Press Gallery
The Game is still on!
Saeed Minhas
Islamabad: Another usual day in Islamabad started with big bangs from judicial Supremes followed by covert and overt reactions from both the houses on hill-top and eventually the night was topped with verbosity and prophecies of our media gangs leaving the entire nation exasperated and as confused as they were yesterday or may be for many years.
The only difference from yester years is that instead of planning a direct attack on the Supreme Court by calling in the bus-loads of political vendors from Gujrat and Lahore, Peoples Party—despite having the services of same bang-n-bust Chaudhrys, Nawaz had in 1997–is trying the raise the issue of credibility of judiciary to salvage itself out of the quagmire.
As one of the veteran-Jiyala put it that short of a martial law President Zardari has chalked out a plan to fetch this government–or should we call it misery–till mid September. Chances of an identical climax which the nation witnessed with the departure of the then Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and later the then two-third-majority-laden Premier Mian Nawaz Sharif are not on the cards. Instead the defying the judiciary and playing with their image (taking up all cases against the government instantly to rub it on and on while allowing the Sharifs to march uninterrupted on stay-orders) will remain the main course meal for the party, he added.
September is what many insiders pointed out as the possible new general election month in the country because they believe that somehow all political parties including those not even in the parliament agree to the notion that minus Army everything else can be worked out. Perhaps knowing this very well, we can hear Imran Khan screaming his heart out to urge Nawaz leaguers to quit assemblies so that fresh elections could be called before the upcoming Senate elections. Just to refresh your memories let me remind you that Senate elections can be called off if any of the electoral unit (all four provincial assemblies and national parliament) is not operational or missing.
But rest assure that if Imran fails in his assignment then Khakis won’t mind shifting their hopes on the arrival of our known former adventurer Pervaiz Musharraf to shake the calming waters of our politics. What Musharraf will bring to the party is nothing but more chaos and that’s why his arrival date has been readjusted to ensure that turmoil just continues.
So is it all about stopping the Peoples Party from gaining a simple majority in the Senate or has it got to do with a bit of Afghanistan, a bit of never-ending mistrust between Zardari and Khakis or is it because of many of the main actors on display are nearing their logical end of terms (in 2013 we will see CJP Chaudhry Iftikhar, then President Zardari and eventually Gen. Kiyani completing their terms in office) and want to leave a legacy or workout an extension or should we call it re-election in case of President Zardari. We will certainly try to come up with answers to these queries in our upcoming columns.
With this background in mind, President Zardari will have another late night meeting at the presidency in this regard tonight with his core team where Prime Minister Gilani will also be invited but only after President has done the basic scheming with his trusted team. Well why Mr. Gilani is not in his trusted team, we will dwell on this some other time but with the likes of Barbeque Awan, some doctors, even spin doctors like Haqqani and some estate moguls of Bahria fame, President certainly feel more comfortable to discuss the matters of ‘national importance’ than with his handpicked Premier. Is it because of his MBBS status or something else, will discuss later.
But one must appreciate Mr. Gilani for a radical transformation which belies many historic facts. While hearing the Premier posing questions to the real establishment of the country that who allowed Bin Laden in the country and then telling the judiciary to stay within their constitutional limits, one of his jail mates sitting next to me in the galleries remarked that is it the same Gilani who used to call Adiala jail superintendent “His Excellency”? A journo sitting next to me responded that if Sharifs start reading revolutionary poems of Jalib, why not Gilani.
When verbosity (or a resolution) becomes a yardstick to determine the strength of any institution and ground realities just don’t match the oft repeated commitments and statements of the actors reading their respective scripts, it only leads to one conclusion and that is the worthlessness of the system(s) in place.
The ping-pong being played amongst three institutions of the state; i.e parliament, judiciary and the army and the way it is observed with all elements of sensation and particular agendas by the media gurus is leading the entire nation towards stupor. Yet the game is not over by any means because still it is not about the institutions, its’ all about the personal egos and covering up not only the misdeeds and bad governance but also the foreign-stalked riches.