Pakistan Election 2008 is a serious business. Our present and future depends on it. There is however, a lighter and human side to it too. Soemtimes it brings smile to us and sometimes a laughter. And that lighter side is also a part of our Pakistaniat. I’ve tried to collect few such moments here.
(1) Following photo is of a celebrating ANP candidate, Mr Aqil Shah. He is seen offering sweets to his wife in Peshawar after winning the elections. The photo has such an aura of innocence and a feeling of pure happiness that I just felt like sharing it here.
(2) Pakistani jhoom uThay: Following cutting is from daily nawa-i-waqt where the reporter Abdul Shakoor couldn’t control his own joy at the election results. He has used the words ‘Pakistani jhoom uThay’ to describe the joy of overseas Pakistanis in Kuwait who were following the election results.
(3) “tu tu mein mein“.. and ….the Great Escape of Sughra begum & Shamim Bibi:
Following news item is from Jang Multan and it covers the polling process in and around Multan. I’ll let you read and enjoy the news except I want to highlight the use of phrase ‘tu tu mein mein’ and how four women who were trying to poll bogus votes managed to escape from police custody. All in a day’s work.
(4) What did Kanwal do on Election day? In case anyone was wondering . . . .
The Following cutting is from nawa-i-waqt. Under its top five show-biz news, the paper covers how Kanwal (who is she?) spent her election day. In case anyone was wondering; look no further; The ever present ‘cultural reporter’ of nawa-i-waqt was there to cover this story for us.
(5) A maali (gardener) turned Officer in Karachi
Well there is nothing wrong with the profession of gardening. It is as respectful as being an officer except a person needs to be fully trained before switching the two professions. Following news is reported by the Daily Times.
The shortage in the supply of competent polling staff was witnessed in different polling stations of the city when a gardener was made the polling officer in Karachi. He did not know his duties and could not fill the ballot papers properly. The Provincial Election Commission had assigned illegible staff to fill the ballot papers and others formalities at polling station number 40 located in the City District Government Karachi Elementary School.Presiding Officer Syed Masood Kazim Jaferi told Daily Times that to manage the shortcomings and to continue the process of elections, change in the status of the staff has been done.
(6) Grandfather losing Elections in Multan
(7) Celebration in Rawalpindi
Youth celebrating their candidate’s victory in Rawalpindi with dare-devil wheelies.
Instead of comending or criticising personalities we should evaluate the present systems and work for improvement in systems .For instance a system will have to be evolved whereby target dates should be fixed to dispose off all pending cases at all levels of judiciary.
Similar is the case with education system. Unless we have an education system whereby we can teach and practice honesty in all walks of life , we would not be able to eiminate corruption in this country which is the main cause of our problems.
Depressing choice for the country. Leader of the most popular party in Pakistan is a corrupt wadera that proudly raped Pakistan and stashed aways millions of dollars in offshore accounts. Leader of the second most popular party is a convicted felon who hijacked a commercial airliner with over 100 souls onboard. A incredibly fast race to the bottom.
Great post; I particularly liked the “The Provincial Election Commission had assigned illegible staff”
The fact is that President Genreal (R) Musharraf has somehow turned out stronger because of the widely split mandate.
Putting a coalition together at center would be a challenging task and maintaining this coalition would be even tougher. PPP with it’s 87 seats majority will have to place political wisdom before opting for the best possible match that will not only deliver the coalition but also guarantee survival for this coalition and also extend the stability to the provinces in these very turbulent times.
With four seperate parties commanding majority in the four provinces, the Governments formed respectively would by nature be unstable and inadvertently pass it onto the center and may result in some very serious and undesirable consequences.
Nawaz Sharif by promoting Aitzaz Ahsan is playing Agent provocateur and actively working on dividing PPP on provincial lines. PPP should stay careful of the sly approach of PML N. There is no commonality between the two and PML N is no more than MMA’s B team or Mullahs without a beard. The problem for PPP is not MQM but the dilemma for PPP is to accomodate PML Q and how to do that is a One Hundred Million Dollar question.
PML Q has conceded defeat and shown grace by congratulating the winning parties and ready to sit in opposition. So long for all those who cried out loud on pre-poll mass rigging; if these loudmouths have any grace they should apologise or just shut up.
Coming back to PPP PML Q dilemma a workable solution is to dissolve PML Q and all it’s members declare allegiance to MQM and join it en-masse. This will solve PPP’s principled problem in vis-a-vis PML Q making it more palatable and politically correct as well. Indeed this brings a sizable majority in parliament for smooth sailing at he center as welll as forming Goverments of choice in all four provinces.
Essentially these are all makeshift arrangements to keep the federation intact but the real solution lies in putting Provincial Autonomy as Parlaiment’s First and Prime Agenda for a permanent and promising solution to the advantage of all stakeholders and preserving Pakistan’s integrity as well.
The religious hardliners did very poorly, even in NWFP. For moderates and secular people, this is good news and somewhat modifies the fear that the people are ready to hand the country over to the mullahs.
Besides this, I have no other comment to add to the others, who have summarized things nicely. There are some localized hopes but the entrenched inequity remains, and will continue to be a problem.
“Zardari’s press conference today, where he had a very welcoming stance toward the MQM, is another sign of increased political maturity and moderation.”
That’s interesting; I have not heard anything of the kind. However, I do know that by far the worst thing Zardari can do for PPP at this point is to extend an olive branch to the MQM; if you had a slight clue of the sentiment inside Sindh, you would not have got that impression.