Haven’t the foggiest idea? Join the club

ISLAMABAD:

It seems President Asif Ali Zardari does not feel good and comfortable with Senator Raza Rabbani. More-loyal type cronies rather keep telling him that once a student activist from Karachi, Raza Rabbani, often acts ‘solo’.

He goes the extra mile to appease the opposition and habitually embarrasses the treasury benches by raising objections to government-provided business for the Senate.

His latest crime is articulating ‘technical objections’ in purely legislative terms for overtly opposing the efforts to start the process of establishing a new province in South Punjab from the upper house of parliament. The PPP desperately needs such a move to happen to fire up its base in the “Seraiki Wassaib”. Reliable sources told me that the president felt quite irritated by Rabbani’s conduct in this regard. After being conveyed the presidential ire, this veteran diehard felt very depressed. To some of his trusted friends, he actively discussed the idea of going back to Karachi to concentrate full-time on his legal practice after resigning from the Senate. Benazir Bhutto had made him a senator in the early 1990s. From day one, Raza Rabbani forced parliamentary reporters to listen to him attentively. That eventually helped Ms Bhutto to appoint him as the minister in charge of parliamentary affairs after becoming the prime minister in 1993. He savoured a free hand in that capacity and his leader would often forget and forgive him for being “difficult”.

But Asif Ali Zardari is made of a different material. He demands absolute and blind loyalty. Yet he surprised most reporters and PPP activists by letting Rabbani return to senate for a six-year term in 2011. That certainly proved that in spite of being what he is, Zardari does appreciate the consensus-building potential of some PPP leaders.

Underlining this point, friends and well-wishers of Rabbani keep persuading him to act cool.

Not one of his friends was surprised, however, when the same Rabbani took the floor in the Senate on Wednesday to demand nothing but the whole truth on the proposed construction of “a Customs Tactical Command and Operations” that is to be constructed in Karachi with funds provided by the US Department of Defence. A curious reporter had found out details of the proposed construction via advertisements placed in some Gulf-based newspapers early this week to attract the interested contractors.

Through a press release, the US Embassy in Islamabad has not denied the story per se. It only clarified that the Customs Centre at the Karachi airport was being built on “the request of Pakistan government” and “no US military or other USG personnel will be involved in the construction, operation, or staffing of this centre.”

Being a hard lefty of yesteryear, Rabbani was not satisfied. Far more shocking to him was the fact that while heading an all-party Parliamentary Committee on National Security, he had never been briefed on this project.

Finance Minister Mandwiwala annoyed him doubly by casually admitting that even he knew nothing about the construction of a Customs House in Karachi.

When asked by various members of the parliamentary committee on defence later in the day, the defence secretary also conveyed his ignorance over the said construction.

All this compels us to wonder whether someone in both the military and the political leadership really commands and controls things in this country.

Rabbani was indeed justified to throw tantrums in the house, but he and his colleagues still behaved a bit lenient with the finance minister. Instead of letting him go with the promise of returning with an answer on Thursday, they should have forced him to go to his chambers and collect the required details by calling the concerned officials.

Politicians of these days have turned shamelessly submissive and forgiving though. Zahid Hamid, a seasoned legislator from the PML-N also sounded pathetic while wailing in the National Assembly that he had been put in the category of “legislators with degrees, yet not considered valid by the Election Commission.” For many years, Hamid’s father had been posted as Pakistan’s ambassador to Beirut so Zahid Hamid also had his schooling there and they do not hold exams for Matric and FA in Lebanon. Zahid Hamid was eventually accepted for having a BSc degree from the prestigious University of Cambridge.

Later, he was qualified as a lawyer in Britain as well. The clerks of Election Commission continue to suspect his credentials, though, and he sounded hurt and helpless in seeking a clean bill from them while pleading in the National Assembly.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2013.