The nation deserves congratulating

Asif may be the 11th President of Pakistan, but he is only the fourth elected to the office without having held it before, especially at the time of election, as Ghulam Ishaq was, but of all 11, he is the first from either Sindh or Balochistan (apart from Ishaq, who was from Bannu district in NWFP, Ayub and Yahya, respectively from Hazara and Peshawar, Iskander Mirza and Musharraf, both Muhajirs, the remaining six were from the Punjab. Upto 1971, none was from East Pakistan). Those three previously elected without holding the office were from the Punjab, though Farooq Leghari was from Dera Ghazi Khan, a Baloch tumandar from that least Punjabi, or at least most Baloch, of Punjab’s districts. Come to think of it, the Zardaris are Baloch by race, not Sindhi, so it seems that the Baloch once more have the Presidency of Pakistan. Let’s see whether this improves the life of the ordinary Baloch or not.

But Asif has not ascended to the Presidency through being a Baluch, but because he is Co-Chairman of the PPP, in succession along with son Bilawal to Benazir, who was, apart from being a two-time Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Life Chairperson of the PPP. It is the PPP connection which counted more in gaining the PPP’s votes for the Presidency, not the Baluch connection. Or the Sindh connection. For if that counted, then Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui was about as Sindhi as Musharraf, who belonged to the province via Karachi, and via Delhi, to which he belonged.

I suppose we had better get used to calling him President Zardari, not plain Asif as we have been used to. And we had better get used to snide questions about how he got certificates from a psychiatrist to fob off court appearances. He is actually very sane, and anyway, did even one of his predecessors have any certificates to prove his sanity? Still. No President of Pakistan should need to prove his sanity, and it’s ground enough for the President to dissolve the National Assembly under Article 58(2b), and go to a Supreme Court which does not interfere in the work of the Executive, particularly the actions of the President. But what if the Supreme Court was searching for grounds of restoration? Would it be a ground that the President had been under psychiatric care? That would, after all, mean stigmatizing unfairly mad people. But when the Supreme Court is looking for grounds, it usually doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings.