Let the letter be written, Mr President, for your party which was founded for the people on a social welfare platform. Let it be, so that this People’s Party can survive beyond the histrionics of the Zardari legacy. Write it because the country’s liberal agenda – a crucially required left-of-centre school of thought – depends critically on the integrity of your party’s raison d’etre of roti-kapra-makaan. There is a difference, Sir, between being martyred and playing victim. Sure, Sir: Your party has bled before, and can even take murder. But do not transfuse its blood for your own political dialysis. Do not simulate injury, Sir. Display a long-term view as your party’s leader. The PPP will only thank you for your selfless perspective, which would be the real sacrifice that it needs to survive against rising tsunami of Banni Gala, the incumbent takht of Lahore, and even the garrisoned fortress of Chaklala.
Let it be written – Mr President – for your friend and lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, who will lose his political credibility, if not his legal fees, by the time all of this is over. You’ve already driven away most of the old guard of the PPP. Aitzaz is a staunch pillar of the Piplis; a vanguard of your Jiyalas; and a hero of the lawyers’ movement. He is an international brand of repute that you can use anytime. Deploy him for larger conflicts that are winnable. Do not debase him in the public eye, at the twilight of his career, by putting him in a position where his credentials are permanently damaged. Fight the long war, Mr President. By burning your Bishop now, you will lose the clergy – this judiciary – in the coming years. In this unfair land, you and successors will need the courts to dispense justice again and again. Look beyond the corner with Aitzaz and the judges. Don’t get your messenger killed, Sir.
Let the letter be written, Mr President. You’ve seen what your inflexibility has done to your prime minister. You’ve witnessed how your politicking has disabled this administration’s performance and affected its governance. If you’re so disconnected from the hellish, unread, backbreaking, murderous, dark and cold reality that is everyday life in Pakistan’s economy, then look at the opinion polls to assess the damage. Peruse the international press, if not the local one, to count your losses. Do remember, Sir, that you had an open playing field when your administration was elected in 2008. Back then, your prime minister was under your thumb, and parliament and public opinion were under his. All that your combine had to do was govern, and govern well, to strengthen your coalition and guarantee your incumbency. You could have played a god, and all the PM had to do was deliver your message and wrath. But you chose to play monster – pulverising national and even your party’s sentiment – and your PM lost a captive audience. Today, Gilani risks official disqualification, and you stand a verdict away from becoming yet another president who saw off an elected premier, pawning him off for power; only this time, he would be your man, not your enemy. That would be a strange legacy, Sir. Imagine what it will do to the confidence of your rank and file if you were ever to vie power again.
Let the letter be written, Mr President. If not for your party, your friends or your pawns, then for your successor. For Assefa, so that she may be able to face the music when it plays again, for it shall blare on. Leave her a world where she doesn’t have to sign her life away to deals or settle for secret arrangements to assume power. Her inheritance shouldn’t just be her mother’s murder or her father’s disrepute. It should be her party leader’s exemplary sacrifice of doing the right thing – not necessarily the most immediately, and politically, profitable thing. Let it be written, Sir, so she will be able to hold her head up high one day and say her father defied everyone except the law of this land. Don’t put her in a position where her detractors taunt her that she is the legate of a man who hid behind immunity, who sacrificed the stability of the system just to cling to office and manoeuvre electoral victories: a man who limped and staggered past the post. Let Assefa make history, Sir, and not be judged by it. Surely, she will gain more from your selflessness, if you choose to display it, for she will always have less to answer for as the daughter and successor of a man humbled by the laws of political gravity, if not a president empowered by the spin and wizardry of legal druids.
Let the letter be written, Mr President. Recall that day in 1988 when your departed wife, the Mohtarma, rolled back into power, riding the wave of anger over the injustice done to her father and her people. Recollect the moment of purity and victory when she was elected to the highest office in the land for the first time. Remember the redemption and innocence of the 1988 elections, despite the odds being stacked against her. The NRO is not about her, Mr President. She has already proven herself beyond the call of duty. Pakistan will always love and respect her – with her faults and fallibilities as well her strengths and leadership.
No, Sir: The NRO is your trial, a test not just of your office and person, but also your courage and conscience. Rest assured, Mr President: Nobody wants to dance on Benazir’s grave. But this country is assessing you, Sir, and it has every right to do so. Today, this land has a soul that is multi-coloured and eclectic, not just khaki and helmeted. This Pakistan has many hues of hope – a rainbow coalition of aspirations – and though far from perfectly justified, balanced or even explicable, our thirst for accountability is so immediate and so critical that you will destroy your wife’s legacy, your children’s future, your successors’ confidence, your friends’ prospects and your party’s promise, if you fight this existentialist wave of sought justice through contrived political manoeuvrings.
So let it be written, Mr President. For your martyr of democracy, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. For Assefa Bhutto Zardari. For Yousuf Raza Gilani, and Aitzaz Ahsan, and the Pakistan People’s Party. But look above them all, Sir. Let it be written for setting a new precedent. For raising the bar. For breaching mediocrity. After all, Sir, this is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and our hapless state today asks for nothing from her president – only that he behaves presidential.
No comments:
Post a Comment