Adil Najam
The obvious and logical followup to our last ATP Poll is to now ask the question: which of our leaders did the most harm to Pakistan? A number of readers suggested, and we agree, that such a poll should be conducted. We ask only that you please respond to the question with the same care with which it has been structured.
As we had done in the last poll, we have structured the question carefully to focus only the harm that these leaders might have caused (all leaders do bad things as well as good, some more and some less).
Please focus on the negative actions these leaders were themselves responsible for, and not as much on things that might have been out of their own control.
The Question: Focusing primarily on what you consider ‘negative’ actions taken by them during their stint(s) in power, who, amongst the following, do you think did the most ‘harm’ to Pakistan?
As others have suggested, it is not at all necessary that those who got the most votes for doing ‘good’ will automatically get least votes for doing ‘harm.’ Since we have been asking people to focus only on one or the other, it is not entirely impossible that the same person is deemed to have done a lot of good as well as a lot of harm; albeit by a different set of voters – in a society as divided as Pakistan this is not just possible, but even likely.
As in the last poll, the current leadership is not included (although we did conduct a poll grading them recently) and only those whose tenure is now behind us are included, from Ayub Khan onwards. As before, for Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif consider the combined impact of two stints they each had in power. Do also please tell us which of their actions you think had the most harmful and lasting impacts on Pakistan’s well-being as a nation.
We eagerly await your views on this, in the poll as well as in the comments.
Hi ATP … a suggestion … would it be possible to set this survey up so that we can rate all of these folks from worst to best? Rather than just getting to pick one.
I think the results under the current format reflect the ideological divide … rather than how these guys compare relative to one another.
It might make for some interesting results.
i m completely shocked for seeing Benazir BHutto on teh bottom of the list . she and her husband alongwith Crushed teh economy of teh country and teh amount of begging she did has put us all in greatest trouble that might just never end .. billions and billions of loans .. Corruption of a level that we ranked no.2 out of the 190 countries then! thats shameful ! I was so furious to hear of all corruption cases being closed (geo NRO) and mr. zardari getting MAMMOTH 60 (or 6 still, too many) million US$ into his bank accounts !! the power projects .. where she had teh biggest khanchas, the unbelievable amount of loved one ki bhartiaan . letting teh pia’s and etc falling on their feet . and recently on zardaris return compensating teh thrown out pia employees with maSSive 7 billion ruppees ! I think what BB did to this country none did but his ZAB may be . only times when pakistan was economically in tatters !!! and bombs didnt took malaysia and co to teh top nations of the world . its their economy ! and we are on the verge again and its her party again ! and there we see no action unless media grabs them from their throat to wakeup naveed qamar . wake up tareen ! wake up zardari !! and get over with talking Gellani ji !
For those of us who are weighing their choice between Zia and ZAB, this old BBC Urdu interview featuring Tariq Ali over his book ‘The Leopard and the Fox’ might provide an interesting insight.
Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiYNuxQLiTg
Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL1PfNJyNMI
For the sake of posterity I am going to paste the whole Dawn article here; Dawn’s archives only go so far and this ATP poll and the Comments here are better preserved for long-term reference.
So here it is!
ps. Is the article written by ‘Iqbal Ahmad Khan’ or Ms. Ghazala Khan; if latter, then is the same GK who is active in ATP?
http://tinyurl.com/oa9g62
[quote]
The unenviable position of the most invidious of Pakistan
@Rehan,
I try not to ‘shoot the messenger’–message is more important. But quoting the likes of Haroon Rashid, Zaid Hamid, Ahmad Qureishi is so….90’s! Pakistan has had enough of these Rightwing nutjobs. They and their policies have ruined Pakistan and I, for one, will challenge them as much as I can.
This Haroon Rashid is trying to say that Zia is getting bad-names these days because ‘there is no one out to defend him’. What a joke!! By that logic, Ayub Khan should be getting a lot of ‘bad press’ too because there is no one is out to defend him too in political circles. In fact, there are still far too many nutjobs out to defend Zia when compared with Ayub Khan. Heck, Zia’s own son has been in power, through one form or another, in a large part of past 3 decades.
Both Zia and Ayub have been dead for decades and yet Pakistanis (including me) heavily tend to think that Ayub Khan was a far better person and ruler than Zia.
Oh, here is a piece from the so-called ‘Liberal Fascist’ media of Pakistan about Zia:
http://tinyurl.com/oa9g62