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March 15, 2008

Bush Facing Failure on Pakistan Front

By Muhammad Khurshid

US ambassador in Pakistan and other officials sent by the Bush Administration have
been trying to find a solution to the crisis, but so far no headway was made in finding
a suitable person to become the prime minister. On the other hand terrorists have
increased their activities. Daily dozens of people are being killed or maimed in the
terrorist attacks. Actually the Bush administration has been trying to impose corrupt
people on Pakistanis.
The crisis in the Pakistan People’s Party has deepened when co-chairman Asif Ali
Zardari and senior vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim failed to resolve their
differences on the choice of the party’s candidate for the prime minister’s post.
Sources told Dawn that the body language of the two leaders in their second meeting
in two days indicated that “all is not well” between them.
Mr Fahim’s insistence that he is the president of the People’s Party Parliamentarians,
which is only a technical issue, means that top party leaders differ on some policy
matters, particularly on the process of nominating a candidate for the post of prime
minister.
“I am the president of the (PPP) Parliamentarians and this post is more important for
me than that of the country’s president,” Mr Fahim said when a reporter asked him
whether he had been offered the post of the country’s president or that of National
Assembly speaker in return for his withdrawal from the race for premiership. “I will
not become speaker. I am the PPP-Parliamentarians president,” he said, adding that
he was still a “very strong candidate” for the office of prime minister.
Talking to reporters after his one-to-one meeting with Mr Zardari he said they would
continue to meet.
When asked how would he react if Mr Zardari nominated any other person for the
prime minister’s post, Mr Fahim said he would express his opinion ‘when the time
came’.
When asked to comment on reports that the PPP co-chairman himself was aspiring
for the post, Mr Fahim said he had already declared that if Mr Zardari expressed his
desire to become the prime minister he would be the first person to support him.
He said there were no differences between him and Mr Zardari and they met like
brothers. “We dined together yesterday and we ate together again.”
PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar told Dawn there was nothing ‘extraordinary’ about
the meeting because talks among senior party leaders were a routine matter. He said
the meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere.
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According to Dawn editorial, the PML-N leadership has alleged that as many as 21
attempts have been made at the behest of President Musharraf to sow seeds of
dissension between it and the PPP since the two main parties decided to form
coalition governments at the centre and in Punjab.
If true, this raises serious concerns, and not only on moral grounds, for the stability of
the next government. The president and his backers, whether politicians or those in
uniform, must not resort to such below-the-belt tactics because the parties
concerned have been given a popular mandate by the people to work for the
restoration of democratic institutions. It should be left to the election-winning parties
to decide how far they are willing to commit themselves to mutual cooperation to
cobble together a stable government.
The president’s caveat going out to the nation via a recent interview to an American
channel, that the failure of the new parliament to work with him would have
catastrophic implications for democracy in Pakistan, is as ill-advised as was his Nov 3
imposition of emergency rule, the subsequent sacking of the higher court judges and
the gagging of the independent media. The message emanating from last week’s
corps commanders’ meeting at the GHQ, making it a point to deny that the army has
distanced itself from the president, too, should be seen and judged as such.
Such disparaging signals coming at a time when a wary electorate has pinned its
hopes on a democratic order emerging out of the chaos of the past many years must
not be supported by anyone wishing for political stability in a country mired deep in
conflict today.
That said, the onus of acting responsibly towards each other is also on the parties
concerned. The faux pas committed by a PML-N leader, whom the PPP president
Makhdoom Amin Fahim has in turn accused of running a defamation campaign
against him, should be taken stock of by the PML-N leadership. For his part, Mr
Zardari should come out clean on his party’s nomination for the premiership, sooner
than later, to dispel all ‘wired’, or otherwise, speculation.
The task ahead is a daunting one, and the challenges faced by the country are multi-
faceted. It is time, for instance, the coalition partners started discussing ways and
means to combat terrorism, inflation, the energy crisis and other issues affecting the
lives of the people before public fatigue to their political causes sets in. There is a
need to understand that the people’s support alone can help the politicians stand up
to any pressure brought to bear on them from extra-constitutional quarters. For this,
they will have to stay relevant to public needs and sentiments, and not only to their
own political agenda.