Pakistan Politics Today

1. Mr. Nawaz Sharif has made hardly 15 appearances in houses of Parliament during the last 15 months.  A parliamentary system cannot function in this way.
2. Mr. Sharif has been busy making economic deals all over the world about which the parliament is in total darkness.
3. Nobody doubts Mr. Sharif’s sincerity or capability to do good to the nation by extra-parliamentary means.
4. The Senate had to pass a resolution demanding PM to attend its sessions, but to no avail.
5. Many of PMLN lawmakers may be disappointed in this situation but they cannot speak their minds due to the gag on them put by 18^th amendment.
6. In his election campaign Mr. Sharif had claimed that the power crisis was due to bad management of resources by People’s party and he would fix things in six months. Power management has grown worse in the last 15 months. The billion rupees spent on the reviving the abandoned Nandipur project have proven a waste.
7. The subsidized interest loan scheme for youth has proven a failure.
8. The 100 billion rupee gift to daughter Marium for buying toys has failed to make an impact.
9. Adhocism is back in the administrative and financial functions. Family and friends of the leader to whom the party is dedicated are having a good time. The ruling party has to expand its base.
10. Ever since the days of British Raj, elections in the subcontinent have been a conjuring match. The party that can throw more dust in the eyes of the electorate wins. The older generation that has compromised with the system only wants to make the dust transparent as in the case of western democracies. The new generation wants to get rid of the dust.
11. It is obvious that there was major rigging in the last elections although everyone accepted it in good faith.  Mr. Imran Khan has claimed that large numbers of ballot papers were printed by private printers on nonstandard paper which were used in bogus voting whose thumb impressions cannot be verified. The ballot boxes in the custody of the Election commission may have been tampered with during the last 15 months. So there is no point in ballot verification now.
12. PM and Chief Minister Punjab have to take responsibility for the Model Town massacre of 17^th June in which 14 people were killed and more than 80 shot at chest level by police. The incident report recorded by Police does not mention any citizen casualties. Obviously it was a plot and a cover-up.  Nobody in government expressed any sympathy with those killed and wounded in the incident.
13. Mr. Tahirul Qadri has only recently descended on Pakistan after migration to Canada and a long stay there. He has a wide spread network of madressahs and orphanages and a few hundred thousand spiritual followers in Pakistan and other countries. He seems to have formed an alliance with Sunni Tehrik and Shia-led MWM, both opposed to the pro-Taliban religious organizations. It seems that he is trying to make the imposition of Martial law imperative and since the army would be reluctant to form alliance with either PMLN or PPP, he might get a chance to become their civilian lackey. The army needs to give him a clear cut message that he is chasing an illusion unless………..
14. It is a very complicated situation, but it can be resolved without bloodshed and in a reasonably short time by careful planning and systematic execution. God bless us all.