Pakistani people on my mind!

Regardless of a massive Electoral College vote for the PPP co-chairman's presidency, I, for one among millions of Pakistanis, am extremely apprehensive of the incumbent president and the overall oligarchic structure of the entire Peoples Party political management team now at the helm of national affairs in Islamabad.

Being a social scientist and a political analyst, my pessimistic reaction to PPP leadership is purely analytical. On top of that, there is a metaphysical element in my analysis: indeed, we cannot attribute the entire sequence of events, right from Benazir's assassination to Asif Zardari's presidential ascendancy, to celestial intervention on behalf of the PPP. God's wisdom does not work that way. As a nation, we need to understand how and why it happened the way it did. We need to know which specific people orchestrated events and who managed this entire bizarre episode of monumental consequence.

Coming back to understanding the PPP leadership's "Realpolitik", let us look at some of its fundamentals.

(1) We are all well aware that the February 18th national mandate was not for the presidency of PPP's co-chairman.

(2) A recent nation-wide poll clearly indicates that only 14 percent of Pakistanis support Zardari's presidency.

(3) It is true that a democratic legal framework was followed in the process of electing the president. And yet, this very process was flawed in the ultimate spirit of democratic conventions: the behind-the-scenes politics of party alliances, the misuse of political power and its manipulative essence were glaringly evident in the recently conducted presidential elections.

(4) One can blindly compliment the skilful political craftsmanship of the PPP leadership to have its co-chairman elevated to the presidency - but on the other hand, this very skilful so-called political competency is actually indicative of a traditional cancerous rudiment in the body politics of this country.