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Capital Suggestion

Farrukh Saleem on 20, Feb 2012 | 5 Comments | in Category: Insight

Farrukh Saleem

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On one side is the Supreme Court’s order which is categorical, clear-cut and specific. On the other side is the party head whose near-dictatorial powers are all-encompassing both in scope as well as content. And in between the ‘devil and the deep blue sea’ is Makhdoom Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani knows full well that a categorical, clear-cut, specific order exists. Our chief executive certainly has the ability to comply with the order. And yet Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has failed to comply. Why? Why is PM Gilani behaving the way he is? According to Animal Behaviour Online, “When a behaviour is observed, perhaps the first question that comes to mind is ‘why’.”

To begin with, PM Gilani is facing little or no public pressure from the court of public opinion. Coalition party heads, for their own vested interests, are siding with an indicted PM. And that says a lot about our personal as well as cultural values. Personal values are about “what is good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful and desirable.” Cultural values are “commonly held standards of what is acceptable or unacceptable, important or unimportant, right or wrong.”

Some four years ago, 77,664 voters of Multan-IV voted for Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani. Some four years ago, the PPP’s party head made the MNA from Multan-IV the prime minister of Pakistan. Now there is no pressure from the 77,664 voters and the party head, courtesy the 18th Amendment, is more powerful than ever before. What then is the most logical choice for Gilani? Whose interests do you think Gilani should be serving – his 77,664 voters’ or his party head’s?

Ethonomics is a field of inquiry that studies the ‘prioritisation of values within a particular value system’. The Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map has grouped Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Angola, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Nigeria as ‘survival communities’. Unfortunately, almost all survival communities are rated ‘very corrupt’ in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Voters in survival communities lack food, shelter and clothing and thus share a value system that is based on ‘survival values’. These are communities where religion is important, deference to authority is indoctrinated and rejection of divorce is prevalent with high levels of national pride and a severe lack of trust between and among citizens.

The other side of the coin represents prosperous, welfare communities where the provision of food, shelter and clothing is available to most. This group includes countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, Finland and Canada. All of these countries are rated as the ‘least corrupt’ in the CPI. Voters in this group of countries take their physical and economic survival for granted and thus share a value system that is based on ‘self-expression values’ – morality, rule of law etc.

Pakistani voters – especially rural – are primarily driven by survival values. And survival, courtesy the 18th Amendment, is now more in the hands of the party head than ever before. What then is the most logical choice for Gilani?

How valuable is it for our leaders to create a real value? No wonder a ‘fish rots from the head down’. No wonder Imran Khan is winning hearts – if not minds.

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S Nasrullah

Let’s pretend that the SC judgment was against a Bureaucrat, member of the Establishment, a Businessman or a Common man – the immediate effect would have been that the indicted person would have unceremoniously incarcerated and languished in jail for the full term of the sentence. But then Yousaf Raza Gillani is a PPP appointed PM and is a Jiyala par excellence and is a volunteer to go to the altar on his own accord, and also represented by a brilliant Jiyala Barrister who happens to be a MFP (Most Favored Person) in the SC reckoning. The sum total of it all is that YRG continues his routine as the PM of the country, irrespective of the fact that he has been indicted by none other than a Large Bench of the Apex Court. He couldn’t care less about the pertinence or practices of Law. The Coalition partners in the Government and his NA comrades have assured their support to him in his time of trial and tribulation. These final months before the General Election, they dread losing their power that guarantees them unobstructed and unchallenged authority to outlay desperate last ditch strategies to win their seats by hook or by crook.

If Imran Khan is winning the hearts of the youth of Pakistan, it is his master stroke of genius. The youth of Pakistan are the National Assets and in them the Nation’s survival, subsistence, strength and standing is symbolized. In matters of missionary zeal, it is the heart that comes to foreplay more than the mind. It is the stout hearted people who dauntlessly accept Herculean Tasks that the feeble minds prevent them embarking on Mission Impossible.
NASAH

Every MNA who gets elected by a majority of people is a well qualified candidate in that respect to become the Prime Minister.

We used to consider him a spineless jellyfish — too polite to be PM — but not any more — looks like the pussy cat had surgery done on his spine and got two stainless steel rods put in his back — with the right amount of testosterone.

No more “miaow” for the army or the judicial big cats — he has turned into a Saber-tooth Tiger twice the size of the big cats — roars like a lightening thunder when provoked — and has become aggressively territorial to boot.

Like any elected MNA Mr. Gilani represents the majority of the people that has kept his party coalition in power for 4 years — making him the longest and the tallest PM in the history of the civilian rule in Pakistan.

Anonymous

The Baloch nationalists may have an issue with you about the Baloch assembly representing majority in Balochistan…

Anonymous

‘Survival communities’ get survivalists as leaders. Survivalists’ goals are least concerned with morals or ethics or wider interests of the society….Hence Pakistani survivalist leadership places funds and abodes abroad.

Whether the leadership represents majority of the people is moot considering less than 25% of the total eleigible vote does not represent the majority – just that the non-voting silent majority deserves the crooks they get if they can’t be bothered voting.

The day an eleceted PM goes against an unelected all powerful party head in national interests, is the day he may come close to having a spine – else he serves at the pleasure of another head – be it a khaki one or an unelected appointed party one.
S Nasrullah

Is it not amazing that an indicted PM is accorded a Hero’s welcome by his Coalition partners in the NA? Are those elected Reps worth the salt and trustworthy to implement what they promised to their constituents? You are absolutely right Mr Saleem that: ” To begin with, PM Gilani is facing little or no public pressure from the court of public opinion. Coalition party heads, for their own vested interests, are siding with an indicted PM. And that says a lot about our personal as well as cultural values”. The Arab Spring has written a glorious Chapter of Success when People Unite, they can accomplish the imponderable. With a very weak – rather a friendly Opposition, who dread upsetting the apple cart that promises them their turn to govern in due course, if they bide time and let the kleptomaniacs complete their term.

The nation has forgotten the lesson they learnt while re-instating the Original SC configuration of CJ IFtikhar M. Chaudhry and his suspended colleagues, when the corrupt government of AZ/YRG were coining one excuse after another to delay and postpone the promised actions until the suspended Judges succumb to the Government designs of putting them under leash. And when the Mass Movement stirred, the government clearly saw their imminent downfall and went on their knees to issue Executive Order for the Reinstatement of CJ Chaudhry and his Team. It is now discernible that PML(N) has no predilection to flex its muscle to pressurize the indicted PM Gillani to resign and let there be another caretaker Administration to prepare and execute plans for fair and transparent General Elections under 20th Amendment.

In the Interim Elections – to fill-in the vacated Seats in the NA, we have seen the similar pattern of PPP manipulating its money and magic to get majority and that portends disaster for the future of Pakistan. A dying Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, in his death wish had prayed for the solidarity and longevity of Pakistan and the Providence may have consented to keep the country in existence in whatever shape or form. A country that owes its origin to the Grace of God is subsisting on that Grace for all that long.

Capital Suggestion

Farrukh Saleem

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