Pakistan in Media

The lengths politicians will go to in order to save themselves are astonishing. Still more astounding is their lack of regard for dignity – whether their own or that of their nation. Since the NRO controversy broke out in full earnest last month, the episodes involving desperate efforts by those affected by the scuttling of the law to prevent the wheels of justice moving freely have accelerated. The latest such incident has unfolded in Geneva, where the Pakistani high commissioner to the UK, accompanied by a former deputy attorney general, took away a carton-load of documents related to cases under the NRO. The two men had flown into Switzerland for the purpose; and in scenes played out by Geo TV – which would have been comic had they not been tragic in terms of the crimes of corruption committed by the powerful – refused to answer questions about what they were doing.

However, there is nothing very mysterious about this. As this newspaper and Geo TV have reported, a visit was paid to a Swiss lawyer who held the documents pertaining to corruption cases against Pakistani politicians. These cases had been dropped from the Swiss courts on the orders of the Pakistan government under then president Pervez Musharraf when he put the NRO into effect. We all know that President Asif Ali Zardari is the key person behind all this. Quite apart from his alleged corruption – of which ample evidence is said to exist even if the Swiss documents have been destroyed – one must also wonder at his frightening lack of acumen. Evidently Mr Zardari has failed to realize that actions such as the one in Geneva mean only that he is held in still greater contempt by the people of Pakistan. More and more among us wonder how we can continue with a man around whom so much controversy swirls as our head of state. The brave efforts to defend the president, essentially on the basis of the fact that he was democratically elected, are waning in view of his total inability to change his image or to learn from past mistakes. Indeed, by misusing the powers he possesses, to dispatch government officials to seize materials from lawyers, Mr Zardari demonstrates what appears to be a complete unwillingness to change his ways. It is also obvious that the president is a scared man. Perhaps he sees the net closing in around him. He has in fact been helping to draw it tighter through antics such as the Grand Document Snatch in Geneva. One day we may laugh at these events. Today we must mourn at being governed by leaders who think only of themselves and are willing to do almost anything to save their own necks.

Chaudhrys, Saifullahs, Jatois, Legharis, Tawakals, Saigols,Jams, generals; some cases were genuine.

ISLAMABAD: In a country where over 40 per cent of the population is said to be languishing under the poverty line with families surviving on less than $2 a day, the shameful revelation of the filthy rich getting loans worth over Rs100 billion written-off owing to their formidable clout is shocking the nation. And this shameful list carries some of the biggest names of our power elite.

No democrat would hold a brief for military dictators. But if a dispassionate analysis is made, one comes to the conclusion that elected leaders are also responsible in equal measure for having brought the country to the present pass.

Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) chief Mian Nawaz Sharif has said at an election rally at Chilas Rest House that the primary reason for all the problems of the country is frequent violations of the Constitution. One would agree with Mian Nawaz Sharif that all organs of the state must work according to the parameters defined in the Constitution and no one should overstep into the other’s domain. He is also right in demanding of President Asif Ali Zardari the annulment of the 17th amendment and withdrawal of 58(2)(b), and it should be done in days and not weeks and months. But Mian sahib has to be reminded that during his second stint as prime minister, PML-N leaders and workers had stormed the apex court. The treatment meted out to then chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah can only be described as despicable. Second, it has to be borne in mind that almost all leaders or parties on the political scene today have at one time or another aided and abetted dictators, despite claiming to be champions of democracy.

Of course, power has its own dynamics; and the key to social dynamics that Marx found in wealth, Freud in sex, Bertrand Russell found in power. It has to be mentioned that Hitler and Mussolini were also elected leaders who were instrumental in the death and destruction of millions of people before and during the Second World War. Arundhati Roy, in her article titled ‘The end of imagination’ wrote: “Fascism is as in the people as it is in the governments. It starts in the drawing rooms, bedrooms and becomes a national psyche.” In Pakistan also we see tendencies of fascism in some religious and even so-called democratic and liberal parties. Their leaders are devoid of clarity of vision and sense of proportion. Paul Johnson, author of several best-selling books, during his lecture delivered on November 1, 2007 said: “In statesmanship, personal self-restraint in the search for and exercise of power is a key lesson to teach.” Unfortunately, Pakistan has not been lucky to have genuine leaders after the demise of the Quaid-i-Azam.

Daily Times, Pakistan, Monday, July 27, 2009
When I go to my rich friends’ houses, I see no books. A million-dollar household with a hundred thousand-dollar sports car outside has no books. Rich people who spend thousands of dollars on a dinner do not even spend a hundred dollars annually on books.

We have five polo grounds and three golf courses in Lahore; and one library in disrepair left to us by the colonial masters, and a ‘sort of’ bureaucratic library that we built in our sixty years. Says a lot about us, does it not?
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The News International, Pakistan, Saturday, July 25, 2009
ISLAMABAD: MPA Shumaila Rana tendered her resignation from the Punjab Assembly on Friday on the demand of the PML-N investigation committee set up to probe the credit card scandal case.

The resignation was submitted to PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif and would now be submitted to the Punjab Assembly speaker.Shumaila, who was elected on reserved seat of the Punjab Assembly, is involved in stealing a credit card and making payment through it to a jewellery shop.
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The News International, Pakistan, Thursday, July 16, 2009
Politicians and civil servants who speak directly to the public should be fitted with a 'delay' mechanism that operates every time they go to open their mouths. The mechanism should have a neural linkage to the part of their brain which has a switch saying on one side 'nonsense' and on the other 'common sense'. The default position is 'neutral' – but rarely engaged. Three of our leading politicians would have benefited from the employment of this device in the last twenty-four hours. Firstly, the president.
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The News International, Pakistan, Thursday, July 16, 2009
LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League has demanded resignation from its MPA Shumaila Rana due to her involvement in a theft case. An investigation team of the PML-N has urged Shumaila Rana to tender her resignation, as her scam has raised questions regarding the party’s credibility before the general public.

Meanwhile, Shumaila, after refusing to resign from the Punjab Assembly, has asked for a two-day time by stating that a conspiracy had been hatched against her to malign the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz as well as her character.

The PML-N investigation team has affirmed that if she was innocent, then she has to face the media to prove her innocence. The party’s central leader Zulfiqar Khosa has stated that the decision to seek resignation from Shumaila Rana was taken because of her failure to prove her innocence before the committee.
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The News International, Pakistan, Tuesday, July 07, 2009
ISLAMABAD: The government is spending millions every month from the taxpayers’ money merely on the petrol facility of federal ministers amid reports of gross misuse of free of cost provision of fuel by those who are affluent but still involved in this petty corruption.

A finance ministry source, while revealing that a federal minister consumed almost Rs 70,000 petrol in just one month, said that the government provides unlimited petrol facility to federal ministers for just one staff car provided to them but they are misusing the facility for other vehicles too.

The source said that in addition to the misuse of the ministers’ fuel facility, the staff of these political masters also get free fuel for the unauthorised vehicles provided to them. None of the ministerial staff, including the private secretary (PS), is authorised under the law to have official vehicles, but, in most of the cases, the senior staff of the federal ministers is illegally provided official conveyance and free petrol.
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The News International, Pakistan, Saturday, July 04, 2009
ISLAMABAD: In two earlier reports, The News shared details of 736 ‘cheap’ gifts that former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had taken away to London with him. But according to latest documents obtained by The News, there were another 250 gifts which he received as finance minister and prime minister and worth a minimum of but he never deposited them with Toshakhana as required by rules.

He took away many important and expensive gifts without getting any evaluation done and thus and retained them free of cost. He did not send several important books he received from different heads of states on important subjects of history to the Cabinet Division or even pay their drastically slashed prices. This list shows that several expensive coins given by the head of states of different countries were also retained by Aziz free of cost and no price evaluation was made.
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The News International, Pakistan, Friday, July 03, 2009
ISLAMABAD: On Wednesday The News had reported that the former prime minister and billionaire, Shaukat Aziz, had walked away with bulging suitcases full of 393 state gifts bought at pawn shop rates. We stand corrected. It has transpired that the gentleman had actually taken 736 gifts worth price) with him on his last bye-bye Pakistan flight to London. The state booty included half a dozen more necklaces, 18 kt gold, gold coins, pearls, crowns, diamonds, Rolex watches, bracelets, carpets, Chinese pandas (presumably figurines because the list does not elaborate) etc after getting them massively undervalued by the obliging Cabinet Division evaluators.
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The News International, Pakistan, Thursday, July 02, 2009
ISLAMABAD: The usually soft-spoken Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani minced no words on Wednesday when he promised dire consequences for senior bureaucrats approaching parliamentarians and ministers for seeking favours in service-related matters.

He was speaking at the outset of the first cabinet meeting after the passage of the budget.It was an interesting reversal of priorities considering that only a few days back on June 27, The News had run a story about instances when the prime minister’s office was itself found involved in forwarding such recommendations based on the request of parliamentarians.
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The News International, Pakistan, Thursday, July 02, 2009
LAHORE: Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana Mohammad Iqbal Khan on Wednesday barred Prisons Minister Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor from attending the PA proceedings for eight days for misconduct.

Besides, opposition member Bushra Nawaz Gardezi was also denied entry to the House for one day for displaying a banner containing derogatory remarks against the Leader of the House. The opposition, while accepting the decision taken by the speaker, ended the boycott of the assembly session and participated in the proceedings whereas the session was later prorogued by the speaker.

Soon after the speaker finished his remarks, Opposition Leader Chaudhry Zaheeruddin Khan thanked the speaker and sought an apology from his side over the incident, which took place on June 29. He lauded the speaker for his decision, saying the decision would be remembered in parliamentary history.

PML-N Punjab President and senior parliamentarian Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa, in his address on the occasion, also sought an apology over the June 29 episode. Senior Minister Raja Riaz Ahmed also tendered an apology for using objectionable remarks against PML-Q legislator Mohsin Leghari.
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The News International, Wednesday, July 01, 2009
ISLAMABAD: Honourable prime ministers are supposed to leave behind legacies but what do you say about individuals who don’t even leave behind things that were never theirs to begin with, such as official gifts received while in office? The irony gets more profound when the gentleman happens to be declared billionaire and prone to jumping at every opportunity to harp on the mantra of ethics in dispensation of responsibilities of a public office.

Welcome to the world of former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, who proving a calculating banker to core took away not a dozen or two but a hearty gift hamper of 395 official gifts given by foreign dignitaries.