Adil Najam
The Lawyer’s Long March from Lahore to Islamabad is literally hours away as I write this. Arrests of activists continue and a number have just been arrested in Lahore. As if things were not complicated enough, the unseating of the Shahbaz Sharif government in the Punjab and subsequent political developments have added new fuel of Pakistan’s many political fires.
The Zardari government, already losing some important allies from within its own ranks, has gone all out to make sure that the Long March does not succeed. The Lawyer’s movement and Nawaz Sharif (for rather different reasons) are going all out to make sure that it becomes a game changer. In the next many hours we will begin to get clues about which it will be.
Meanwhile, there can be no better commentary about where we have been and come from on this then these clips from now blocked GEO TV. It shows before and after ‘power’ comments from Farooq Niaq – until recently the PPP’s Law Minister and now Speaker of the Senate (and, therefore, next in line to the Presidency).
Justice Munir!
Shame on you.
It took us all these years to bury your decision. Pakistan is bidding good bye to “doctrine of necessity”.
Let there be a record for all who aspire to conspire with law breakers, you will be remembered infamously and rebuked repeatedly.
No buntings yet. Miles to go before we sleep.
My eyes are welling!
Pakistan Zindabad
Pakistan Paindabad
This news item, from Dawn, is of great importance in understanding what has been happening in Pakistan, and why.
I will be ecstatic if this turns out to be true but not just yet.
First, it’s two hours later than given time and still no speech.
Second, we have seen announcements before.
Third, I want to see fine print about restoration at what terms.
So, I say they are under pressure but battle is not won yet.
Aamir, apologies for the double post. You’re half right. Chaudhry was appointed by Mush whom he served faithfully. Until he started creating ‘trouble’ and was referenced against, and when that did not work, sacked through the martial law of Nov 3.
Also, imagine the guy responsible for physically assaulting the Supreme court 12 years ago, presuming to lead the movement for restoration of judiciary today! That is what happens when politicians are not allowed to undo themselves and come to a natural, logical, political end after repeated failure through regular elections. 58(2)(b) disrupts this natural undoing that incompetent politicians deserve and are quite capable of. Military coups not only disrupt this process but trap national politics in a time warp. A time warp that distorts, reverses and destroys democratic evolution and allow the same politicians to re-emerge ‘cleansed’ and ‘forgiven’. Indeed, unfortunate acts like the NRO make a bad situation worse.
If the process of regular elections and full term Parliaments is allowed uninterrupted and uninterfered with by the military, and if still people keep electing the same failures after 20/30 years, and learn nothing, and the nation fails to produce any improvement, whatsoever, in the quality of (at least some) politicians… then at least it will be difficult to blame the military for it. It would be more difficult to argue for a lasting impact of 1958-2008, if the military can keep its political nose clean for the next 25 years.