Despair and despondency

By Kamran Shafi

YES, yes I know. But first something that I wrote on the spur of the moment last week, on the day that the by-elections were postponed, and saved for this column:

“How in God’s name did Rehman Malik even dare to, on his own, think up a scheme such as the one he smacked the country in the face with just today? How the devil did the secretary of the Election Commission dare to order a postponement in the by-elections for two months on his own? Why, for goodness sake, did the collective leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party not know what its interior czar and de facto interior minister, pizzazz and all, was up to? But wait. Where, pray, was the chief election commissioner; where were the members of the Commission while all this argy bargy went on?

“Whilst we are well aware of the man’s extreme audacity already, could Rehman Malik have been as impudent and as presumptuous to, on his own, cook up what he did: lying to the Frontier chief minister about the other three provinces requesting a delay on grounds of bad law and order, and then instructing the Frontier government to write to the Election Commission to request a postponement too? And asking the federal interior secretary to follow up with telephone calls to the chief secretary, Frontier?

“Asif Zardari says he did not know about the bolt out of the blue that hit the country. Could Rehman Malik be so impertinent as to not even tell his benefactor that he was about to turn everything on its head, most particularly something that concerned very critically the chief minister of Punjab-in-waiting, Shahbaz Sharif, who too was participating in very same by-elections? And who had actually submitted his nomination papers from constituencies in Sialkot and Lahore on the very day that Master Malik was turning his tricks?

“And remember, Shahbaz Sharif, more than anything else, is the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-N which is in a coalition with the PPP (of which Rehman Malik is now considered a ‘central leader’, mark), both in the Punjab and in the centre. Indeed, in a strong coalition in both governments, particularly in the centre where its Ishaq Dar is finance minister at this very fraught time.

“So, what the blazes was Rehman Malik thinking when he went on his one-man demolition spree? Was he not aware that the coalition was already under extreme stress on the judges’ restoration issue, made worse by the vacillating and shifting stands of the, you guessed it, his very own PPP of which he is now, let us repeat, a ‘central leader’?

“Or was it, simply, a back-handed slap to the PML-N, warning it to stay within its boots, that the final arbiter on all matters was the People’s Party? For if it was, the coalition does not have much time.

“To show that it was nothing of the kind, that it was simply a case of an arrogant little man out of his wits in the giddying heights he occupies, Asif Zardari should take the most stringent action against Rehman Malik (such as despatching him back to London from whence he came, and where Malik, reportedly, sits atop a personal business empire worth gazillions), remembering that even Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain who joint-led his party to a crushing defeat only three months ago, even he is laughing up his sleeve. To say nothing of the loud-mouthed Sheikh Rashid ‘Tulli’ who even lost his security deposit in the last elections; even one such as he is laughing up his sleeve!

“Save the coalition to save the party, Mr Zardari. And do it immediately if not sooner. Otherwise ‘THEY’ will devour you one by one.

“Let me add that tears well out of my eyes as I write this. I am heartbroken as I write this. For I have seen the establishment-driven politics of the late eighties and the early nineties up close and personal. What a sad, sad time it was, when two promising political leaders in the prime of youth were pitted against one another by those same forces that are doing their all to derail democracy once again.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I wrote on the day that Rehman Malik did what he did. A week later, negotiations between the PPP and PML-N concerning the restoration of the judges sacked by the then COAS of the Pakistan Army, now retired General Pervez Musharraf, have broken down spreading despondency and despair across the land.

Was Rehman Malik’s crude action a precursor to this? Had the PPP already made up its mind that rather than going along with political forces opposed to military dictatorship, it preferred to follow the dictates of the former Army House, now the President’s Lodge, Rawalpindi Cantonment? More so because the illegal occupant of the Lodge is underwritten by the US government? And that a slap had to be administered to the PML-N so that it got the message?

It is most critical to note too, that of all the very good, bright people the party has, elected representatives all of them, people like Raza Rabbani and Khurshid Shah and Naveed Qamar and Qamaruzzaman Kaira among a host of others, who does Asif Zardari take to London for final talks with Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif? You guessed it. The self-same Rehman Malik, bolstered by none other than that rather well-known personality Hussain Haqqani, the Islamic Republic’s ambassador-designate to the Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave.

While the PPP leader was assisted by these non-elected factotums, the PML-N leaders were in the company of the good Khawaja Asif and the very bright Ishaq Dar, one of whom sits in the National Assembly and the other in the Senate. Both are also ministers in the federal cabinet.

What was the message here then? That far from Rehman Malik getting sacked he was still the most important advisor to the PPP co-chairman? And that the PPP is metamorphosing into a more undemocratic entity so watch out everyone? Everyone should jolly well watch out if Rehman Malik was even halfway serious when he allegedly told a TV presenter that he’d match the media “punch for punch”.

It is ironical in the extreme, nay a tragedy of unimaginable proportions, that the Pakistan People’s Party which has suffered by far the most at the hands of the establishment — its founder cruelly murdered on the gallows, his daughter cruelly assassinated in broad daylight, Asif Zardari himself locked up for years on end, its workers lashed mercilessly — is playing right into the hands of its mortal enemy. Ours is an ill-starred country, folks. Mainly because so few of us stand up to be counted. So serve us right I suppose.

PS. It will be a wonder if the PPP can weather, on its own, the storm about to be unleashed by a newly rampant (because of the establishment’s, read the PPP’s, arrogance towards My Lord Iftikhar?) Supreme Court’s locking horns with the media. The fun begins, everyone, so hold on to your seats.

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk