The chips are down for the PPP

The way things are, I don’t think Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf will last very long.


Anwer Mooraj June 30, 2012

What on earth is going on in the corridors of power? Against the backdrop of a bankrupt economy, what was the need to appoint a deputy prime minister and 15 ministers from the notorious party of turncoats? Is it a simple case of clutching at straws? The PML-Q has got what it wanted, but at what cost? There will be new portfolios, a new fleet of cars, a small army of staff who will be expected to be peerlessly servile while their freeloading masters squander what little is left in the treasury.

While all this is going on, it has now become quirkily revealing that the man popularly known as ‘Raja Rental’ is a compromise candidate for the top slot. The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) had scuttled the chances of Makdoom Shahabuddin acquiring the position of prime minister after the ephedrine case, and the name of Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar was given the blue pencil. The public was amused to find that the theme of the first cabinet meeting of the new prime minter centred on how to tackle the energy crisis. Not bad for a chap who couldn’t do very much when he was heading the relevant ministry. You’ll agree, it’s not funny even if you’re on drugs.

The way things are, I don’t think he will last very long. What with their  lordships wanting to know if he will cooperate in the letter-to-the-Swiss Banks issue, or behave like his predecessor, who sugared the grit, got his lawyers to cling to Article 248(2) of the Constitution and displayed spirited defiance. I could be wrong, but as he was selected for his loyalty rather than expertise, I would put my money on the latter. In spite of the number of turncoats floating around, there are still Pakistanis who have displayed every form of martyrdom known to the rack of a paternalistic society. The tension between judiciary and legislature will once again escalate into aimless scenes of ennui, acres of silence and uncertainty, until the next honcho in the queue takes his place.

The general impression now is that the Lahore High Court has instructed Asif Ali Zardari to decide which of the two portfolios he would like to give up, that of president, or party leader? He will most probably select the former. The PPP, like all the other parties in the country, with the exception of the Jamaat-e-Islami, operate on the basis of dynasties. So, nominating a leader is no problem for the PPP. There is always Bilawal waiting in the wings.

The position of prime minister in any country is one of the trickiest, most politically and socially fraught jobs of all cultures. They are home to huge egos, vast resentments and florid vanities. In Pakistan, in the current  set-up, after the NRO had been declared unconstitutional, no prime minister could really do very much, except utter the usual loosely strung gaudy collection of clichés, so long as he was living in the shadow of a head of state whose very position was legally questionable and tenuous. Besides, there are other issues which seem insoluble, among which are the absence of the rule of law, the alarming birth rate, dwindling resources, endemic corruption and the disproportionate amount of money being spent on the armed forces. Yousaf  Raza Gilani’s basic problem was his inability to take a decision and his financial incompetence. Most of the time, he was short on substance and long on twee and rendered the country as a wholly remote and unrecognisable place from the days of Mohammed Khan Junejo, arguably the best and most selfless prime minister Pakistan ever had.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1st, 2012. 

COMMENTS (8)

elementary | 11 years ago | Reply

In the name of democracy ,elected representatives can not be given status of holy cow.

Breach of rules and flouting of law should lead to warning,prosecution and conviction,no exceptions.Feudal midset of how dare a judge of lower court issue me a warning ,is undemocratic to say the least.

A Peshawary | 11 years ago | Reply

There was nothing new in the article all the events have been narrated hundred time before as well. How the chips are down for the PPP not a single word written about the heading. It appears Mr. Anwar has left it to the readers to think about it and derive the conclusion.

The chips are down, yet PPP is winning by election which does not seem to criteria for all opinion makers and rating agencies. The public does not care and vote according to their own judgment that is what matters in the end.

A Peshawary

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