Pride of vote under attack by Senator A. Rehman Malik

These days the media is discussing the misuse of “the vote” and that the vote itself is the real victim of today in the hands of its caster.

Let me introduce myself; my name is “the vote” and I am centurys years old and used to elect people’s representatives, in different stages in different countries, to work and struggle for their cause. My value is very scientific and mathematical and I am casted throughout the world by families, businesses, counties and beyond.  I become the deciding factor if used prudently. I bring people’s popularity and can defame too.  I create public opinion of what is good and what is bad. My prudent use depends on my master. I am single and I am always loyal to my master and I have no ability to be used without the consent of my only master. I am not private property of anyone but work for both majority and minority to decide their fate. I am sometimes misused and my misuse brings lot of injustice in the societies.  My blatant misuse and abuse produces corrupt and incompetent politicians and rulers as well while my just use brings honest and competent rulers who lead the countries to progress and prosperity.  When used by the greedy and corrupt elements, huge monetary value is attached to me before I am pushed into a box.  I feel worst when my master is greedy and dirty, as my use in his hand will bring me bad name. I create the legislative houses to produce constitutions and legislate the laws for the benefits of those who cast me through good governance. My strength and importance depends on the conscious of my masters who use me for betterment or otherwise in the given situation regardless he used me for business, government or Parliament. I am considered as a might and used according to dictates of my masters.

My value and effectiveness come into force when I am pushed into a box or a computer click, which become a deciding factor within this democratic world. I am the one who sets the numerical game and sets the course of success or failure with my might. My misuse can be lethal when I am on sale by my masters and I become an unwilling victim of the evil desires of my masters. My pride is my prudent use, which brings qualitative changes in the nations. I am even misused worldwide and I have no choice to say NO.

In Pakistan, price tag to my prestige was first attached when a political party of the opposition tried to use me to oust a democratically elected government through a ‘No Confidence’ motion.  Thereafter, my sale continued unabated by all the politicians for their own benefits without caring for my own prestige and dignity.  My prestige as VOTE was terribly hurt in Pakistan recently which is much talked about in the media. I have been a victim of my misuse in Pakistan by my masters and some others who, through forgery and deceit, had often made me suffer through rigging to get their desired results. My sufferings and this injustice was never looked into seriously in the past and my voice got suppressed with powerful noise and influential of mighty misusers.  My lovers may lose faith in my “might” as I have become a saleable commodity and one gets me who bids the highest for me. I have been wounded with a bruised face in the hands of my own masters whom I had once helped to win the elections of the provincial assemblies. I am hearing lot about nice horse trading under my name, and there is a chance that I will be once again be hurt and bruised by these greedy masters whose faith is not in the pride but dirty money. My bidding was done openly in all of Pakistan but no protector of mine came to my rescue; although the greedy and unconscious masters sold me out against my wish in the open bazar. Will the authorities ever take a notice of me as a victim having lost my pride and my face, which has been defaced with their greed for dirty money? I hope my voice will not be suppressed any more through newly printed currency notes and my masters will not be eagerly looking forward to putting me to bidding in the future.  I appeal to give me my pride back and restore my confidence and get this dirt and dirty money out of my face. Save my pride by restoring my value and save Pakistan.

I, as the vote , demand that all those my masters who had sold me out by hurting my pride must be now punished to save me for further sale and people start losing confidence in me.  Will all the political parties consider take legal action against some of my greedy owners to restore my pride ?

The Article has been published in “THE NATION” on March 10, 2018.

Link to original Article:- Pride of vote under attack by Senator A. Rehman Malik

The Urdu Version of the article published in Naw e Waqat on March 11, 2018

Paralyzed Economic Growth by Senator A. Rehman Malik

We are protecting our land, air and sea borders for which we have been spending billions of Rupees. We have to spend huge funds on the imposed war on terror, but we have been consistently ignoring our economic borders since 1951.

Pakistan was born in 1947 as the largest Muslim country that came into being with unprecedented sacrifices of the people from all walks of life. The Pakistanis were happy to have their homeland where they would have the freedom to work and have prosperity as they got rid of Hindu domination and English colonial rule. The displaced people having lost their dear ones had only one satisfaction, which was the feeling of having their own beloved country and sole identity as Pakistani.

The father of the nation started to lead, and he was determined to make the nation as a strong leading nation. During the struggle, his health could not allow him to complete his mission. The murder of PM Liaquat Ali Khan brought a further set back to the country, and the state started facing both administrative and political issues.

We want to compete in the world economic race as the country had all the major ingredients necessary to become a developed nation; it has a geo-strategic location, vast deposits of natural resources and a large population in the working age. There are countries that got independence after us and had much lesser resources than us, yet they are now a part of world’s major economies. Israel, South Korea, Malaysia, China, Japan, UAE, Russia, Singapore, Hong Kong and India are countries in roughly the same region as Pakistan. All of these countries came into being around the same time as Pakistan. All of these countries have a higher GDP (Gross Domestic Product) than that of Pakistan, 283.7 billion USD, and all of them are ranked higher in the Human Development Index (HDI) as well. A glance at the GDP of the nations mentioned above will make the comparison more nuanced. Israel’s GDP is 318.7 Billion USD. China has a GDP of 11.2 trillion USD. GDP of South Korea is 1.411 trillion USD. Malaysia’s GDP is 296.4 USD. Japan’s latest calculations in this regard are 4.939 trillion USD. UAE has a decent GDP of 348.7 billion USD.

The comparison shows that their progress as compared to ours is much higher and speedy. The main reason for us to keep losing the growth as compared to other countries seems to be the balance of repayments of foreign aid. Pakistan is to repay the $6.5b debt over next 15 months, as the chain of taking loans started in 1952 and never stopped since then.

What happened to us right after independence? What were those factors, which kept on deteriorating our national economic growth status and our economy? Let us take few factors, which affected us adversely including the incompetency of Governments and their finical teams coupled with many other crises that led to our failure since independence.

Firstly, right after independence our neighbour India never left a single chance of striking us on every front. India gave a blow to our sovereignty by supporting Mukti Bahni with funds and its forces, leading to the tragedy of East Pakistan. Moreover, factors like the illiteracy rate, growing unemployment, energy crisis, inflation, and terrorism have been acting as major hurdles to our economic progress. The lack of proper strategizing of our actions according to the need of the time and looked towards the international donors rather than dependence on domestic resources. We have been continuously ignoring our agriculture sector, mineral rich regions, and water resources.

Strategically, President Ayub played in hand of CIA by handing over Badhaber airbase to Americans against Russian which was the first mistake on the part of our Government. Landing in the laps of the USA against Russia was the beginning of our economic and political control by CIA as its operators through their agents crippled our independent decision making. The American ensured that our key quotients like grains/ petroleum products and Indian animosity were played to increase the American dependence and increase in defence import yet the USA did not come to help when Pakistan was under attack in 1971 resulting in the creation of Bangladesh.

Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto came into power at a time when the East wing of Pakistan had fallen to become Bangladesh, and the whole nation was in the demoralised mode. He got engaged to stabilise Pakistan. The worsening of the economy, however, continued and even the successive governments did not plan anything about repayments of our debts and imported Finance ministers could not give the Nation debt retiring plan due to poor foreign and financial policies. Instead, every finance minister of every successive government felt pride in getting further loans from the IMF and world bank, and it was tragic that even the finance teams floated bonds and FRBC backed by the Foreign loans. The same practice is continuing till today.

I, having served five years as a cabinet minister and as a Senator had always been hearing, both in the cabinet meetings as well as in the Upper House, the finance teams boasting of securing loans but never talked about having an efficient debt retirement plan. I am on record asking the government as to why there is no retirement plan? I remember a conference in Serena Islamabad on Pak Economy on the support of friends of Pakistan where I raised the point to help Pakistan by retiring our debts as this war on terror has adversely affected us. One of the senior members opposed my demand saying that: “here we are building the grounds for more loans and you are inflicting it with debt retiring programme”.

I was never happy with this growing load of loans, which were contributing towards rising inflation, budget deficits, debt servicing and balance of repayments and directly affecting our economy and sufferings of an ordinary man are increasing. This uncertain economic situation is not a happy sign for local growth and foreign investment to our country. The Nation has full right to ask the finance team of the government to explain the debt retirement plan if any? Moreover, both private and public sector banks were looted by the businessmen as well as by the businessmen turned politicians adding to the miseries of the nations. Loans secured from these banks worth billions of rupees were either not repaid or got written off.

We stand today far behind other developing nation due to our poor short-term fiscal policy, loan based budgets, small tax base, fudged figures based on five years plans, the balance of repayment issue, political instability and bad governance with uncontrolled corruption in public and private sectors. The successive governments have always preferred to give development funds to their MNAs and MPAs to solidify their vote bank. They would prefer to invest in those projects which could fetch them instant publicity with prominent pictures on the front page and TV advertisements during prime time but never thought to first get rid of our debt by diverting such funds to the national debt retirement program.

We cannot join the international race of prosperity unless we sort out our ground issues and I feel that our nation can still recover from this unfortunate situation and catch the missing bus of prosperity if we take the following steps:

•            Divert at least 50 percent development funds for next ten years to debt retiring plan.

•           A complete ban on development funds to the MNA and MPAs.•           No further loans from IMF and World Bank and other donors come what may.•          Create a “Pak Property Overseas Bank” for overseas Pakistani only to participate in the National Debt Retiring Plan. The government should invest $ 3billion in this bank and sell the 49 percent shares in dollars to the overseas Pakistanis.•          75 percent directors of the board should be from overseas Pakistanis, and the other 25 percent should be from Government/ private sector, and it should be under Parliament oversight to give confidence to the overseas Pakistanis.•          The said bank should create a consortium of Chinese and Turkish banks, and this consortium should take over half of the Debts on mutually agreed terms with Pakistan.•           Overseas Pakistanis must be given attractive incentives in investments/interest based income/property development in Public-Private Partnership through this bank. This will generate billions of dollars, which will go towards the retirement of national debts.•           The government should also announce its debt retirement plan integrating the above proposals.•            Every province should contribute at least five properties to be sold to overseas Pakistani and amount should be deposited towards debt retirement.•            Parliament should formulate a strategy for National debt regiment programme and set time to get rid of the loans following the Turkish Model. A bill should be presented in the house for legislation under the name of “National Debt Retirement Act”, containing law with a time limit and backing of constitutional provisions to retire the national debt and to require all the stakeholders to participate in the process of retiring foreign debts. The participation should be based on the principle of shared equity. The Act must also contain provisions to ensure the protection of the investments of overseas Pakistanis.

We need to fight for our Economic borders as strong economy can only defend our geographical boundaries by the provision of modern technology as the future is of the advanced technology and there will be hardly any room for conventional wars. Hence we need to make our economic indicators stronger to make our nation stronger and invincible, and it is possible only if we generate strong economic efforts through the right fiscal policies with the help of capable economists to drive the nation out of the crisis. The government, in fact, needs to look into its fiscal policy and bring incentive-based policies to attract the overseas investments by its own sons of the soil abroad for this bank.

We have already lost 70 years, and we are still unable to build a prosperous and uncorrupt Pakistan for our present and future generations. We now at least must take practical steps to set the right economic and planning courses and give something to our new generation instead of providing the atmosphere of disappointment. Let us work collectively for their prosperity instead of hollow slogans for our vote bank. We have already missed the bus of prosperity. Pakistan needs to wake up and choose a right path to make itself stand tall among developing nations.

Let us all rise above politics and help our country Pakistan which needs our collective efforts to bring it back to the trail of prosperity and arise as a proud nation. Let us shed our dead weights and get rid of the economic shackles of international financial institutions. We have to get rid of loan-based developments, and even our CPEC project is also based on long-term loan, which one day has to be retired. Our foreign reserves are depleting, and if we keep on taking loans any further, our future generations will find themselves under heavy debt and they will have to suffer for no fault of theirs.

There is going to be no divine help as we are the only one to rise ourselves and get rid of this alarming national economic issue. I have jotted down my humble vision and proposals to overcome to stop the eruption of this economic volcano.

I will propose an Act under the name of “National Foreign Debt Retiring Plan” and will make it public for people’s input before tabling in the House.

The Article has been published in “THE NATION” on March 08, 2018.

Link to original Article:- Paralyzed Economic Growth by Senator A. Rehman Malik

Indian anti-Pak move through USA/FATF by Senator A. Rehman Malik

After 9/11 the world came very heavy on money laundering and USA activated UNO to bring in international money laundering laws and accordingly number of charters and resolutions were passed and almost the whole world became signatories of such UNO resolutions.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was constituted in 1989 by G7 countries to observe movement of terror financing funds and point out None Cooperative Countries or territories that are found to be non-cooperative in dealing with the money laundering or terrorist financing. The Group of Seven or G7 is a consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, being the largest and advanced economies in the world. It meets regularly and based on intelligence FATF proceeds against those countries, which do not follow the directions of FATF.

The FATF follows an elaborate process to assess compliance, based on which it issues public statements on countries with deficiencies. Countries on this grey list are practically treated like pariahs in the international financial system. Presently North Korea, Iran and Uganda are examples of those countries dealing with it. The USA in furtherance of anti-Pakistan Indian narrative, moved a motion against Pakistan, duly supported by UK, in the meeting of FATF held on February 18-23, 2018 to place Pakistan on a global terrorist-financing watchlist to be monitored by FATF. France and Germany subsequently joined this nomination. In fact this entire anti- Pak move has been engineered with ill motives and the entire allegation levelled are India specific and not USA specific. It was alleged that JeM front Falah-i-Insaaniyat and LeT and its front Jamaat-ud-Dawa, are transacting financial business without much difficulty. LeT and LeJ was earlier banned by me as minister and even TTP was banned during our tenure.

In fact India has been struggling hard to implicate Pakistan in terrorism related issues to cover its brutalities in held Kashmir. India tried to fabricate evidence against Hafiz Saeed and despite my direct request to the then interior minister and through diplomatic source for any evidence against Hafiz Saeed, but India has miserably failed to provide the claimed evidence and the government was fined by the Supreme Court of India for having failed to provide evidence. India continued to work against Pakistan to defame it on one pretext or the other and eventually it managed through USA to have Pakistan included in the watch list.

Surprisingly, USA has first placed Pakistan on watch list for so-called religious freedom violations whereas it completely turned blind eyes on the human rights and religious freedom violation in Indian Held Kashmir. Under the government of Premier Narendra Modi, the religious minorities like Muslim, Sikhs, Christians and even Dalits have been persecuted harshly and they were denied to perform their religious rites in the country.

There is background to engineer this action against Pakistan and let us examine some historical facts:

USA decided to fight a war on the soil of Afghanistan by dragging Pakistan into the war. According to available record CIA recruited the most wanted criminals and there were reports that they were paid in dollars from series of bill notes, which were not listed. It was confirmed to me by one of the then senior most intelligence official that the said Bill notes were used in Afghan Jihad and it was the same time when FIA under me had detected dollar supper note, which was being printed and circulated from remote area of Thailand. President Bill Clinton himself thanked Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto during her visit to White House where I also accompanied her. This was the time when Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto had stated that we need to control this monster of terrorism otherwise it will come back to bite us and it is proven down the line that the monster of terrorism is now biting the whole world. It was Jehadis created by USA, which engineered entire trouble not only for Pakistan but also for the whole world and hence FATF must look into the background and distribution of dollars to the criminal brought in to fight at the soil of Afghanistan. It should be put on the next agenda and FATF must investigate the origin of this terrorism and the CIA operation in Afghanistan. Pakistan is suffering from this virus of terrorism injected by CIA.

These are the same paid Jehadis who are emerging in different forms and instead of helping Pakistan to get rid of these terrorists, USA is putting pressure on Pakistan. We Pakistani firmly believe that it is India, which is using USA against Pakistan through FATF.

The economic and commercial consequences of such grey listing can be quite disturbing. It would be harder and more expensive for Pakistan to borrow money from the international markets if it is put on the FATF watch-list. While the US worked on Saudi Arabia and Turkey, India dealt with China alone to muster the support of these countries against Pakistan. Hectic diplomacy went on in New Delhi, Washington and Beijing as FATF considered the proposal in Paris. Eventually, the Indian delegation, struck a deal with the Chinese team that related to support for a greater FATF role for Beijing in the future. Soon, all the three objections were removed and the proposal went through.

I have questions and everybody is worried how come China & Saudi Arabia gave unexpected support to the motion although both the countries have very close relations with Pakistan. It is worrying for every Pakistani, as Pakistan had developed high dependence on China both in terms of economic as well as strategic.

Pakistani Foreign Office took the threats of PM Modi lightly to push Pakistan into diplomatic isolation and India, with its anti-Pak mind set, supported by USA managed to infect Pakistan through FATF. This was the second USA-India led anti-Pak move to further pressurise Pakistan.

Impact on Pakistan:

If Pakistan is eventually placed in the watch-list of FATF then Pakistan will be put on regular monitoring, all banking transactions in the country will come under closer global watch, Pakistan’s credibility in global financial transactions would be eroded significantly. Specifically, the economic and commercial consequences of such listing can be quite disturbing. It would be harder and more expensive for Pakistan to borrow money from the international markets.

Every businessman and Pakistani tourists would be subjected to rigorous scrutiny and in other words we would be under suspicion in the eyes of international community regardless of the fact that we have made sacrifices in terms of finances and human lives in the war on terror. Ironically what reward we got in the end for that help and support tendered to USA! Nothing as we the fighters against terrorists have been declared the abettors of terrorists. Another lesson learnt by Pakistan, if at all we remember the lessons of the history.

How to counter this?

It has been decided that if Pakistan does not take further action against militants operating within its borders its name will be put back into the list. Pakistan has been given time of 3 months till June to crack down on the militants and submit its action plan report if it wants its name to be removed from the list.

Government of Pakistan first need to demand the details of the allegation of money laundering, specific militant activities, money laundering cases reported against Pakistanis or business houses, specify border militant activities, specific terrorist financing with banking transactions at both ends.

How and where Pakistanis have found involved in money laundering of terrorist financing directly affecting USA. USA is third party and is acting on the complaints of other two independent countries and Pakistan must demand where and how these three Pakistani organisations have directly hurt these countries.

We must constitute a task force consisting of members from FIA, ISI, MI, Nacta and State Bank to deal with the suspected terror financing and money laundering. Moreover, our National Action Plan needs to be revisited and international requirements may be made part of it. Madrassa Reforms must be given special attention and already proposed law may be enacted.

I will wait to write further till I hear about the exact allegations against Pakistan.

The writer is Chairman of think tank "Global Eye" & former Interior Minister of Pakistan and PPP senior leader.

The Article was originally published in "The News International" with the link:Indian anti-Pak move through USA/FATF by Senator A. Rehman Malik

No thanks -Do not want to be PM by Senator A. Rehman Malik

I was flying today from Islamabad to London when a Pakistani-British young man, after a very polite greeting to me, sat beside me on a vacant seat and directly asked me as to why there is such a mess in Pakistan and why we are a direction-less nation? He expressed his grave concern about the on going political and economic situation in the country stating “We ‘overseas’ Pakistani are very worried about our home land”. I tried to explain but he was not satisfied with the on going situation.

He left but his discussion and concerns about the situation in Pakistan shook me up. He made me seriously ponder the question that are we as a nation really direction-less and why? In order to answer this question one needs to look back at the political history of the country since its independence The answer lies in the objective analysis of the power struggle between political and non-political forces. This power struggle landed the country not only into political polarisation but also into economic/financial dependence on the international financial institutions, which are mainly controlled by USA and Europe.

A cursory glance of the political/democratic history of the country would explain as to how Pakistan plunged into political polarisation. This polarisation ultimately weakened the successive civilian governments and the institutions to the extent that those governments were more concerned about their survival rather than pointing the country into any direction, which could lead to the prosperity.

Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan took his office as the first Prime Minister on 14 August 1947 but was publically assassinated on 16 October 1951, being in office only for4 Years, 2 months & 2 days. Subsequently, Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin was elected as the Prime Minister on 17 October 1951 but his government was dismissed by the then Governor General Ghulam Muhammad on 17 April 1953 lasting his office for only 1 Year, 6 months. Mr. Muhammad Ali Bogra replaced him on 17 April 1953 but again the Governor General dismissed his government on 12 August 1955 and he remained in office for only 2 Years, 3 months & 26 days. Then Mr. Muhammad Ali was elected as Prime Minister on 12 August 1955 but he fell victim of a No Confidence vote by his own political party on 12 September 1956, being in office for only 1 Year 1 month. Mr. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy took the office of Prime Minister on 12 September 1956 but resigned on 17 October 1957, after having lost his control over his own party and the coalition party in the parliament. He remained in the office for only 1 Year, 1 Months & 5 days. Then Mr. Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar became the Prime Minister on 17 October 1957 but he lost the confidence of the House on 16 December 1957 after 1 Month, 29 days being in the office. Sir Feroz Khan Noon then became the Prime Minister on 16 December 1957 but after just 9 months and 21 days in the office, his own party’s President declared martial law on 7 October 1958.

After a gap of around 13 years, Mr. Nurul Amin took the office of Vice President under Yahya Khan on 7 December 1971 till 20 December 1971, for about 13 days, when ware broke out between Pakistan and India leading to the creation of Bangladesh. On 20 December 1971, Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto first took over the office of the President, as there was no constitution as well as the parliamentary form of government, till 14 August 1973 when he, after promulgation of Constitution of 1973, he resigned and took the office of the Prime Minister – first directly democratically elected Prime Minister. He was in office for 3 years, 10 months and 21 days when on 5 July 1977 his government was toppled by the then Army Chief. The country remained under martial law and under the reign of Gen. Ziaul Haq till 24 March 1985, when Mr. Muhammad Khan Junejo was elected as Prime Minister. He remained in office for 3 years, 2 months and 5 days when the President dismissed his government by exercising his powers under 18th Amendment in the Constitution.

Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was the first Muslim lady elected as Prime Minister on 2 December 1988 but the then President by invoking his powers under Article 58(2)(b) of the Constitution, dismissed his government on 6 August 1990, just after 1 Year, 8 Months and 4 days being in office, on the allegations of corruption, which were never proved. Mr. Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi was then installed as caretaker Prime Minister on 6 August 1990 till 6 November 1990 when new Prime Minister was elected.

Mr. Nawaz Sharif was elected as Prime Minister for the first time on 6 November 1990 but on 18 April 1993, the then President of Pakistan dismissed his government after being in office for only 2 Years, 5 Months, 12 Days. His government was, however, reinstated by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. In the meantime, Mr. Balakh

Sher Baz Mazari acted as caretaker Prime Minister from 18 April 1993 to 26 May 1993, for only 1 Month and 8 Days. After reinstatement, Mr. Nawaz Sharif remained Prime Minister from 26 May 1993 to 18 July 1993 for 1 Month and 22 Days, and resigned as a settlement to oust the President as well.

An unknown Pakistan-origin US national Mr. Moeen Ahmed Qureshi was imported from USA to install as caretaker Prime Minister on 18 July 1993 till 19 October 1993. For 3 Months and 1 Day. Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto again won majority seats in the National Assembly and was elected as Prime Minister on 19 October 1993 when once again the then President of Pakistan dismissed her government on 5 November 1996, just after 3 Years and 17 Days – once against frivolous allegations of corruption, which were yet never been proved.

After the dismissal of the government of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, Malik Meraj Khalid was appointed as caretaker Prime Minister on 5 November 1996 till 17 February 1997 who remained in the office for 3 Months and 12 Days. The elections once again saw Mr. Nawaz Sharif to be elected as the Prime Minister on 17 February 1997 till 12 October 1999, when Gen. Pervez Musharraf toppled his government just after 2 Years, 7 Months and 25 Days.

Mr. Zafarullah Khan Jamali took oath of the office of Prime Minister on 23 November 2002 when he resigned on 26 June 2004 just after 1 Year, 7 Months and 3 Days. Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain was, consequently, elected as Prime Minister on 30 June 2004, for only 1 month & 27 days when he resigned on 26 August 2004 to vacate the office for Mr. Shaukat Aziz. He was elected as Prime Minister on 28 August 2004 and he resigned on 15 November 2007 after 3 Years, 2 Months and 18 Days, after completing his parliamentary tenure. Then Mr. Muhammad Mian Soomro took over the office of caretaker Prime Minister on 16 November 2007 till 24 March 2008.

When the PPP won the elections, Mr. Yousaf Raza Gillani was elected as Prime Minister on 25 March 2008, who remained in the office till 19 June 2012 for 4 Years, 2 Months and 25 Days when the Supreme Court disqualified him and he resigned. Consequently, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf took the office of the Prime Minister on 22 June 2012 for 9 months and 2 days when he resigned on 24 March 2013, consequent to completion of parliamentary tenure. Mir Hazar Khan Khoso then took office of caretaker Prime Minister on 25 March 2013 till 5 June 2013. Consequent to the victory in the general elections, Mr. Muhammad Nawaz Sharif took the office of the Prime Minister for the third time on 5 June 2013 but the Supreme Court disqualified him on 28 July 2017, after 4 Years, 1 Month and 23 days. Mr. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is currently Prime Minister since 1 August 2017, in place of Mr. Nawaz Sharif.

We as Nation have to revisit our failures and success and should sort out the grey areas and the reasons for having come to this situation. Let us overview the timeline of the evolution of the democratic institution such as the office of the heads of the governments throughout the life of the country. Right since the day of our first Prime Minister to the last one, we are led to believe that the office has been victim to non-democratic forces. The heads of the governments were either shown the doors through dismissal of their governments or through forced resignations.

It is matter of record that two prime ministers were publicly assassinated whereas the first democratically elected Prime Minister Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was deposed by the non-democratic forces and then judicially murdered. One of the major services he had rendered for the national cause was the introduction of first consensus constitution in 1973.

These maneuvers led to political polarisations coupled with corruptions in the society and drainage of national resources. The drainage of national resources caused dependence on external financial resources to cope with the national developments.

The fate meted out to the heads of the governments, amongst other fallouts, also resulted in the weakening of the state institutions thus rendering the nation without any specific direction. We were left without any permanent foreign policy to protect our national interests. We were left to look for external/foreign financial assistance and currently Pakistan is faced with US$ 80 billion foreign debts. Pakistan has to secure more foreign financial aid to service its existing external debts meaning we have to make compromise on our own national priorities.

The major beneficiaries of the political polarisation in the country were the mafias of all sorts, who had been manipulating the situation in their own benefits. They had assumed the role of wheelers & dealers to fix the election results to their advantage. Obviously, when the elections results are fixed and a winner emerges out of the elections with the blessings of these mafias, then the winner would have different priorities than the national priorities.

The political situation has been marching toward uncertainty and a fearful atmosphere for the last few weeks where crime has become dominant, and the drug and land mafias have become more powerful than the state. Electable politicians have become buyable commodities and the public representatives are available in the “Political Mandi” for open auction regulated by the mafia. Political activities have turned into a political Mafia stock exchange. Most recently Imran Khan was, allegedly, offered RS 40 Corers for a senator seat in KPK and the nation expected him to launch a FIR which if not registered, puts his own party under questioning.

A country where the governments are made through the heavy mandate of billions instead of heavy mandate of public, then we are bound to meet with the same fate which we are exposed to today.

In view of above do we have any way to take the elections out of this mafia where all of our provinces are directly affected with this deadly infection? Yes. We can provide sincere election reforms to block the exploitation of political differences by the mafias to their benefit/advantage. We have to ensure fair, transparent and impartial elections and to offer unflinching support to the democratic process in the country. It is the only option if we are sincere with the future of the country.

What is happening to the country today is due to our own failings and we including me are responsible for it. We have failed as politicians, parliamentarian, bureaucrats, and members of the judiciary. We have failed to play our due role in defining its directions and failed to work to achieve the objectives. Our failures gave birth to the mafias and helped strengthening their role in the politics. This time is not for when genuine politician will be either eliminated from politics or forced to leave for being unable to sustain themselves before the Mafias. Now the time is approaching when a genuine politician will be obliged to say “NO to the post of Prime Minister, as no person with conscience would like to carry out the agenda of Mafias and subsequently get humiliated and land in jail.

The writer is a PPP Senator, former Interior Minister of Pakistan, and Chairman of think tank “Global Eye” and Senate Body on Interior and Narcotics.

 The article was originally published in "The Nation" and the link is: https://nation.com.pk/02-Mar-2018/no-thanks-do-not-want-to-be-pm

پارلیمنٹ پر اسکے محافظوں کا حملہ۔ تحریر سینیٹر رحمان ملک

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