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).
Some Long March-related humor:
http://sohaib.nomadlife.org/default.aspx
:)
The people at control of power in Pakistan have unfortunately been the one who can give all sorts of solution other than political solutions:
a) Musharraf was trained for providing battleground solutions
b) Rahman Malik is trained to provide adminstrative solutions
c) Nayak is trained to provide legal solutions
d) Well, not sure for what is Zardari trained :)
None can provide a political solution, which is needed the most.
One thing good about democracy is that it will t0lerate this much and not more.Many a despot who start thinking much too much of themselves have been cut to size.This seems to be President Zardari’s nemesis.”Shayad Paap ka Ghara Bhar Gaya”.All Kudos to the Brave Pakistani people fighting against the excesses.As I mentioned earlier democracy will tolerate for a while but will then retalliate.Keep up your resistance The Brave Pakistani People and slowly but surely you will progress in this journey.Good the Army is keeping away.
Zardari needs to remember Jalib:
T
“Who can tolerate an independent judiciary?” An absolute classic by Ardeshir Cowasjee, DAWN Sunday March 15th, 2009.
Now, what with the word