Seems no one in Pakistan within the intelectual circles is fooled by Mush and his “economic growth.”
:hehe:
Just say no
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/mazdak.htm
By Irfan Husain
IMAGINE that you have been illegally locked up for the last five years, and have been badly treated by your jailer. And now that you have been released, you are being asked to vote for him to brutalise you another five years.
In one sense, this is what next month’s election is about. After five years of corruption, misrule and deteriorating law and order, the ruling coalition has the nerve to ask for another term. And not just ask for it politely, hat in hand and an apology on its lips: PML-Q and MQM leaders are demanding our votes as if it is their right.
For months before they were prised out by the constitutional provision limiting their stranglehold to five years, we were bombarded with state-financed ads extolling their virtues. Billions were spent on this exercise in propaganda. Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, his dyed hair and his guttural accent have become synonymous with unfounded claims.
And to add salt to our wounds, the King’s Party has even had the unmitigated gall to launch its manifesto. This amazing document pledges the party to ‘development, devolution, democracy, diversity and defence’. As we all know, in its first five years in power the party could only focus on defence, with the military officer corps being at the receiving end of the state’s (and the United States’) largesse. Given that the average IQ of the King’s Party is well under the three-figure mark, it is easy to see why they can only focus on one issue at a time.
But when it comes to their acquisitive instincts, these opportunists can be very efficient. With Shaukat Aziz leading the charge to the banks, most of them have prospered, with the Chaudhries setting some kind of record. The aborted privatisation of Pakistan Steel was only the tip of the iceberg. Stockbrokers in Karachi recount stories of deals done daily with those in power. The qabza groups (or the land-grab mafia) in Lahore have made fortunes (or multiplied existing ones) for their patrons, while ruining the rightful owners of expensive real estate.
And while these fortunes were being made or multiplied, what of the rest of us? With wheat at Rs24 a kilo, one can only imagine what the poor are going through. Even the government admits that food inflation is galloping along at 14 per cent. Kerosene, the fuel millions cook on, is in short supply. Indeed, our reserves of petroleum products have fallen to a historic low.
In eight years of Musharraf’s rule, not a single megawatt of electricity has been added to the national grid. While the rich have imported yet more generators, the poor have sweltered without power over eight successive summers. But to hear the hype from Islamabad, you would think we had never had it so good. Our rulers have never tired of reminding us that our foreign exchange reserves had swollen to 14 billion dollars, and that the stock exchange touched record heights. How these figures benefited ordinary Pakistanis was never made clear.
In his column on these pages recently, economist Shahid Javed Burki calculates that the benefits of the previous government’s policies reached 10-12 per cent of the population, ‘mostly in Punjab and in the large cities’. Thus, nearly nine out of ten Pakistanis were bypassed by the great economic miracle touted by Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz and their toadies.
The previous ruling gang also oversaw the imposition of the devolution scheme that has played havoc with civil administration across the country. While I was no fan of the colonial system we had inherited, it did have many intrinsic merits. Certainly, an elected local government is desirable, but the half-baked way in which the present system has been thrust upon us has ensured that we have ended up with the worst possible administrative structure.
While Musharraf & Co have reaped the diplomatic and financial rewards of joining the West in the post-9/11 world, our security scenario remains dire. Although the danger from the Indian bogey, so assiduously built up by the establishment, has receded, Pakistan has never been in such peril since 1971 as it is today.
Hardly a day passes without terrorist attacks and suicide bombs going off. The fact that security forces are the primary targets shows not just how well armed the enemy is, but his level of motivation and organisation.
Instead of trying to contain and defeat these extremists, Musharraf and the PML-Q have tried to appease them. The results of this policy became apparent when the clerics and students at Lal Masjid flexed their muscles. Instead of cracking down, ministers made a beeline for the mosque to plead with the mullahs.
The extremist takeover of Swat, albeit short-lived, shows the bankruptcy of the policy of appeasement. In Waziristan, hundreds of soldiers surrendered to a handful of local Taliban, only to be exchanged for several convicted terrorists. Time after time, militants have broken agreements with the government.
As a result of our non-policy towards the tribal areas, our relations with Afghanistan are deeply troubled. In the capitals of the West, our sincerity in fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban is constantly doubted. Our record on proliferation, forever tarnished by A.Q. Khan, continues to haunt relations with major powers.
In Karachi, the MQM has played havoc with the city and with Sindh. The infrastructure is in a shambles, and barely any new industry has come in over the last five years. Law and order in Karachi is as dismal as it has been for decades. The massacre conducted in Karachi on May 12 is still fresh in our minds.
Above all, the ruling coalition is guilty of applauding while Musharraf played havoc with the first independent judiciary we have had for decades. Indeed, they were part of the chorus cheering him on when he imposed a state of emergency. No doubt they were hoping for an extra year in power.
This, then, is the record the ruling coalition is basing its re-election campaign on. In any democratic country, these jokers would have been consigned to the dustbin of history. But here, the politics of hard cash, biradari and invisible angels who massage vote totals can perform miracles.But I, for one, would not vote for any candidate representing these parties, partly for the reasons I have given above but mostly because a vote for the ruling coalition is a vote for Musharraf.
