Bullet or ballot?
By Humayun Gauhar July 19, 2008 A hundred days are definitely enough to show some movement in the right direction, a modicum of some strategy for crisis management. We’ve only seen leaderless drift, with the real unelected leaders of the two biggest ruling parties AWOL, a proxy prime minister all dressed up with nowhere to go and the coalition expected to break any moment. They “have” achieved a unique first though " government and opposition rolled into one sitting on the treasury benches. Have you ever heard of a government providing its own opposition? One expected all this to happen, but not so fast. I suppose even if a leopard’s spots fade, they come out in full glory once the sun starts shining again, so as not to be mistaken for hay by other leopards.
Food is the first and foremost fundamental human right, for if we have no food we are all dead and all other rights become irrelevant. Staple food is becoming so expensive that hardly anyone can afford it any more, even if it is available. What planning is there to ensure the availability of affordable staple foods? If that fungus that has reached Yemen gets to us, a large part of our wheat crop could be destroyed. If we have to import 2.2 million tons of wheat at $1,400 a ton, it means over $3 billion. Add $12 billion fuel imports and the lights go out.
The poor will be eating the rich. What has government done to reduce its energy wastage and other profligacy? Nothing. What planning is there for $200 oil " more if Iran is attacked? Nothing. Why go on?
What are the options? As if on cue, one is beginning to hear the same voices that recently screamed for “democracy” asking for intervention again. These very people howled for a coup and welcomed General Musharraf when he literally descended from the skies thanks to the bizarre shenanigans of a “democratic” prime minister. It didn’t take them long to start howling for “democracy” when they weren’t invited to make any hay under Musharraf’s sun " or got thrown out of the barn after making it for a while. Only three months after elections they are asking for intervention just because they fear losing the huge hay they have accumulated over the years under different “democrats” and “dictators”. Some are saying (hoping?) that the army will have no option but to intervene by December, whether it likes it or not.
Not so fast, my intellectually corrupt compatriots. It’s easy to break; it’s difficult to build. You know that, because you’ve helped so many rulers break but build nothing. We’ve seen that just as the politicians have no solutions to our problems, the army (and bureaucracy) has none either, even though it starts with great expectations. Its not supposed to; the politicians are. Ask yourselves: “What will they do after intervention that they didn’t do earlier when they had a better chance?”
Dissolve the National Assembly and the constitution requires elections within 90 days. Will messiahs with halos around their heads jump out of the ballot box this time, or angels sprouting wings? It will be the same bad lot. Nawaz Sharif will sweep, but only in the Punjab, a veritable disaster in a highly polarised country.
