Well said.. Musharaf chamchas should be ashamed of themselves…
Pakistan in its labyrinth
WHAT began as an extra-constitutional step on Nov 3 came to its logical end on Saturday with President Musharraf’s lifting of emergency rule. He pointedly said that all his objectives had been achieved, and the conspiracy against him quelled. How one searched, in vain, for some poignancy in the president’s speech on the occasion. The expectation, as it turned out, belonged in the past as a ‘nicety’ practised by dictators who came and went before him. There was no need felt for any humility, for the entire nation stood humbled before one man’s conviction of himself as its saviour and his vision for a guardedly democratic Pakistan. The maverick lawyer and successive military rulers’ guiding spirit, Sharifuddin Pirzada, was equally gung-ho in his disclosure to a western newspaper that the president needed no approval of his actions from the incoming parliament, lacing his legal opinion with the indictment that all Pakistani leaders, military or civilian, had been despotic and corrupt. The candid observation must do wonders for the country’s image abroad, which has admittedly been an obsession with President Musharraf.
The lifting of emergency and the restoration of the amended Constitution was welcomed by friendly governments worldwide, besides India. Reaction by politicians back home has been understandably varied and cautious. Ms Bhutto said she was pleasantly surprised by the promise kept, but set the holding of free and fair elections as a precondition for her willingness to work with the president in a post-election dispensation; Mr Sharif said the action came as a result of foreign pressure on Mr Musharraf, and had little to do with the Pakistani people’s aspirations. What is clear is that since the imposition of the Nov 3 emergency, everything has worked according to the president’s wishes. He imposed emergency rule as the then army chief and put the Constitution in abeyance. The judiciary was sent packing and media freedom restricted — changes that will stay in place even after the lifting of emergency; all extra-constitutional powers assumed by the army chief under emergency rule were transferred to himself as the president; he doffed his military uniform only after the post-PCO Supreme Court endorsed his re-election by the outgoing parliament as a head of state in uniform, and amended the Constitution to give cover to all actions taken by him since Nov 3 before finally restoring the Constitution in an amended form. All of these actions remain highly controversial.
As far as the Jan 8 election is concerned, there was precious little in the president’s Saturday night speech to allay the opposition’s fears as to the polls’ transparency, even though Mr Musharraf has invited any number of foreign observers to witness the process. At the same time he made it amply clear that he will not allow any agitation or rejection of election results by anyone. Under the circumstances, poet Faiz’s prophetic lines come to mind: ‘Take a vow of fidelity or of separation, do as you please/ What do we control? What will you have us endorse?’ The people of Pakistan have never been this helpless in shaping their political destiny.
http://www.dawn.com/2007/12/17/ed.htm