April 5th Deal - Musharraf rethinks

Speculations are rife that some extraordinary developments took place on the 5th of April, 2007; a day after the 28th death anniversary of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto . It is believed that a senior member of the Army along with some political gurus visited Dubai to finalize the details of a 'deal' between PPP, PML-N and the government. If that is the case then the Chowdhary Brothers Inc. will be feeling a bit more than insecure.

The package which has been finalized is to be as follows:

- President Musharraf will be re-elected from the current assemblies and will shed his uniform after the elections.
- Both PPP and PML-N will help that to be achieved by their support in the assemblies.
- Benazir Bhutto and Shahbaz Sharif will be allowed to come back to the country without any serious complications, as the cases against them will be taken back.
- The elections will be conducted in a transparent manner decided by all parties.
- The next PM will be from the Frontier province in a bid to help stabilize the violence in that region.

If this is true, then it will be an achievement for the establishment considering the political crisis they are in. It is said that President Musharraf was forced into looking at these options, only recently, due to the judicial crisis. The General is not at all happy with some people in the government who may have caused the judicial chaos in order to meet their own personal interests. The extent of which is so much that it is believed that the 'non-functional' Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chowdhry, will be re-instated at the end of the whole affair.

Now, the people will be wondering what about Nawaz Sharif ? I think that his role in politics was over when more than 90 percent of his top leadership turned their backs on him post-October 12 coup. What future can a leader have if his own party members are not loyal to him ? But, Sharif Sahib is not the person who should be blamed solely. The Chowdhry Brothers have a history of not allowing complete power to anyone. In Nawaz Sharif's government another infamous incident took place at the Supreme Court when it was attacked. This time a similar event took place, except that the style was different as we are living in a much more modern era. Now, they just made the Chief Justice 'non-functional.' Even this was no less than an attack on the Supreme Court. As a result, Musharraf lost some serious support from his own trusted quarters. Therefore, it is said that a few imminent changes are about to take place in the cabinet in the coming weeks to give a clear message to the ruling party.

My reading is that Musharraf has realized that he no longer can keep all his eggs in the same basket. Therefore, the next assembly will be an evenly balanced set of PPP, PML-Q, and PML-N members. The MMA may have not done serious damage to President Musharraf, but they have definitely irritated him enough to close their doors to the corridors of power. If this reading proves true, then it will be a decent arrangement for us Pakistanis. That is because there will be a system of checks and balances, amongst all the parties, which Musharraf talked about some time back. And, if the President sheds his uniform then there will automatically be a check and balance on him as well by the next Chief of Army Staff. Yes, the next Army Chief will be hand-picked by the Presidency and should be loyal to Musharraf. But time can always prove anyone wrong. We saw an illustrative example of that by the incident of Iftikhar Muhammad Chowdhry. After all, he was also hand-picked.

National Treasure

Salary & Concessions for a Member of National Assembly (MNA)

Monthly Salary: Rs. 120,000 to 200,000 - US$ 1977 - 3295
Expense for Constitution per month: Rs.100,000 - US$ 1647
Office expenditure per month: Rs.140,000 - US$ 2306
Travelling concession (Rs. 8 per km): Rs.48,000 - US$ 791 (For a visit to ISLAMABAD & return: 6000 km)
Daily BETA during Assembly meets: Rs.500 - US$ 8.24
Charge for 1st class (A/C) in train: Free (For any number of times & All over PAKISTAN)
Charge for Business Class in flights: Free for 40 trips / Year (With wife or P.A.)
Rent for Govt hostel any where: Free
Electricity costs at home: Free up to 50,000 units
Local phone call charge: Free up to 1, 70,000 call.
TOTAL expense for a MNA per year: Rs. 32,000,000 - US$ 527,182
TOTAL expense for 5 years: Rs. 1, 6000 000 - US$ 263,591
For 534 MNA, the expense for 5 years: Rs. 8,54,40,000, 000 ( about 9000 crores) - US$ 1.4 Billion

Need I say more? Is this the 'true essence' of democracy stated by our leader, General Pervez Musharraf ? Or is this an implementation of the 'Sub Say Pehlay Pakistan - Pakistan Comes First' policy ? Today, we stand at a point where the masses of Pakistan are disappointed with the system and believe that nothing can bring a change in Pakistan. The MNAs of our assembly, either in opposition or government, all sing to the same tune of bringing 'real democracy' in Pakistan.

According to my opinion, that will not happen until the system is changed. President Musharraf, being in Army uniform, was the only man who could have done that. But, unfortunately he also did not show enough resolve and character to bring about a new political system. The army is indeed the most powerful institution in Pakistan. Therefore, everyone hoped that if a change is ever possible, it is only through the man who heads the most powerful institution. All what was required from the President was to establish an independent judiciary. This would have automatically filtered the MNAs of today who for the last 15 years or so, have been sitting at the assembly, except with different masks ie. PML(N) , PPP, PML(Q), PPPP . Before it was the Chowdhary Shujaat under the umbrella of PML- Nawaz. Today, it is the same Chowdhary under the PML - Quaid e Azam.

To conclude, until the judiciary of Pakistan is not made independent the system will always fail us. Furthermore, a change in Pakistan will come only when these disappointed masses or 'awam' of Pakistan stand up and make their voices heard. It will happen when the 'silent' majority of Pakistan which never votes, will cast their votes in the electoral process. When that will happen is a million dollar question left to be answered.

P.S. - The statistics for NA expenditure was forwarded to me by a very dear friend who works for a major news channel in Pakistan. His attachment with government circles has enabled me to provide this information.