In the ongoing extended contempt of court proceedings against the Prime Minister, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan has, seemingly, exhausted his stock of logic; he now insists that, all together, fifteen of the seventeen honourable judges of the Supreme Court are no longer fit to hear the proceedings (because of their bias?). The PPP has had a tradition of insisting that everything it does is the right way of doing things; the rest of the world can go on faulting it for as long as it likes but PPP won't mend its ways.
After 1971, for the second time it has survived in power beyond three years, which has strengthened its belief in this flawed philosophy. What the PPP rarely looked into was the state in which it left Pakistan upon its exit from power although each time it set a new record of leaving the country in worse economic and political crises than before. The bigger tragedy was that its policies didn't serve the masses, which it claims to represent and fight for.
This time it would be a new record of deficits of all kinds - financial as well as administrative - as visible in the escalating crises in the economy, polity, and law and order. With few exceptions, all public sector entities are almost bankrupt, public debt has grown to the highest-ever level, and street battles are becoming the norm. All that the Prime Minister is proud of is the fact that his regime has completed four years of its term. On top thereof, he cites a number of achievements - all invisible to the Pakistanis. Doing so, he conveys one simple message: what a blind world it is that can't see what I can!
It is this mindset that brings him close to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama because they too have the same complaint. What they all miss out on is the famous saying that proclaims that "zuban-e-khalq ko naqara-e-Khuda sumjho" (consider the anger of the masses the sound of God's battle drums). In the post-1971 Pakistan, never before did you hear so many demands for new provinces and independence for some existing provinces. Is this a mark of success of the incumbent regime or does it reflect the total failure of its governance, or is a calculated dismemberment plan actually being implemented?
In March 1971, the message to the Bengalis was "hum idhar, tum udhar" (we here ie in West Pakistan, you there ie in Bangladesh) but the frightening difference now is "which will be the idhar (ie the here part because even for Sindh - stronghold of the PPP - Jiye Sindh Qaumi Mahaz is demanding independence?" Hopefully, that's not what the PPP wants, but does it realise that this scenario has developed under its rule, of which the Prime Minister - a committed PPP activist - is so proud. An indicator of the Prime Minister's own belief in PPP's popularity in the masses is the extent of security he needs while travelling anywhere in Pakistan.
The Prime Minister never tires of pointing to the "highest-ever" foreign exchange reserves. Unless he considers the Pakistanis clueless, he wouldn't be claiming that because half the "high" foreign exchange reserves represent funds borrowed from the IMF, and of the other half over 40 percent belong to commercial banks. The other achievements he keeps talking about are the 18th, 19th and 20th amendments to the constitution of which the 18th Amendment, supposedly, gave the provinces their legitimate rights. If that's so, how come there are so many demands for new provinces, and for the independence of some provinces?
Were these amendments the much-touted benefits of the PPP regime, or did they actually spur disunity? The fact is that what prompted these demands, and rightly so, was the escalating level of poverty about which the PPP regime did virtually nothing, while the rich (many within its own ranks) became richer.
The PPP never tried to bring within its fold reputed economists, development planners, technology and financial experts, and experienced and unbiased business managers and sociologists. Instead, these key policy-making and executive positions were filled with cronies - many of them not qualified for those positions. What people now believe is that the PPP doesn't just come into power; it "occupies" the country. The one reality that gives rise to this feeling is the fact, after the PPP comes into power Jiyalas suddenly descend to head every important state office, tragically often without having the credentials for delivering improved results.
Each time, this policy led to chaos and creation of valid grounds for demands to oust the PPP but the PPP never learned anything. Reason: it always thought that winning (even partly as in 2008) a general election gave it absolute authority to govern, not the obligation to do so fairly, transparently and efficiently. What is new this time is that the PPP refuses to recognise even the authority of the Supreme Court. That's the epitome of power that PPP claims has been conferred on it by the masses. But while doing so, it conveniently forgets that, according to the ECP, 45 percent of the votes cast in the 2008 elections were doubtful. PPP can remain a political force to be reckoned with, but for that it must cleanse its ranks of the incompetent and the corrupt. The world that questions the actions of the PPP isn't mad; it is for the PPP to find out who actually is mad.