Leghari receives cold commemoration

NA mourns loss of former president but runs out of words, time before giving befitting memorial.

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly on Monday cut short proceedings to mourn the death of former president Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari, but both words and time ran out before a befitting memorial could be given to the former head of state.

Unlike the usual responses, there were hardly any emotional speeches by lawmakers to remember the departed member of the house.

Leghari, who once dissolved the PPP government as president in the early ‘90s and was a sitting member of the National Assembly, passed away last month. A loyalist of PPP founding father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Leghari’s ‘betrayal’ to the PPP earned him the wrath of workers and leaders of the party and has since been living in low profile.

The PPP leadership’s grudge against Leghari was apparent in the house as no one from the party spoke even a word to recall the time they spent with the former president. Riaz Pirzada of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) was the only lawmaker to speak about the former president before offering a prayer for him. And the only ‘affectionate’ aspect of Leghari’s personality Pirzada was able to recall was his habit to take the lawmaker along with him on foreign trips. “He was nice…he used to take me and some other fellow members with him on his presidential tours abroad,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2010.