Pakistani Politics

Former prime minister and PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif has said President Asif Ali Zardari should immediately implement the Charter of Democracy (CoD) for the survival and stability of Pakistan.

Addressing a gathering at the Sangla Hill Stadium here on Wednesday, he said the CoD was the will of Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz said the nation had declared him eligible, so no PCO judge could declare him ineligible. He said around 160 million Pakistanis were with him and they would bring the PCO judges in the court of the National Assembly.

Asking whether the PCO judges were more powerful than the nation, he said the nation would have to play its role for the country. “Today, the Pakistani nation would have to struggle for the elimination of the dictatorial system,” he added.

He said they would fully support the lawyers’ long march. If the judges were restored, he said, the nation would not be forced to stage the long march on March 9. He said nobody should stay at home but join the protest.

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The government formally acknowledged the courage and sacrifices of the 82-year-old Pakhtun nationalist leader and former federal minister Mohammad Afzal Khan when President Asif Ali Zardari made a phone call to him to praise him for standing up to the Taliban militants and the Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani met him during his flying visit to Swat.

Though belated, the government move was expected to raise the morale of those opposed to the Maulana Fazlullah-led militants in Swat. Afzal Khan, who is affiliated to the ruling ANP, has been seeking the government’s support and arming of village militias to take on the Taliban but his pleas until now have remained unanswered. General Kayani met Afzal Khan at the Frontier Constabulary camp in Kanju near Mingora. Afzal Khan’s family members in his village, Bara Drushkhela, in Matta area, said a military helicopter flew him to Kanju around 11 am and brought him back in the afternoon. They said Afzal Khan, accompanied by his close relative Colonel (Retd) Ghaffar, met the chief of army staff and discussed the situation in Swat. They expressed ignorance about the decisions made at the meeting.

Afzal Khan’s family members disclosed that this was President Zardari’s second phone call to him. They said the President Zardari called him a week ago also and paid tributes to him for resisting the militants despite the obvious risks to his life.

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Counsel for one of the respondents in the Sharif brothers’ eligibility case on Wednesday told a three-member bench of the Supreme Court that proposer and seconder of PML-N Quaid Mian Nawaz Sharif were fake and requested the court to dismiss their pleas.

Ahmed Raza Kasuri, counsel for one of the respondents, requested the bench, headed by Justice Mohammad Moosa K Leghari, hearing a set of pleas pertaining to electoral eligibility of Sharif brothers, and an application seeking formation of a larger bench consisting of deposed judges of the apex court to impose heavy fine on the proposer and seconder of the PML-N chief. He said the said amount collected from these persons should be distributed among the affected people of tribal areas.

When the court resumed proceedings, AK Dogar, counsel for Shakil Baig, who seconded the nomination papers of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif from NA-123 (Lahore) in the by-elections, submitted before the court that proposer and seconder of Nawaz Sharif are preparing their affidavits prepared to submit before the court. Ahmed Raza Kasuri, counsel from the opposite side, however, alleged that both the proposer and seconder are ghost and not the voters of the respective constituency.

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Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday categorically stated that there was no agreement between the governments of Pakistan and the United States over drone attacks, which are counter-productive and will not be to the benefit of both the countries.

“We do not have any such agreement. I want to put the record straight that there is no agreement between the governments of Pakistan and the United States,” Gilani told CNN here.

The prime minister urged the United States to halt the drone attacks, saying, “We want that if there is any credible and actionable information that should be shared with our intelligence agencies and we will take the action ourselves”.

Gilani dismissed Western scepticism over Pakistani commitment to fighting militancy. “Actually the problem is in Afghanistan. We are fighting with Chechens.., fighting with Uzbeks.., Arabs, …Militants, …. Al-Qaida and also Taliban. They all coming from Afghanistan.”

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Advocating the need for recasting Pakistan-US relationship into a long-term partnership for peace, stability and development, President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday asked President Barack Obama to help resolve the lingering Kashmir dispute that remains at the heart of South Asian unrest and challenges like extremism.

“President Obama understands that for Pakistan to defeat the extremists, it must be stable. For democracy to succeed, Pakistan must be economically viable,” Zardari wrote in an article in The Washington Post in which he congratulated the new US leader on assumption of office and extended Pakistan’s “hand in friendship”.

As part of economic empowerment efforts, President Zardari called for swift progress towards realisation of economic assistance expansion initiative (Biden-Lugar legislation) in Congress as well as the preferential trade programme of reconstruction opportunity zones and said, “assistance to Pakistan is not charity.”

“Rather, the creation of a politically stable and economically viable Pakistan is in the long-term, strategic interest of the United States,” he added. Zardari renewed Pakistanís determination to curb the menace of terrorism in its own interest and called for equipping Pakistan with modern security tools and technology to proactively fight the terrorists “on our terms.”

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President Asif Ali Zardari, while addressing the PPP parliamentary party meeting, which was co-chaired by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, told the participants that they need not worry about the lawyers’ long march, Geo TV reported on Monday.

“You will see how I deal with the lawyers,” Geo further quoted the president as saying. According to the TV channel, the president made it clear that he, not the prime minister, would chair the parliamentary party meeting of the Pakistan People’s Party in the future.

Asim Yasin adds: The president said militancy, economic downturn and issues relating to peace and security in the region were monsters which had to be tamed and subdued sooner than later to “enable us realise our dream of emancipating the poor and the downtrodden.”

The president said that the PPP came to power at a time when the nation was facing grave threats to its security, integrity and wellbeing. “Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was called up to lead the country in 1971 when the country had been dismembered, thousands of our nationals were made prisoners of war and five thousand square kilometres of our territory had been captured by India,” he added.

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Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has made it clear that the Taliban in Swat would not be allowed to run their own courts.

“The parallel system of courts set up by the Taliban is not acceptable,” Gilani said while taking to the media here on Monday after the inaugural session of a conference on the medical education.

The prime minister, while expressing concern over the law and order situation in Dera Ismail Khan and Balochistan, said the government was taking solid steps to improve the law and order situation in the country. “The authorities concerned have been directed to submit a report regarding Monday’s blast in Dera Ismail Khan and a firing incident in Quetta,” he said.

Replying to a question about continuous drone attacks inside Pakistan’s territory despite a change in the US administration, Gilani explained that the new US administration of Barack Hussain Obama was in transitional period and expressed the hope that they would change their strategy as the people of the US voted for a change. “As people voted for a change here in the February elections, so did the Americans,” he added.

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President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday administered oath of office to four new federal ministers — Dr Farooq Sattar and Senator Babar Ghauri from the MQM and Maulana Attaur Rehman and Azam Swati from the JUI-F — here at the presidency.

The oath-taking ceremony was attended among others by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Chairman Senate Mohammadmian Soomro, Speaker National Assembly Dr Fehmeeda Mirza, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, federal ministers, parliamentarians, diplomats and high-ranking civil and military officials.

Maulana Attaur Rehman is younger brother of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the JUI-F chief, who enjoys the status of a federal minister being the chairman of the parliamentary committee on Kashmir.

The portfolios of the new four federal ministers are likely to be notified today (Tuesday). However, sources indicated that Dr Farooq Sattar is likely to be given the portfolio of information technology and Senator Babar Ghauri ports and shipping while Azam Khan Swati would be allocated the Ministry of Science and Technology and Maulana Attaur Rehman the portfolio of tourism.

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President Asif Ali Zardari has hinted to Punjab Governor Salman Taseer significant political developments in Punjab in coming few days, sources close to the Punjab governor told The News here Monday.

They said Zardari informed the governor to start countdown of Punjab government’s days as any major political upheaval was expected in the province within a few days. The sources stated that the president conveyed to the governor that the PPP was still prepared to cooperate with PML-N government in Punjab provided they withheld their media campaign against the PPP government in the Center, their statements against the president and Punjab governor and support to lawyer’s long march.

The governor is learnt to have apprised the president about Punjab government’s act of providing official protocol to the sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and using state machinery and resources in his reception as well as facilitating lawyer’s long march.

The sources stated that Zardari took strong notice of Punjab government’s act of providing official protocol to Justice Iftikhar. They stated Zardari expressed his concern that the provincial government in connivance with handful lawyers and a few sacked judges was making efforts to destabilise their government in the Center.

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The Intelligence Bureau, the oldest civil spy agency of the country, is about to be hit by an administrative tsunami due to the government’s decision to reinstate the agency’s more than 2,400 sacked political appointees of Benazir Bhutto’s second regime.

With this reinstatement, the IB, whose present strength of employees is around 5,000, would swell by 50 per cent of its current size, but what really haunts the organisation is the administrative chaos that seems to be imminent and would badly affect the performance of this spy agency.

While the cabinet has decided to reinstate such sacked political appointees to fulfil one of its election promises, what has been simply ignored is that most of such appointees had exhausted all legal means and were declared lawfully removed even by the apex court of the country. However, despite this the government decided to reinstate them with back dated benefits of three years and against one-step higher post.

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