Adil Najam
Since yesterday the “I” word – impeachment – has begun to be thrown around a lot.
Some quarters seem to think that it just happen this time. Others suggest that it is more talk than action and the numbers needed to pull this are still not there.
Coming out of the “critical” Nawaz Sharif-Asif Zardari meetings one keeps wondering how much of this is an effort to keep the coalition going and how much is a real push to change the essential political equations of Pakistan. There are reports that Gen. Musharraf is taking this move seriously enough to cancel his trip to China (to attend the Olympics opening ceremony). On the other hand some of Gen. Musharraf’s supporters are claiming that no such cancellation has happened. We do know, however, that he is taking this challenge seriously and lining up his supporters.
All in all, there is too much noise to say what is happening. But something is clearly happening. Does the PPP-PML(N) have the numbers they need to go ahead? Does the President have the numbers he needs to stop it? And what of all the external actors and where they may lean, why and for what?
Interestingly, we had run a ATP Poll back in June asking you what you thought would have happened to Gen. Musharraf by October 2008? The majority (38%) had thought that he would be impeached by then. A significant number (31%) thought that by October 2008 we woudl be still muddling through as we are now.
We do not intend to open the Poll again, but it does seem that either of those two answers could turn out to be true again. Indeed, even our earlier Poll on the subject, from October 2007, may still be relevant in its results!
So, since we can’t make full sense of exactly what all of this adds up to, we thought we woudl ask our best source: You. What do you think? What is happening? What might happen? And why?
All the politicians are animals, If they want to impeach Musharaf and put him on trial then what about the crooks who are trying to impeach him. All of them are just scum bags, they don’t care about Pakistan or Pakistanis. All they care about is Power because with that come $$ that’s the bottom line. All this about the awam and justice, what the hell were they doing for the last 9 years.
You don’t need to be in power to do something good, have they done any wellfare work, NO they have lived it up, at the expense of this Poor country.
And about Musharaf, when they do try him please add the following to the list of crimes as well. Why did he not put AZ ,NS, Altaf and the rest of these clowns away for good?
As long as Punjab can vote for someone like Nawaz Sharif and that too in such huge numbers things will remain depressing and desperate.
Musharraf should not only be impeached but tried and punished for all the crimes he and his hand-picked cronies committed. He should go through all that he has made the people suffer for. His near and dear ones should be made missing; his assets seized by NAB; he sent to Guantanamo Bay without any charges against him and tortured there for what he didn’t do; pushed into a mosque with chemical weapons used from outside; left in the heat and tortured by police and so on and so forth.
Don’t care really what happens to musharraf but animosity of Nawaz sharif and others is because musharraf is urdu speaking and that is it. Go listen to khwaja asif’s statements. I am no MQM but that is the truth cause altaf husain is just like any other politician in Pakistan. Nawaz sharif and allies cannot digest the fact that an urdu speaking guy is at the top.
Our Hypocrisy is that when musharraf came to power, we celebrated the overthrow of Nawaz Sharif. Sweets were distributed. So why go back into a persons arms again who we despised because of his corruption (bhuttos, zardari and sharifs including there friends). It has been rightly said by someone that a dictorship is better than chaos. And it is chaos now and nothing else in Pakistan. This is what happened in Iraq when people chose to go against Saddam. What now over there no peace, every day many killed and maimed. We are heading the same way unfortunately. We donot want to change our state so how the hell can we change the state of our nation.