Re: Pakistani Media and abuse of freedom
anything against the emperor is obviously biased, notwithstanding the fact that in the past 4 months, he has gone from one blunder to another. So when a paper like Dawn calls spade a spade, obviously we have to take it with a pinch of salt :biggthumb
Just check out this biased editorial. What is up with that.
‘If elected…’](http://www.dawn.com/2007/09/19/ed.htm#1)
THINGS have not become as clear as one would have wished after the counsel for President Pervez Musharraf pledged to the Supreme Court on Tuesday that his client would give up his army uniform “if elected president”. The substantive paragraph of the letter given to the apex court by Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada needs to be reproduced. It said, “If elected for a second term as president, General Pervez Musharraf shall relinquish charge of office of chief of army staff soon after election and before taking oath of office as president.” What happens if he is not elected? Will Gen Musharraf, in that case, continue to remain the army chief and breathe down the necks of the president and the prime minister? The letter also does not clear up another major issue: will the president seek re-election by the existing assemblies or by those that will come into being as a result of the parliamentary elections due later this year? The letter to the Supreme Court assumes that there is no bar on a government employee from seeking a political office within two years of retirement.
This is an issue on which the apex court has yet to give a ruling.
One wishes President Musharraf had shown a bit more confidence in himself. Notwithstanding his current rating, the earlier part of his rule saw some positive developments that included a consistently high rate of economic growth and the partial success of the normalisation process with India; and — barring some unsavoury incidents — he has allowed the press to operate freely. Also, let us accept, the opposition is hopelessly divided, and its leaders — some of them with a long history of mutual recriminations — are working at cross purposes. Under the circumstances, it would have been in the fitness of things if he had decided to fight re-election as head of state after discarding his uniform rather than doing so “if elected for a second term”.
It is time the president made it clear that he would seek re-election from the new assemblies. It looks absurd that the assemblies which themselves have a life of five years should give Gen Musharraf a decade. A transparent presidential election will set the pattern for the parliamentary elections, but it is a matter of concern that we still have no trace of an interim set-up. A greater task in the aftermath of the election will be to restore the balance between the powers of the head of state and the prime minister. The LFO reincarnated some of the worst features of Ziaul Haq’s constitutional scheme, like Article 58-2(b), which authorises the president to sack an elected government, even if the prime minister enjoys parliament’s confidence, and to dissolve the National Assembly. Besides, the president heads the National Security Council, thus making the elected civilian leadership subordinate to the military.
The time for manipulating the Constitution and for weird legal contrivances is gone. The people of Pakistan want unadulterated democracy — democracy as is understood the world over.
