Newly elected Sindh chief minister Qaim Ali Shah carries the wreath at the Quaid's mausoleum on Friday. PHOTO: RASHID AJMERI
If all goes well and Shah saab is still around to see the government complete its five-year-term, he will perhaps go down in history as the oldest serving chief minister at the age of 90. Apart from some ‘hearing problem’, the Sindh Chief Minister appears to be in shape for attending the full sessions of the Sindh Assembly.
Being a Syed, gives an additional advantage to qualify for the top slot - in PPP and the anti-PPP camp. If PPP can boast of Syed Qaim Ali Shah or late Syed Abdullah Shah, then the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Functional have Syed Ghous Ali and Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah to their credit, respectively.
Qaim Ali Shah is known to keep his cool, as demonstrated when he tolerated highly abusive language from PPP workers, led by late Ali Sunara, at the CM House during the first PPP government in 1988. Even when some people asked him to take action against the verbal assault, he stopped them by simply stating, “They brought me to power and that is why they have every right to complain.”
Unlike certain other PPP leaders, the Syed from Khairpur has never been accused of any major corruption scandal.
Political journey
He joined PPP in 1968, a year after the party was formed and was elected in all the elections since then except in 1997, when Syed Ghous Ali Shah defeated him. The jiyala took his revenge this year when he defeated the PML-N leader in the May 11 elections.
The workers of PPP generally appear satisfied with his performance but he lacks the quality of a good administrator, such as Mumtaz Ali Bhutto or Jam Sadiq Ali. His command is not considered even close to his predecessors, such as the late Syed Abdullah Shah, or rivals, such as Syed Ghous Ali Shah.
He was Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s first choice in 1988 but it is said that Benazir wanted Jam Sadiq Ali to return to Pakistan and was in favour of replacing Qaim Ali Shah with Jam. She was told by the intelligence agencies that Jam allegedly had links with the Indian RAW agency. Later, the same establishment used Jam against BB after her government was dismissed in August, 1990.
Even during this period, however, Benazir having a difficult time with Qaim Ali Shah because of his failure to control the law and order and not being able to handle the mainstream Muttahida Qaumi Movement properly - among other reasons. Finally, in 1989, Benazir replaced him with Aftab Shahbaz Mirani. In her second tenure in 1993, she preferred Syed Abdullah Shah over Syed Qaim Ali Shah as she wanted to tackle the law and order with an “iron hand.”
To judge his weakness as an administrator in the last tenure, the best example is perhaps the brief period of former Interior Minister Zulfiqar Mirza, who hardly took him into confidence in issuing thousands of prohibited arms license. Thus Shah saab’s first tenure of 13 months resulted in the killings of around 1,500 people while his second tenure of five years saw a massive rise in target killings with 5,000 deaths. Only God knows what is in store for Karachi in his third term. As he has done before, a promise has been made to make law and order a priority - one has little choice but to believe the young man of 85 years.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 1st, 2013.
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@Rind waja please spare us the whining if PPP wanted to commit rigging then how did Ghaus Ali Shah managed to get so many votes??? and also how did PPP win all but one seat from Tharparkar region?
I am from Khairpur and there is serious allegation of rigging in Qaim's seat... Ghous Ali Shah was winning until firing took place at many polling stations around 5pm and 3 PMLN workers were killed in Khairpur and there was widespread panic in which it is alleged PPP stuffed ballot boxes. I was there when the SP refused to lodge FIR of the dead and Ghous Ali Shah went himself to the SP office and got FIR lodged and SP claimed he was under pressure from caretaker govt. That SP has now been transferred from Khairpur. These events must be taken into consderation ET. Also, during 2011-2012 for 11 months there was no finance minister in Sindh and Qaim's daughter was Sindh Finance secretary. It is also alleged that mainstream corruption took place at this time as the CM turned blind eye to the Finance dept's activities. Please publish and make english reading Pakistanis aware of interior Sindh situation on the election day and previous govt tenure.