Time for hope or doom

Aitzaz Ahsan sacrificed his certain National Assembly seat and personal income as a practising lawyer and risked his position of a central member of the PPP as its new leadership reversed its stance on the restoration of judiciary that was publicly and unequivocally declared by BB prior to her tragic assassination in December last year.

The entire nation rallied around the lawyers to demand the restoration of the independent judges, who stood against dictatorship at the cost of their prestigious and lucrative careers and were subjected to humiliation and personal hardships. The all powerful president, shaken by the intensity of the movement and in an effort to salvage his deteriorating credibility with the army and his western supporters, was forced to take a series of decisions and committed several blunders on the way that led to his eventual ouster.

Earlier, BB was allowed to return to the homeland through a deal brokered by the US, UK and UAE and Mian Nawaz Sharif was repatriated on the insistence of the Saudis acceding to the prevalent public opinion in Pakistan and their assessment of a need to create a balance in the coming general elections. General (retd) Musharraf was determined to hold the elections on his own terms and planned to get a majority for the King's party defeating the headless major parties and to preserve his absolute hold on power for another five years that was a distinct possibility if the two popular national leaders were kept out of the country. The catalyst that changed the events in favour of the return of the two exiled leaders and a near fair election was none other than the Lawyer's Movement.

The last eighteen months have thus been dedicated to miscellaneous political intrigues for personal survival and cleansing of the past, leaving governance at the mercy of the establishment. The newfound democracy has unfortunately failed to usher any good tidings for the poor as they see only change of faces as remote from them as the previous ones.

The democratic government has generally been rudderless and dysfunctional as the cabinet, coalition partners and the parliament have been sidelined and the elected representatives have neither anything to offer their constituents for their welfare nor have they been able to set a firm direction for the future course during the last few months. Important decisions on national policy have been taken behind closed doors by a select group from the majority ruling party (many of them unelected and controversial or indirectly elected). In an ostensible separation of the party from governance on the current Indian model, all authority has been concentrated in the person of Mr Asif Ali Zardari, who spent considerable time abroad attending to his domestic affairs where he routinely summoned ministers and even the prime minister for consultations on political manoeuvres in which he has proved to excel. The formidable domestic and external problems haunting the nation that have compounded on all fronts have taken second place in the order of priorities.