Coalition agrees on Musharraf impeachment
The two ‘major parties’ of the ‘coalition’ government have agreed on a plan to impeach the former General Pervez Musharraf of his presidency. The man who came to power through a coup in 1999 and sent the then prime minister packing into exile took off his uniform this year. As usually happens in Pakistan the military man was very popular when he came to power but became progressively less popular over time. And now Pakistanis don’t like him any more. Instead they revere the saviour of democracy Nawaz Sharif and the widower Zardari. Pakistanis have unusually short memories, so politicians can reinvent themselves every few years. Anyhoo this ‘impeachment’ drama is expected to go on for some time making a lot of headlines and keeping the ‘news reporters’ busy.The president in the meantime has canceled his trip to China to watch the Olympics and is going to stay here and fight.
On the lawyers front Aitzaz Ehsan is worried that this escapade will take the ‘focus’ away from the ‘judges restoration issue’ and it will be put on the back burner.
He says the judges restoration should be the top priority of the ruling coalition. Restore judges first, impeach second. He reiterated his 14th August deadline for the restoration of deposed judges. Unfortunately the ‘ruling coalition’ has other ideas. Sharif wants to get rid of Musharraf first. So we’ll have to wait till 14 August to see the next ‘long march’ from lawyers. In the meantime stay glued to your television sets and keep watching Geo, Aaj, Express, Dawn and other channels to get your minute by minute fix of the political drama.
The ‘war of terror’ is as usual in full swing with local Taleban doing all sorts of things. When they are not fighting ‘infidels’ they’re burning schools or beheading spies or taking soldiers hostage. Its a sad state of affairs. Most Pakistanis believe that Pakistan is fighting America’s war. That USA is paying Pakistan to destroy itself and make it the ‘most dangerous place on earth’, so the US can stay in this region indefinitely. Neither do they want to close the Afghanistan border on their side nor allow Pakistan to close theirs. The taleban problem only emerged when the US came here. So I guess, until US is ready to go back we’re stuck with this war. That could take a while though. But what happened to the foreign policy shakeup that was promised by the new government? What happened to solving the problems with the local taleban using dialogue instead of force? Maybe I should watch more TV.
