ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary.

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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It appears ANP has more important issues to tackle. They do not want to be dragged down in personal feud, but rather help govern and move forward.

As the last paragraph below suggests, there maybe mistrust of PML (N) as it had gone back on promises it had made to ANP in the past?

http://www.dawn.com/2008/02/22/nat38.htm

ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary

LAHORE, Feb 21: The Awami National Party (ANP) has also drawn lines between independence of the judiciary and reinstatement of deposed judges.

“We won’t risk deterioration of the situation just for one person,” says ANP Secretary-General Ehsan Wyne, referring to the PML-N, lawyers and civil society’s call for reinstatement of all deposed judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

The ANP has emerged as the single largest party in the NWFP Assembly in the Feb 18 elections after around three and a half decades, and is in a position to form its government in the province.

Talking to Dawn, Wyne said his party did believe in independence of judiciary, but did not attach the issue with personalities.

He said unlike the PML-N, which had put reinstatement of the judges as its condition for cooperation in government formation, the ANP would not attach any conditionalities. He, however, hastened to add that it would do politics of issues and extend support to the party which would promise provincial autonomy as enshrined in the 1973 Constitution, and help in changing the name of the Frontier province.

“Frontier is not a name. Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan also have international borders then why they are not named as the Frontier?”

Wyne said his party would not insist on the name of Pakhtunistan (land of Pakhtuns) and could settle for Pakhtunkhwah (friend of Pakhtun).

He recalled that the PML-N had promised in the past to change the name in return for the ANP’s political support and deviated from it later on after coming into power.

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Re: ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary.

If name-changing is priority on their list, then chalo ji, there goes NWFP down the drain.

When will politicians actually talk about getting work done for the country and start making plans? It offends me that they really think no Pakistani can figure out their game. Sab inki tarhaan jaahil jhat nahi ghoom rahe hain.

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Re: ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary.

ANP is entitled to its opinion - it's democracy after all. The worse thing they could do is to oppose any resolutions regarding the issue in the National Assembly. That still won't have any tangible effect. Countdown for Musharraf's demise has begun :p

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Re: ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary.

First of all, I completely agree with all those who say that NWFP’s name need to be changed. NWFP is not a name, its a geographic coordinate. :slight_smile: Surely NWFP needs a proper name, like all other provinces of Pakistan. “Pakthoonkhwa” may be too controversial, as it will exclude all non-Pakhtoons who live in NWFP. A more generic “Khybar” type name may be more appropriate. But it should be a decision by the people and representatives of people of that province. Whatever they want/decide.

Having said that, if #1 priority of ANP is merely to change the name of province then inn ka khuda hi haafiz hai. Talk about worrying about bigger issues facing Pakistan and solving people’s problems :hehe:

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Re: ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary.

“NWFP” is English name while in Urdu we call it sooba-e “Sarhad”, why don’t we call it by that name in English? :konfused:

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Re: ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary.

sarhad is the urdu for frontier

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Re: ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary.

The renaming of a province is the most wasteful subject to be debated upon. Politicians in Pakistan are rich so they dont feel the financial crunch hence they have the free time to debate these meaningless issues. The vast majority of poor people would rather development occured. Renaming does not change their plight and nor does it make NWFP a better place to live in.

I I think the people who want to rename it must realise that the only name this area had in history was Gandhara and that too was the Peshawar valley and not the whole of it. Sindh and Punjab have a lot of history behind their name - although anything west of the River Jhelum is not actually Punjab. The 5 rivers of Punjab are Beas, Sutlej, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi NOT the Indus.

I used to support renaming the province of NWFP to Pakhtunistan/khwa but i think a more neutral name to appease non-Pakhtuns is necessary.

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Re: ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary.

I think this should be first decided by present NWFP assembly and then bill may be passed in National assembly to whatever name they want for their province. This is not a big deal.

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You are right, though I believe that 'Sarhad' not a word with meaning but 'Name' is also not bad. For instance, at present Sarhad is not name of NWFP but it is word with meaning that is tranlated when reffered in English. We do not translate name of Punjab when we talk about Punjab as it is 'Name' not word. So, we do not see anyone calling Punjab as 'Five Rivers' when reffering to Punjab in English, as we use 'North West Frontier Province' or 'NWFP' for Sarhad.

This type of name is not that uncommon. For instance, North-West Africa is called 'Maghrib', a name given to it by Arabs because it was in Magrib. Western Sahara is name of a country because of its geographical position with respect to Sahara desert. Prophet (SAW) gave name to Arabia as Jazerah-tul-Arabia or Island of Arabia. Najd is named Najd because Najd means land at height and Najd in Arabia is at height (above sea level) more than rest of Arabia.

But then, it is up to people to decide, though propaganda works and those who want to to do politics on every issue use this as an opportunity to do politics, where rationality does not play much of a role, especially when dealing with emotionally charged irrational population with nominal literacy.

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But doesn't "Balochistan" excludes non-Balochs who live there, "Punjab" excluded non-punjabis and "Sindh" exclude non Sindhis?

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Re: ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary.

Although re-naming a province should hardly be at the top of the policymaker's list at the moment, I must say that the term NWFP makes it sound like some insignificant territory that is not worthy enough to have an indigenous name like Punjab or Balochistan. It makes the area sound like some random waste-land that was included in Pakistan with a British given term to describe it. It would dignify the region to give it an indigenous desi name hailing from the region's local history and culture.

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Re: ANP won’t press for restoration of judiciary.

What if PPP and PML (N) do not rename NWFP and fail to provide provincial autonomy. Afterall, NS went back on his promise to the ANP in the 90's and ANP pulled out of the govt.

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The whole country is divided on ethenic basis, yet people have problems with nationalist parties.