Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Hulabaloo over Bilawal

The 'central executive committee' of the Pakistan People's Party has made Bilawal and Asif Zardari, the son and husband of Benazir Bhutto respectively, co-chairmen of the Party. There is something somewhat wrong about this process. I thought democracy was more than merely a platform for feudal families to maintain their hold on political power. In fact, there is nothing democratic about the present move and, indeed, it demonstrates the abject lack of imagination and real grassroots involvement in Pakistan's political life.

Pakistan, like most countries in the grip of extreme poverty and corruption, requires democracy more than anything else. But what it needs is real democracy, a platform for its mostly illiterate and desperate population to voice their demands and aspirations.

POSTSCRIPT

The United States (backed by the UK) insists that Pakistan hold federal general elections as soon after the proposed 8 January date as possible, despite Bhutto's death. This just demonstrates its remarkable lack of insight into the politics of the countries it seeks to control. Pakistan is at present more politically unstable than it has ever been in at least the last two or three decades. How an election could plausibly be carried out in the current climate is beyond me. No doubt the US hopes to quickly dust off the whole cuffufle over Musharraf being so terribly dictatorial by lauding an election, even a sham one, as a demonstration of his democratic credentials. There is an equal lack of doubt over the mainstream Western press towing this company line.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home