:salam:
Ladies and gentlemen, we have Sa1eem with us for the 5th edition of **Unplugged With Guppies. **Sa1eem is a senior member of GS and is a keen observer of politics.
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Unplugged With Sa1eem
1. What is your name?
Skipped
**2. Where do you hail from and where do you reside? Do you have dual nationality?
**Karachi. Live in London. I have dual nationality.
**3. What is your educational and professional background?
**Schooling from BVS Parsi high School Karachi, then National College Karachi, then KU and then I moved to UK for further education where I obtained BSc (hons) in Electrical and Electronics engineering, MSc and then PhD in engineering.
**4. What is your political orientation?
**Islamic Socialism … actually, I believe socialism is part of Islam.
Political orientation in scale 1 to 10:
Economic: -6 (6 out of 10 towards left … opposite of right)
Social: -5 (5 out of 10 towards Libertarian … opposite of Authoritarian)
**5. Which political party do you support and why? Please explain the reasons in case if you do not support any party.
**I do not support any particular political party, but have inclination towards MQM (in past I was with JI not due to their social or economical policies but it was a trend amongst students at the time who had some religious background and use to believe the propaganda that being socialist means permissiveness).
Reasons for inclination towards MQM:
1: Most office bearers in MQM are from middle class and are aware of problems faced by middle and lower class Pakistani society.
2: Do not have feudal lords in party’s top hierarchy (as far as I know).
3: Most organised and disciplined party in Pakistan.
4: Least corrupt financially
5: Candidates
In my opinion, one major cause of corruption in country is candidates spending their own money during election and also contributing to party funds (major parties in Pakistan have price tags on their party tickets for election). I believe that candidates contesting election on party tickets should not spend any money from his/her own pockets, rather all election expenses should be borne by party (what party should collect from public donations or whatever means).
In this way, party can truly say that elected candidates on their ticket belongs to party and party can also sack elected candidates if party finds them involved in corruption or any malpractices… else, candidates who spend their own money to get elected have reasonable excuses to do corruption and abuses in order to reward their supporters and recover their election and other expenses with interest.
6: I am against political inheritance and nepotism within parties. In my opinion political leaders heading any political party should come from within party and most leaders in party should be one who worked in party for years and came up through the party hierarchy from ground level.
**6. Have you ever read complete manifesto of your party? Does it matter to you at all?
**I am not associated to any party, though I did read part manifestos of several parties. Unfortunate thing about Pakistan is that, manifestos are meaningless for voters as well as party members.
**7. Do you believe that your party has a good team to run the country and tackle issues like governance, corruption, loadshedding, security?
**I could not say what any party would or could do once in power, but looking at works MQM did in Karachi (especially while they were running district government), with their dedication, sincerity, organisational skills and discipline, I have feelings that if they would ever come to power in Pakistan, they have people sincere and capable enough to tackle most issues mentioned above.
**8. Has your party ever been in power in the Centre or in provinces? If yes, how did it perform?
**I believe apart of PPP and PMLN, no party really came to power in Pakistan (central government), as in Pakistani system, coalition partners in power means very little. As for provincial governments, I can only say with any knowledge about Sindh government, and here also power was always in the hands of PPP (apart of few years). Thus to judge MQM governance in Sindh, I can only look at times when they were holding power during Musharraf time, and I am satisfied with their work and governance (even though I believe they could have done better).
**9. Are you satisfied with the policies of your party? Also, do you believe your party is heading in the right direction?
**In my opinion, their policies and directions are reasonable. Anyhow, I believe they need to modify their stance and adjust themselves with Pakistani realities to break into national level representation. The way they are moving, it will take ages for them to make inroads outside Sindh, or even outside their strongholds in Karachi and Hyderabad, but there are short routes too that they should adopt.
**10. Are you satisfied with the role of your party in country’s political, socio-economic, defense and law & order fields, even if it has never been in power?
**What they say seems reasonable, but what they would do when in power is still to be seen (if that time ever comes).
**11. In your opinion, what are the top-most plus and top-most minus points of your party?
Plus point:
**
1: Party consist of people who are disciplined, organised, sincere, hard working and able.
2: Main leader (Altaf Hussain) does not take part in election nor have any heir for the party from his family, thus it seems after him leadership would go to any other member of the party (most likely on merit) who is capable of holding that post.
3: Party members taking part in election is entirely party decision and election expenses of those who take part in election also comes from party fund.
4: Advantage of main party leader not taking part in election means party leader cannot get involved in corruption (at least directly) nor depend for his position (position in government) on elected party members. Thus, his decision towards party cannot be self-centred (unless others allow that) and would be for party and country.
[In my opinion, corruption can be done only by those who are in position of authority (MNAs, MPAs, Ministers, bureaucrats, etc). People who are not in authority (hold no government posts), they can only benefit from corruption of people in authority, so fault always lies with those in authority. If such person in authority decides not to do corruption or misuse power, no one can force them to do so, not even party leader].
5: Advantage of election expenses borne by party and not party members taking part in election means elected members are choice of party and are only party’s representative in assembly who spent nothing from their own pocket nor have their own representation or vote bank. Whatever they do, they do that on behalf of party. Thus, party can take harsh steps against these elected party members if required, even sacking them from their elected seats on any ground, including corruption or power misuse.
Etc …
Minus point about MQM: Bad PR and blunt approach.
**12. What do you think of presidential form of government?
**I would prefer a mixture of presidential and parliamentary form of government along with heavy devolution of power.
For instance: District government should be strongest with most administrative powers in their area and should control local services, as well as local revenues within their area. They should oversee local bureaucrats and police in their area too. In this way, people would have direct approach to their representatives within their area and would be able to demand solution for their immediate problems (without cover of excuses from local representatives). They can judge their representatives much better too as such representatives would be living amongst them.
Then there should be provincial government with nominal administrative powers. Provincial government should work as coordinating authority between district governments, keep check on corruption and mal-practices of district governments, should enact laws for the province, and should oversee district government affairs. They also do liaison with Federal (central) government.
Federation should be run using parliamentarian form of government having control over foreign affairs, currency, external trades, defence, secret services (agencies), and all departments that are inter-provincial matters. They would oversee provincial governments and should resolve problems between district and provincial governments as well as inter-provincial matters.
Senate: In my opinion, senate should consist of technocrats and no senate member should be member of or affiliated with any political party.
Senate should have equal members from provinces (as it is today and plays and equaliser role between provinces). Senate members should not get elected by provincial assembly (as it is happening today), rather they should be selected from technocrats using various fixed parameters. If choice has to be made between two deserving candidates then a written ‘multiple choice’ test would suffice their selection.
Senate should consist of around 100 members equally divided between provinces. All Senate members should be selected technocrats from various fields using merit with fixed known selection criteria, such that person gets selected automatically once person achieves the criteria on available provincial seats in senate.
To represent the province, person should be born in that province, have domicile of that province and have also done matriculation from that province (all 3 criteria should be met, if not then however capable, person should not qualify for senate). This is necessary as senate is equaliser body between provinces. All senate members should be graduate except senators who are on labourer and farm worker seats, still senator from these two groups should be at least matriculate. Here are fields and numbers for senate seats (in my opinion).
1: Top academic achievers and scientists … 20
2: Top Industrialists, entrepreneurs, and investors … 20
3: Top tax payers … 8
4: Top known social workers … 4
5: Top bankers … 4
6: Top lawyers … 8
7: Top retired army officers … 8
8: Top retired navy, retired air force, retired police, and retired paramilitary personals (rangers, etc) … 4
9: Top Bureaucrats … 8
10: Top sportsmen … 4
11: Top journalists … 4
12: Labour representative … 4
13: Farm worker representative … 4
[Where if number is 20, it means 5 from each province. 8 means 2 from each province and 4 means 1 from each province].
People from FATA should get selected on KPK seats. There should be no member from federal area, as federal area itself is suppose to be part of equalising body and do not need a representative in Senate.
People from all above walks of life together would be capable enough to see that parliament is running fine and that no one is sabotaging the interest of their province.
President should get elected by Senate (only), should oversee federal government and should have power to dissolve the parliament if he sees that government is not functioning well. Anyhow, to dissolve the parliament, president should request senate to vote for such, who can do that with simple majority.
Function of senate should be to oversee the parliamentary affairs and also endorse all laws passed by parliament with their own 2/3 majority. Senate members would also have power to act against any minister, parliamentarian, or government functionaries (bureaucrats) and could even get them sacked from their job or parliament seat.
**13: Your take on judicial activitism?
**In my opinion, it is fine at limited level if not partial (present judicial activism going on in Pakistan is partial as well as harmful).
**14. Are you satisfied with the role of the Senate in the country?
**No. Actually, I believe senate should be there but consist of only technocrats. Presently senate in Pakistan is just an extension of parliament consisting of party members and politicians who do not think of country or their province (as equalising force), but are towing their mother party political line (or interest of their political party head).
PS: Please read answer given in question 12 carefully to know my opinion about Senate.
**15. Are you okay with officially-approved electioneering budgets for provincial and national assemblies? (Rs5m for NA and Rs30m for PA)
**No. In my opinion there should be no limit on electioneering budget with modification that candidates sponsored by party (contesting on party tickets) should not be allowed to spend their own money on election, rather all their election expenses should be borne by party, unless one is contesting election as independent.
**16. To govern a vast country of over 18 million population, the bigger the cabinet, the better?
**Yes. In my opinion, there should be one ‘NA’ member representing 100,000 voters and ‘PA’ member representing 50,000 (Pakistan has ~100 million voters, and that means there should be around 1000 parliamentarians in NA and 2000 parliamentarians in 4 PAs).
**17. Do you think that some key ministries should be managed only by technocrats, or it must be an elected representative of people to handle any department?
**No … I think it is right of Prime Minister to appoint ministers from parliamentarians or from whoever Prime Minister wants to, as he and his party are answerable for those ministries (in election as well as to check and balance authorities … Senate, NAB, courts, etc). On the other hand, ministries should be answerable to Senate who should be technocrats and it should be their duty to see all is going well. That is different matter that ministers should be qualified party member who should have number of qualified advisors giving help in making decisions.
**18. Who is your favourite politician outside your favourite political party?
**Unfortunately, the only Pakistani politician who impressed me (till now) is Syed Mustafa Kamal (MQM) due to his hard work, sincerity with his commitments, blunt straight forward approach, selflessness, ability to work and RESULT during his tenure.
Amongst past politicians, I believe Z A Bhutto was hard working, capable, sincere and committed, but he was too ambitious, was self-centred and his sincerity had some partiality and flaws. Anyhow, he did many works that can be appreciated, though many of his doings also harmed the country (in various ways, including economically).
**19. Who is your favourite politician who appears in TV shows?
**Sheikh Rasheed’s blunt comments and predictions seem quite interesting.
**20. What is your favorite current affairs show (national or international)?
**One can be sure that there could be no dull moments when watching any of Pakistan current affairs programs.
END
Thank you Sa1eem for your time 
[note]Members are welcome to pose further questions to Sa1eem or debate any part of his interview. Please follow interview etiquettes while you interact with the interviewee. Thank you.[/note]
Now if you could arrange a sponsor, we can do another episode with you 
… By the way, I have heard there is a real estate tycoon who sponsors interviews 
