Pak Tea House

by Faisal.K

When we were having elections in this country, the mood was tense but upbeat. Everyone was watching Pakistan and its politics to see what leadership would emerge from the great ashes of one-man rule, or what we frequently refer to as “dictatorship.” I am sure the truth is quite stark and shining in front of all now.

I often have arguments with my friends because i insist that democracy, in the very western form of the word, is not applicable to Pakistan. It’s not that i do not want the average person here to have any rights or a good living standard, but that we need to have leaders who would listen and actually engage in some work to solve the various crises at hand in Pakistan.

The people who have won the last elections have till now made absolutely “zero concrete steps” towards true democracy. In fact if one would have to analyze the current government’s modus operandi, it is not more than a Dealocracy.

The evidence of this lies in the fact that they are trying to solve all problems in Pakistan by striking deals with the parties involved on both sides of the issue. For instance:

a) Problem in FATA

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This is a forcefully eloquent piece on the incidence of violence in Karachi. PTH does not necessarily agree with its contents and the arguments - by  Rukhe Zehra Zaidi

It seems that recycling storylines and repeat performances are not solely the prerogative of cinema and theatre. In Pakistan, the plot of politics is often repeated and rehashed until the performance has become a fine tuned and much rehearsed drama on the ongoing tussle between democracy and the military. Dictators replace democrats, democrats negotiate and bargain with each other and the army, and the masses stand by much like the citizens of fair Verona caught in the crossfire of the fighting between the Montagues and the Capulets. And although the actors change on a seasonal basis, the transition is now almost seamless and perfect. Costume changes require minimal refitting as the Ayubs make way for the Zias and Musharrafs, and the MMA of today steps into the shoes of the Islamic Democratic Alliance of yesterday. And repeated though it might be, the performance is by no means dull as bloody assassinations, behind the scenes plotting and scheming, horse-trading, and even exploding helicopters all add to the political experience in Pakistan. (more…)

By Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Apr 2 (IPS) - Pakistan’s new prime minister has announced
what many term a `revolutionary’ agenda: continue the `war on terror’
but on Pakistan’s terms, lift the long standing ban on student and
trade unions, raise minimum wages, revoke `black’ media laws, provide
relief for farmers and observe austerity.

Yousuf Raza Gillani revealed his ambitious initial 100 day plan for
his government after obtaining an unprecedented unanimous vote of
confidence in the National Assembly. The plan has breathed fresh air
into this nuclear-armed South Asian nation where military-dominated
politics has long been marked by acrimony, bitterness and
vengefulness.

A new in-house advertisement on the popular television channel Geo TV
captures the mood: clips of various politicians bantering, smiling
and laughing. The slogan, `Jeo, muskura kar’ (`Live life with a
smile’).

The country that gave the world its first Muslim woman prime
minister, Benazir Bhutto, now boasts the world’s first Muslim woman
Speaker of the Assembly. Dr Fehmida Mirza, 51, thrice elected from
her hometown Badin in Bhutto’s native Sindh province, sometimes looks
startlingly like her slain leader and friend. So Gillani could be
forgiven, in his inaugural speech, for twice inadvertently referring
to her as `Madam Prime Minister” instead of “Madam Speaker”. (more…)

a typically immature rant by kinkminos

Hear, hear.

With an absolute lack of cynicism i’d like to wish Mr Gillani and the soon to be formed government of Pakistan a memorable term in office. (Memorable for the people that is, not for them.)

Perhaps the best thing that can be said (at this stage, as he has still to prove himself worthy of the post) of Mr Gillani’s election to the office of PM is that his winning means that the other candidate, Ch. Perv. Elahi, is not First Minister (no mere silver lining, imho).

Still, the optimism (thank God there is still some vestige of it left in me, i don’t know why or how) is tinged with a sense of oh-no-here-we-go-againism. For while the freshly minted PM (more…)

 ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Monday elected PPP’s Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani as the new prime minister of the country with thumping majority.

Gilani bagged 264 votes. The rival candidate Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, fielded by the Pakistan Muslim League-Q and its allies secured 42 votes.

In a maiden speech on the floor of National Assembly after he was elected as Prime Minister, he said, “I request the national assembly as my first job to pass a resolution for UN probe into the assassination of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto.”

Elaborating the top priorities of the new government, the newly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani vowed to take all out efforts for the supremacy of parliament.

He also said the National Assembly should pass another resolution to apologize to the nation for hanging of Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto.

Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani also said that he would issue the immediate directives for release of the held judges.

Gillani also vowed to take efforts for the resolution of multiple problems of people, saying, “ We realize that the people of the country confront several problems including shortage of electrify.”

“Today, democracy has been restored thanks to the great sacrifice of Benazir Bhutto,” the 55-year-old Gilani, wearing a dark suit and tie, said in his first speech to parliament.

“I invite all political forces to join us because the country is facing such a crisis that a single man cannot save it,” he said.

The highs and lows of the last year have politicised hitherto indifferent sections of society and created a new impetus for democratisation. This is a welcome development. But a democratic polity is built neither by dictator’s decree nor Supreme Court rulings. Of course, the ouster of the dictator and the restoration of the Supreme Court judges that defied him are both symbolically important, but neither should be confused with democracy and the creation of a rights-respecting society.

By Ali Dayan Hasan

Today’s inauguration of the new National Assembly is being heralded by many as a new dawn in Pakistan’s political history. A grand coalition of the country’s major political forces will assume government shortly and its stated agenda, as enunciated by Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif on March 9, has won national acclaim.

For now, the army appears to have opted for a strategic retreat from the political arena. Its former leader, President Pervez Musharraf, though characteristically unrepentant and unashamed, nevertheless stands humiliated and diminished. It is a rare moment of vindication for the country’s political class, its democrats and its highly mobilised civil society.

But history teaches us that this moment is as fleeting as it is special.

It would be naïve to assume that one general election that threw up a politically credible result despite a massively flawed process has transformed power relations in the country. Pakistan remains a praetorian state structured and geared to service, above all, the needs of a military that remains every bit as convinced as ever that Pakistan’s national interest is synonymous with its institutional priorities and the preservation of its position as the final arbiter of political power and patronage. (more…)

Nawaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari and Asfandyar Wali join hands during a lunch hosted by Zardari to demonstrate their parliamentary strength here on Wednesday. afp

Glad that our voice, faint as it might be, is being heard.

Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic Magazine also noted the views expressed at the Pak Tea House on the results of the recent elections.

A quote from Breaking down Pakistan’s election results by Kanishk Tharoor:

Defeat for the Islamists?

An item less reported in the western press is the abject performance of Islamist parties in the election. The MMA, the major alliance of Islamist parties, won only three seats in the National Assembly. In 2002, the MMA won 63 seats in the country’s parliament. Tellingly, the godfather of the MMA and the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Islam, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, lost in his constituency. The Islamists were expected to do well in the northwest, where Pakistani forces have been fighting Taliban and al-Qaida-allied militants in recent months.

In the supposed Islamist heartlands of the North-West Frontier Provinces and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Islamists won less than 5% of the vote. Instead, the secular Pashtun nationalist ANP made huge gains after a costly week in which the party’s candidates and supporters came under routine attack from militants. The secular PPP also made large gains in the region.

It should be heartening to fighters of the “war on terrorism” that secularists can triumph in the rugged “havens” of al-Qaida and Taliban-sympathy.

Read the full piece here.

by kinkminos

phew!
An election!
A General Election at that!
Not, however, a General’s Election. At least not to the extent that all of us priggish pettifoggers had predicted.

Shaheed Benazir and Ghazi Nawaz have won a significant (but perhaps not significant enough) majority of parliamentary seats. Apart from the terrifying spectre of sorry Brother Asif as First Minister, that’s a good thing, no? The King is dead. Long live the King!

So what are we, or rather they going to do now? Perhaps consult navigational charts to see what needs to be done to correct the direction of the ship of state? Yeah, right! (more…)

by iFaqeer 

About two years ago, Cemendtaur and I started an Urdu language podcast we called Azad Karachi Radio. Yes, the name is intended to generate some discussion and carry a punch. And if you want to hear why we named it that, do listen to the first two programs or so.

To cut a long story short, the program has been offline for a bit, but we’re back with Program 10, the first of 2008. It has guest Mehdi Hasnain join me and Cemendtaur to discuss the American Elections, the Pakistani situation and events with Ayesha Siddiqa in California as well as a media item.

The program mentions, amongst other things: (more…)

posted by Soniah Kamal

In a Q & A with the Financial Times (February 8th, 200 concerning the upcoming elections in Pakistan, novelist Tariq Ali stipulates “Very few people in Pakistan believe that the elections will be fair. The interim government is packed with Musharraf cronies, the Election Commission likewise. The only question is whether the results will be cleverly or crudely rigged.”

From all reports neither a clever nor crude rigging has proven to be the case. Good for Musharraf that he ‘allowed’ the people their say, and very good for us the people that International watchdogs closely monitored the proceedings. In fact, over all the elections were conducted peacefully with no discernible rigging and the results speak as much: the opposition parties won the majority of seats, this despite the President’s rather ominous prediction that his party was going to win… (What was his motive behind this? If the voting was not to be rigged, why give statements casting blemish on ‘free and fair’? Or was he simply full of faith that indeed the people, the Qaum, they love him?)

Well, whatever the President’s state of mind, the state of the country seems on the mend thanks to the people who turned out to vote. And double thanks to the voters in the northern areas for the defeat of the Taliban-types though one must keep in mind that the Taliban type parties boycotted the elections in protest of the Lal Masjid incident, and so were not available to be voted in. Also boycotting the election was Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaaf party in protest of the ousting of the Supreme Court Justices. Had these parties been standing, would the election results be the same? Might there have even been higher voter turn out? Out of 80 million registered voters in the country only around 35 % showed up. Why? A general apathy after the President’s predictions? A frustration with the same old political parties standing anew? A fear of random bombings and mayhem?

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Slate noted Pak Tea House’s comments on how the election results in Pakistan proved the global corporate media wrong; and quoted this from our post on the elections 2008:

“These elections are also a slap on the face of the global corporate media (and their backers, the global military machine) that had painted Pakistan as a breeding ground for Islamic extremism and dare I say terrorism.”

I am happy that some people have bothered to read this. The Economist and earlier the Newsweek has been downright unfair, imperial and arrogant proving that orientalism is not a curse of the past.

Raza Rumi

Pakistan Labour Party’s spokesperson and a Left activist Mr Farooq Tariq wrote this essay entitled,  “A Golden prospect to oust Musharraf” after the recent results of the election. Interestingly, Mr Tariq boycotted the election under the umbrella of the All Pakistan Democratic Movement (APDM). Now his renewed enthusiasm to make capital out of this victory of mainstream parties was a little hard to digest. Sitting on the margins and assailing the credibility of the political process is the last thing that Pakistan’s political class, especially by those who claim to be progressive, should be indulging in.

So I wrote this little note to him - hope he reads it.

 Dear Mr Farooq Tariq

thanks for this analysis - but with due apologies your post dated defence of boycotting the election does not inspire much confidence. If anything the Left undermined itself by allying with General Hameed Gul and Qazi Hussain Ahmed. And now the strategy of the so called “pragmatic” political parties - the PPP and PML-N - to defeat the King’s party against all odds, has succeeded, you are terming it as a golden prospect. If anything the APDM contributed to a low turnout, cast aspersions on the legitimacy of the political parties - had it not boycotted the electoral process would have led to a parliament that might have had a two thirds majority of anti-establishment forces.

This will be remembered as yet another histrocial mistake of the Left or lack thereof in Pakistan. Pray, tell me how will you bring about a revolution while working with Qazi Hussain Ahmed? It escapes my humble mind and limited understanding of politics and history.This is my personal view and I am not trying to undermine any individual or party.

Read the full piece by Mr Tariq below (more…)

Raza Rumi 

The election results notwithstanding the irregularities and fears of rigging, are pretty straightforward. They undo the Musharraf paradigm of ousting the two mainstream parties from the political arena; and instituting real democracy that is hostage to the bogey of Islamism and local feudal cliques through non-party local governments.

These elections are also a slap on the face of the global corporate media (and their backers, the global military machine) that had painted Pakistan as a breeding ground for Islamic extremism and dare I say terrorism.

The erstwhile sponsored face of Islamism - the Mutihada Majlis-i-Amal- has been routed in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The people of the NWFP have outrightly rejected this rentier class that uses Islamisation and extols Talibanisation for power and pelf. The secular and moderate parties have won the overwhelming majority of the vote.

When you allow the people of Pakistan to vote freely, they shun extremism.

Nothing could be more satisfying.

P.S. Our writer Yasser Latif’s predictions are close to the emerging tally - King’s Party has lost more and Nawaz Sharif has gained more - but Yasser should take up forecasting now..

This report by  Strategic Forecasting, Inc. - may not be exact in the numbers but its analysis is pretty good:
—————————

Summary
The allies of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf have fared poorly in
the South Asian country’s Feb. 18 parliamentary elections. The election
results mean Musharraf has become a lame-duck president, that the
successes by Islamists in Pakistan’s previous round of parliamentary
elections were a fluke and that the current round of elections were
reasonably free and fair. (more…)

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Human Rights Watch has put our learned Attorney General in a tight spot once again - Earlier, he had to suffer on account of his telephonic conversations on a high profile case concerning late Benazir Bhutto and her husband. He had to resign after that entire saga. This time it is about the forthcoming election. Read the story below:

Pakistan: Attorney General Aware of ‘Massive’ Election-Rigging Plans

Audio Recording Calls Into Question Government’s Commitment to Fair Elections

(New York, February 15, 200 – In an audio recording obtained by Human Rights Watch (http://hrw.org/audio/2008/urdu/pakistan0208.htm), Pakistan’s Attorney General Malik Qayyum stated that upcoming parliamentary elections will be “massively rigged,” Human Rights Watch said today. (more…)

Guest Post by Wasim Arif

The forthcoming elections (or should I say selections!) are expected to be controversial. That said there are individuals contesting in this election that richly deserve support and should be elected, one such person is Munnaza Abdul Razzaq who is standing in Lahore NA121.

Munnaza Razaq is a unique candidate and deserves support for she is not a party political animal but simply a lay person like you and me who has had enough of the same scoundrels ruling over us and has chose to make a stand by standing in Lahore NA121. An article in The News alerted me to her candidature and instantly secured her my support. The full article is shown below: (more…)

Results of a new survey are interesting and confirm what we already know:

• Pakistani Support for Al Qaeda, Bin Laden Plunges;
• Moderate Parties Surge;
• 70 Percent Want President Musharraf to Resign:

“In dramatic reversal from just a few months ago, Pakistanis have turned against
Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban. And in an equally stunning
turnaround, in advance of Pakistan’s upcoming February 18th elections, nearly
two-thirds of Pakistanis now intend to vote for the moderate political parties on
the ballot.

These results are from a new nationwide public opinion survey conducted from
January 19 to 29, 2008 across Pakistan, covering both urban and rural areas and
all provinces. The survey, with face-to-face interviews of 1,157 Pakistanis and a
margin of error of 3 percent, was conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow: The
Center for Public Opinion, D3 Systems and the Pakistan Institute for Public
Opinion. (more…)