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).
Whole country paralyzed because NS lost his govt in Punjab. What a disgrace these politicians are. And poo on the people of Pakistan for always being ready for a new hungama and tor-phor.
Thanks to NS and wukula for paralyzing the country for the sake of one individual and for making a mockery of democracy.
Spoke to my sister in Islamabad and it seems:
1. SMS is blocked
2. Schools are closed
3. Offices closed for 4 days
4. People are hoarding up on food, etc.
Has anyone calculated the economic cost of this.
The government has now blocked all SMS ability on cell phones so people cannot send SMSs… and the telecom companies are assisting the govt in this.
Long March Will Succeed InshAllah