The PPP has launched its third campaign to retake lost ground in Punjab. Unfortunately, the first two campaigns failed to bring the desired results. The PPP hasn’t been able to regain the electoral support it lost since the 2013 general elections. The crisis is much more serious and severe in central and northern Punjab compared to southern Punjab. The party was hoping to make a comeback in the 2018 general elections but the disastrous results…
Posts published in “Pak Media comment”
In the garb of democracy and freedom, many countries in the developing world, including Pakistan, have been manipulated to install corrupt governments. The leaders have then looted and plundered at will, and this ill-gotten wealth has then been stashed in housing states and bank accounts in foreign lands. This amounts to trillions of dollars which have boosted Western economies while developing countries have sunk lower and lower in poverty and deprivation. The huge economic drain…
We claim that we have democracy in our country and people elect their representatives to run a given democratic system. It sounds well to everyone whereas we are nowhere near to real democracy as per its definition. We are only wearing the grand English hat of democracy, giving a cosmetic look of the democratic system. We have never practiced real democracy for which Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Quaid-e-Awam Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma…
The Senate elections of March 3 tremendously jolted the political landscape in the country. Although the ruling party won a good number of seats, the hotly contested general seat for Islamabad was the epic event in this screenplay that overshadowed the overall success. The victory of candidate backed by Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) evoked mixed remarks from various political figures. Those who are on treasury benches called it “a very sad day for democracy”, while…
Recent political events in the country have once again demonstrated that political leadership needs to seriously reflect and re-invent itself. The controversy arising over the election for the Senate seat of Islamabad and the unpleasant and chaotic scenes witnessed outside the parliament after the vote of confidence sought by the Prime Minister are manifestations of how deep and widespread is the malice between the government and opposition politicians. Politics no doubt is about power but…
SNC Complications: edit in The Nation, Mar 9, 2021As millions of children in Punjab prepare to resume normal school again, the situation around the Single National Curriculum (SNC) has become nearly alarming. While the government’s SNC might have looked like a good plan on paper, perhaps it had not anticipated the enormous practical issues that can come its way by enforcing a strict registration system of books in order to ensure one system of curriculum.…
Political Dealmaking: edit in The Nation, Mar 9, 2021The political temperature in the country is increasing by the day. The opposition’s wins in the by-elections and the government’s failure to secure a majority in the Senate election have emboldened the PDM alliance. The main political parties in the opposition, have reportedly contacted Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Pakistan Muslim League Quaid (PML-Q). As per interior minister Sheikh Rasheed’s admission, PTI rivals would target Usman Buzdar…
THE Senate election is over but the dust is yet to settle. The Islamabad seat didn’t go the predicted way (mea culpa: I was among the confident few — wrongly so — to predict its outcome). Yousuf Raza Gilani won the seat in what is being described as an upset or a surprise. The numbers game on the surface turned out to be less reliable than the rumblings and activity beneath. Since then, the government…
The parliament in Pakistan has never played a role in nation-building, institution-building or formulating policies and in ensuring accountability. Indeed, in the presence of an overarching role of powerful forces, the relevance of parliament has been diminishing. There are hardly any noteworthy achievements in the realm of nation-building attributable to a sovereign parliament. In this perspective Pakistan stands alone in contrast to other parliamentary democracies. A country that has been ruled by military generals for…
Some conspiracy theories are easy to spot. Like the fact that someone may believe the moon landing on July 20, 1969 was all staged and filmed in a desert in Nevada. Or that someone may believe that the coronavirus is an international conspiracy against Muslims, or that the Covid vaccine will insert a chip into our bodies and cause infertility. All these are what I call “hard conspiracies” — with the believers clearly affirming their…
Does the ‘system’ work? : op-ed by Saad Rasool in The Nation, Sept 12, 2021
America’s defeat in Afghanistan, and the corresponding rise of Sino-Russian power is likely to have lasting consequences for the existing ‘rules-based international order’, and its corresponding systems within various countries. Despite 20 years of war, and more than $2 trillion dollars spent, America and her Western allies could not install a sustainable democratic enterprise in Afghanistan. Why? Because the system that Americans tried to impose upon Afghanistan had no real roots in the cultural and…