By Kamran Rehmat/Islamabad
Recently, the ruling Pakistan People’s Party took out an advert in the national media to drive home what looked like the Guinness Book of Pakistan record - or so it seemed.
Milestone: Prime Minister Gilani and President Zardari have set new precedents but these may have come at a price to their party
On the right of an eight column display, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was shown hoisting the crescent-and-star flag in white sherwani (the traditional long coat associated with aristocracy) under a coloured frame of President Zardari flanked by diffused images of his father-in-law and spouse, both former prime ministers.
On the left was the forlorn figure of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the country’s founder, and placed next to it was a large clock depicting Gilani’s timeline album around the hours with pen pix of Liaquat Ali Khan, the country’s first prime minister, at the centre of the clock.
Besides the digital timelines of Liaquat and Gilani in power, it also had the clock hands placed at not the standard 10: 10 that you see at the stores - about that in a moment - but 10:12. Symbolically, it was supposed to show Gilani had surpassed the record of Liaquat as the longest serving prime minister.
There are many theories surrounding why the pre-set time at stores is 10:10 where one hand of the clock points to number 10 and the other to number 2 — even though it is not the centrepiece of this piece.
Clock and watch makers normally, if not always, put their logo under the number 12. So placing the hands of the clock to 10 and 2, helps to frame and show the logo.
The 10:10 permutation also makes a resemblance to a smiley face. It is deemed to produce positive vibes at the store and increase the sales. Finally, it is said clocks set on 10:10 look more symmetrical; hence, better for advertisement.
The PPP government has scored many firsts in its latest stint — fifth overall — in power. Some of these milestones are instrumental in terms of what has historically been a rather fragile democratic ship.
They point to a critical forward movement and perhaps, the PPP can claim a major role to that end with some justification.
At the end of the day, the fact that Yousaf Raza Gilani has become the longest serving prime minister — now into the third month of his fifth year in power — and his government early this month presented its fifth consecutive national budget are proof, if one was needed, that it is a no mean feat for an elected government to stay the course in Pakistan.
Earlier this year, President Asif Zardari also created a record by making a fifth consecutive address to the bicameral legislature — Ayub, Zia and Musharraf, the country’s three longest-serving dictators with a near decade-long or more reign each — either didn’t feel the need to fulfil a constitutional obligation or have the heart to stand up to elected representatives in a quasi-military set-up.
To be sure, the combine of President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani have endured a rollercoaster ride and they appeared perilously close to being ousted on a few occasions thanks to the shenanigans of their bête noir - the security establishment and judiciary - but managed to return from the brink with matching gamesmanship.
However, as any political scientist will tell you, history is not a statistics division, and while historians may be kind in appreciating the odds that the PPP overcame, on balance, the party is itself guilty of contributing to the chaos around it and devoting much of its time, money and energy on protecting its tainted leadership.
As a result, four years on, the PPP has little to show for governance. There is near universal consensus on this with not even the party itself showing any heart in defending its meek record except to cite the problems it inherited from the Musharraf era and the odds it braved along the way.
Perhaps, if it was not overly concerned about protecting the compromised chair of the party, there would have been greater resonance around the ‘milestones’ it has used the public exchequer to boast of.
None exemplified this approach more pronouncedly than Prime Minister Gilani, who spent much of this year stonewalling the Supreme Court’s directives to reopen corruption cases in Swiss courts against the president and ending up with a conviction that has compromised his moral authority to continue in office.
Regardless of the merit of the apex court’s ruling, the prime minister’s continued defiance undermines the very foundations upon which the edifice of democracy - uncompromised obeisance to the rule of law, in this case the highest judicial authority - is built.
It doesn’t take Einstein’s genius to figure out if the prime minister is really sworn to protecting the constitution as he interprets. Closer to the ground, his actions betray political expediency, for, in protecting the president, he is only advancing his political career.
To be brutally honest, it was perhaps, too much to expect Gilani to move against his president but the decision to stick it out is flawed on at least two counts: one, that it runs against the spirit of his constitutional oath of placing everything over and above the personal in serving Pakistan - Gilani had privately, said more than once he would “not ditch my party and president” in the contempt case; and, two, he could have resigned to reinforce obeisance to the law and retain that fig leaf of integrity.
For now, all his actions are rooted in defiance, which is no credit to democracy. It is also rather hollow to declare - like the prime minister did beforehand - that he would only abide by the speaker’s ruling once the court had sent a reference to her.
Predictably, the speaker who owes her custodianship to the PPP, laid the Supreme Court ruling to rest, judging that the reference had no merit - to disqualify the PM - even though the court had sentenced the chief executive till the rising of the court last April as a token punishment.
Meanwhile, Pakistanis seem resigned to the gathering “milestones” even as they struggle to eke out a dignified existence.
l The writer is a freelance journalist based in Islamabad and can be reached at [email protected]
