Re: New crop of Pak. lawmakers are richer, flashier and more secular
The only problem is...who says that , this is the new crop? This is the same old rotten crop.
Writer is probably confused or wanted to give it a 'flashy' headline otherwise if you read the article it says
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"Many are also veterans of a series of civilian governments that nearly bankrupted the country in the 1990s."
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Also this guy probably forgot that MMA boycotted the elections when he said:
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"The Feb. 18 elections saw a hardline coalition of religious groups lose control of the country's northwest along the Afghan border. Also, many conservative-minded allies of Musharraf lost their seats."
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Though it may be a tangent but worthy to note:
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"On Wednesday, Khaled Mahmood Javed sat behind the tinted windows of a shiny sedan flying the flag of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.
His brother, Rai Ghulam Murtaza, is an incoming lawmaker who first served under Bhutto in the 1980s.
`A lot of them are **businessmen, and none are poor.** **They're big men _ important men _ and they're less religious too,**'' Javed said of the new breed of legislators.
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Should also show how disconnected these people will be from the common man's problem of no electricity, no light, shortages of commodity at times etc.
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Millions still live in poverty in this Islamic nation despite annual economic growth of about 7 percent for the past five years. Much of it was due to cash being sent home by Pakistani expatriates. Murtaza was one of them, his brother said.
``My brother lived abroad for the past 15 years. He's a dual citizen of Canada,'' Javed said proudly."
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Its not something to be "proud" of, really.