Saturday, June 23, 2012

Pakistan: Elections but then what?

EDITORIAL: THE FRONTIER POST
As the nation has fallen into political straits, calls are coming out from certain quarters for snap general elections. But what for? None of the callers is explaining this. Certainly, not a single heart would weep on the street if the entire gaggle of incumbent rulers, both at the centre and in the provinces, goes packing, so inept, so incompetent and so ineffective has it demonstrated it to be. But if the snap poll is merely for a change of faces, then what is the point in having it at all? It would be a sheer meaningless expensive venture without which the polity indeed would be quite well off. But if it is for a change in substance, then nothing like it. Nonetheless, that is where lies the rub. None of the callers gives the sense if this is what has actually prompted his call. And none tells the masses what it would be after the snap polls. They all remain focused on recounting the collapses, foibles and failures of the incumbents. But of this the masses need no telling at all when they are the ones who actually are bearing all the brunt of the incumbents' betrayal of the electorate. On this count, the masses are indeed far more informed than are the callers of snap polls because of their personal experiences and observations of their daily lives. What the masses need to know is what would be on offer for them if the snap elections throw up new faces. Do the callers have some firmed up plans in their bags to tackle their problems of bread and butter that the incumbents have so spectacularly failed to handle any gratifyingly? And on that score they find the slate of each and every caller all empty. None of them shows even the slightest inkling if at all he has done any homework in this regard. It is only rhetorical chants and vague promises that they all dish out on this plane. No concrete plan or idea they speak out. Indeed, Nawaz Sharif, for one, stays stuck in the past primarily, with the future attracting him only to throw up some empty slogans here and there. And even about past he is blatantly untruthful. He would have his listeners believe that his rules were a golden era, forgetting that he cannot befool the people as that generation, most of it still in the prime of life, that lived through his atrocious rules is yet alive. And it knows what his rules actually were. Those were no lesser the times of horrible assailments on judiciary, sidelining of the parliament, emasculating of the ministerial cabinet, ruling the country through a kitchen cabinet, and the mad pursuit of stinking practice of filthy cronyism, favouritism and nepotism. Corruption in high places too was having the heady days in those times. Nawaz indeed has much explaining to do for his past. In the popular eye, he is no saint he is painting himself to be. His fawning party acolytes and a fondling section of properly palmed-off media may be projecting him as a political giant. But in the popular estimation, he is just a dwarf, a mere mediocre politico, no icon at all. Yet if he wants to impress the masses as a reinvented democrat and a reinvented reformer, he must leave his past behind and talk of the future specifically in terms of concrete plans and ideas for the country's economic rejuvenation, the amelioration of the people's lot and tackling of their nagging woes, the uplift of the nation's dignity and stature in the world community. No slogans would do. And Imran Khan must understand that Pakistan is not just judiciary but many more things. It is a country peopled with 180 million citizens with varied hopes, aspirations and expectations, all with varied needs, wants and demands, and all wanting urgently the means to live fuller human lives meaningfully. And corruption alone is not their problem, particularly when it has seeped down in the veins of the country's body politic so incisively as to have become part and parcel of the national life. The people's problems are not only multifarious but in multitudes. They go much beyond corruption, which is just a part of the huge malaise that afflicts our polity so hurtfully. Khan must comprehend the mind-boggling complexities and intricacies of the afflictions blighting this country's masses horrendously, think out the ways and means to address those ailments, and speak out the specific cures in detail. His current discourse shows not insight; it shows only mere superficiality. Indeed if the protagonists of snap polls do no homework, they too would be caught unprepared for the ticklish job of governing this now-difficult country as have been the incumbents. This holds good as much for Khan as for Nawaz; indeed, for that matter, for the whole lot of those grandees squatting in the opposition camp, crying "Snap Elections".

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