani, this committee which has representation from every party having small or big presence in both houses of parliament, had been holding long sessions to prepare a formal draft to set new terms for engaging the US. Around three weeks ago, it had finalised its recommendations. The Zardari-Gilani government had promised to lay the same before a joint sitting of parliament for exhaustive discussions on the new proposals. For never-explained reasons, it rather remains shy to do the same. Supplies to Afghanistan stay blocked and the government doesn’t seem too eager to seek parliamentary guidance before approaching the Americans to discuss new terms for engaging them. But the alliance of bearded and clean-shaven promoters of Jihad is seen working hard to incite crowds. They have already announced the intent of holding a day-long dharna in Islamabad to agitate against possible restoration of Nato supplies to Afghanistan. Probably to build up tempo for the suggested dharna, the same alliance called for a public rally on Friday. Sheikh Waqas looked furious regarding their activities. He took on the interior minister with a lethal speech for letting the ‘banned outfit’ openly holding rallies “right under his nose”. Rehman Malik was surely not prepared for the bouncer; a fellow-minister had delivered through a point of order. Through a wish-washy speech, he seemed promising the corrective intervention. He never sounded credible to the press gallery and members sitting in the house. He may or may not be able to check the resurrection of sectarian militants with vengeance. But the issue raised by Sheikh Waqas prevented Gilani and his loyalists to deliver a potent political message through Friday sitting of the National Assembly.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 4th, 2012.