Wednesday, July 11, 2018
#Pakistan - #PTI manifesto
The new manifesto is a different ball game and sets extremely ambitious targets. It envisages some 10m jobs and no less than 5m low-cost housing units. It vows to bring back to Pakistan looted wealth and revive at least 100 industries.
The document ticks economy as the most crucial area for whosoever comes to power. In a significant statement of intent that will have a direct effect on politics in the area, the 2018 document backs the creation of a new province in southern Punjab.
Among its other pledges is the goal to transform Karachi, but it is more careful in its choice of words when it comes Balochistan, although it finds it safe enough to ‘champion’ reconciliation in this most complicated province.
Quite in the manner in which it is often credited with bringing the professional class to assert their presence in the affairs of the state, the PTI says it will have experts from abroad to look after the construction of the 5m houses it seeks to build.
The manifesto also emphasises the green revolution and speaks of the party’s penchant for tree plantation as a statement of its intent to improve the environment. This is obviously a tall order, especially when the PTI is up against a PML-N model which can be accused of many things but can never be faulted for inaction.
The fight against corruption is central to the existence of the PTI as a party to power politics in the country. Much of its political message revolves around the need to uproot the ghosts of the past that plague the system.
In the 2013 manifesto, the PTI had promised to end corruption within three months. However, evidence that targets are sometimes impossible to meet was provided in the speech that Imran Khan made during the launch of the 2018 manifesto on Monday.
He admitted that the PTI was unable to evolve a system of accountability in KP, where the party has just completed a five-year term in power, and where some of its initiatives, such as the ones in the infrastructure sector, have come in for criticism over a lack of urgency and direction.
The loud, uncompromising tone of the manifesto will ensure an even stricter monitoring of the implementation of the ambitious plans. Mr Khan must have no illusions. By his claims he has ensured that the whole country is watching him.
#Pakistan - #Election2018 - #BilourFamily - #ANP targeted again
That the Awami National Party (ANP) has vowed to contest the elections despite having one of its leaders killed in a targeted assassination speaks of true resilience and the sacrifices for democracy’s sake that should not have to be made.
Haroon Bilour was murdered on Tuesday night in a suicide blast in Peshawar, later claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP); leaving 21 dead and more than 60 injured. The party has announced a three-day peaceful mourning period. The PTI and PPP halted electioneering for one day. This is only right and just. For democracy will only blossom when all stakeholders stand united against a common and deadly threat.
There, are, of course many ways to ‘engineer’ elections. A point well understood by the TTP; particularly in the run-up to the 2013 polls. Back then, the militant group urged a boycott against the popular vote. The system of parliamentary elections, it argued, was a western invention standing diametrically opposed to Shariah. Indeed, it singled out all rallies held by the ANP, the PPP as well as the MQM. For these political parties were on the TTP hit list. Not least because the latter was eyeing control of the country’s commercial hub: Karachi.
The ANP had long been deemed a ‘legitimate’ target due to its support of Army operations in Swat (2009) and in North Waziristan (2014) to clear the areas of terrorists. Indeed, Haroon’s father — Bashir Bilour — was killed in a TTP-claimed attack the end of 2012. All of which raises questions as to the establishment’s responsibility when it comes to keeping politicians safe from those who would label them anti-state. The Army talks a lot about the sacrifices it has made in the war on terror at home. And it is true. No one is disputing that. But the uniformed and non-uniformed are on the same side on this front. Thus the military apparatus should perhaps stop momentarily and consider the heavy losses borne by the civilian leadership. Just as the Chief Justice, in light of the recent assassination, may wish to revisit his order that provided for the withdrawal of VVIP security.
Be that as it may, the burden of blame is a collective one. And it is to be shared by all sides equally; including those political parties that did not stand as firmly against the resurgent and violent religious right as they should have. Even now they have meekly accepted the launching of violent extremists into the electoral fray. Their rhetoric is toxic and will only rupture the democratic system from within.
The whole of Pakistan, including all branches of the state must stand with the ANP as it vows not to be beaten into submission. President Asfandyar Wali has said that that the party will continue to simultaneously fight terrorism and protect democracy; while noting that patience is wearing thin.
Thus the question remains as to whether the state apparatus is with them.
Pakistan's secular Pashtun party defiant after Taliban bomber kills 20 activists
Jibran Ahmad & Syed Raza Hassan
Pakistan’s Awami National Party vowed on Wednesday not to be swayed from its resolve to face down terrorists, a day after a Taliban suicide bombing killed a score of its activists, including the son of a party leader assassinated in 2012.
The secular party, drawn chiefly from the Pashtun ethnic group that also provides the Taliban with many recruits, has long competed with it and other Islamist groups in Pakistan’s northwestern region bordering Afghanistan.
“We want peace on our soil and will stand with our people,” said senior party leader Mian Iftikhar Hussain, who lost his only son in a militant attack eight years ago.
“One thing is clear: We will stand in the field against the terrorists,” he told Reuters.
Among those killed in Tuesday night’s bombing in Peshawar, capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was senior leader Haroon Bilour, who inherited the anti-Taliban mantle of his father, himself killed in a 2012 suicide bombing there.
The ANP’s insistence that Pakistan should have a secular government instead of rule by Islamic law has made it a target for the Pakistani Taliban, which groups militant and sectarian bands that have waged war on the state for more than a decade.
Once a leading force in socially conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the party and its leaders have spent five years rebuilding after the Taliban killed hundreds of its activists ahead of Pakistan’s last election in 2013.
More than 700 party workers were killed in attacks during and after the election that year, when the ANP won only two national assembly seats.
Last year, it resumed campaigning on its anti-militancy platform, holding workers’ conventions and rallies in the province and the southern city of Karachi, which is home to more than 5 million Pashtuns.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-politics-anp/pakistans-secular-pashtun-party-defiant-after-taliban-bomber-kills-20-activists-idUSKBN1K11U2
#HaroonBilour - Asfandyar Wali says #ANP will continue to campaign peacefully
Awami National Party President Asfandyar Wali Khan, while speaking to media on Wednesday, remarked that the party will continue to campaign for the upcoming General Election 2018, a day after 20 people, including party leader Haroon Bilour, were killed in suicide explosion in Peshawar.
The suicide attack occurred during a party corner meeting in Yakatoot neighbourhood of Peshawar.
He shared that the party will resume campaigning after a three-day peaceful protest. The party’s main focus is to become victorious in the elections, he said, adding “We have to contest elections and win now.”
Regarding the suicide attack, he said: “these are terrorists we are dealing with. You can’t compare umpires with terrorists. The main problem is that they [Taliban] know who all of us are but we don’t know about them."
Instead of attacking us from the back, our rivals should go head-to-head against us, he shared.
The deceased ANP leader Haroon Bilour was set to contest the July 25 elections from Peshawar's PK-78 constituency.
The son of Bashir Ahmed Bilour, a senior ANP figure who, himself, was martyred in a suicide attack in 2012 after a party meeting, Haroon was rushed to the hospital in a critical condition but succumbed to his wounds shortly after.
He was 47 years old.
ECP postpones polls in PK-78
Following the incident, the Election Commission of Pakistan postponed the polls in PK-78 (Peshawar-XIII) constituency.
The polls have been postponed due to the death of the PK-78 candidate, the electoral body said, adding that the new schedule for the said constituency will be announced later.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council has also announced a three-day mourning in light of the attack, with lawyers beginning the boycott of court proceedings today.
https://www.geo.tv/latest/202794-asfandyar-wali-says-anp-will-continue-to-campaign-peacefully
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