6 responses so far ↓

• 1 raza // Jan 25, 2008 at 4:13 pm

  I think we all feel the same dilemma… we continue to degrade the current regime (for right reasons) but whom are we keeping our hopes on ? All of them had their chances to run this county and nothing good came out even …. Are we trying to get to less bad leadership from very bad ???

  Is there an end to this tunnel where there is light ?

• 2 oal // Jan 26, 2008 at 12:57 am

  If/when there’s security from assassination, bombs, and intimidation of the community along political lines, the following becomes more possible:

  1. Administrative talent considering politics, and from whatever walk of life, may opt in and may be able to produce and shape public services responsive to the whole of their constituency with much less influence from violence;

  2. A free press that is also conscientious, educated, and responsible may be able to report and provide analysis with greater depth than may be the case at present;

  3. Absent of violence and with educations in line with the wishes responsive to the broad spectrum of expressed community needs, the criteria voters use to evaluate politicians may take into greater account inherent goodness in candidates, their good works, administrative capabilities, and public integrity.

  Easier said than done, any broad shift in the public’s understanding of surrounding events and the business and social systems that are part of the political construction of all lives should yield changes that drift toward constituents producing for themselves and through elected politicians greater effectiveness and integrity in public service.

• 3 javedrafiq // Jan 26, 2008 at 12:16 pm

  There can be confusion in selecting the right leaders only if you are uninitiated or too naive. Anyonewho wants to select the right leaders goes by the past performance - I mean actual performance as certified by world institutions and not what opponents state!

• 4 umer // Jan 26, 2008 at 9:04 pm

  Follow Whom?

  Ans: Give the democracy and democratically elected politicians a chance.

  A part of the reason why we find ourselves mired in this “leadership crisis” is that we refuse to recognize a leader, even when we see one. Take Nawaz Sharif, for instance.

  The man has his shortcomings. He’s no angel. But it surprises me when people refuse to even consider him as a leader. Yes, he’s no James Bond dressed up in a business suit, speaking spotless British English. Despite all of this, he’s been able to convince millions of Pakistani to voluntarily come out and vote for him many times. He’ll do the same once again. Whereever he goes, thousand come out to greet him and listen to him and, mind you, they aren’t paid for that. He didnt inherit his seat in the parliament or his party’s national following. He’s not US-sponsored; in fact, quite the contrary. He built the trust of millions of followers.

  The case of late Benazir was significantly different but not althogher so. She too rose against great odds to built the people’s trust.

  If you think the people are stupid in following these leaders, this is, all of those millions are stupid and you know better, then you are an incorrigible egoist and I cannot help you. But if you respect the people and consider them sensible and rational, then know that in the coming elections, and in all the elections that follow, they will choose their leadership. And each time, inshaAllah, better people will emerge.

  All of this, only if democracy is allowed to continue for a while in the land. And if we can hold back our contempt for popular politicians and defend them against the army’s ever-hanging sword.

• 5 oal // Jan 26, 2008 at 11:02 pm

  Regarding Nawaz Sharif:

  http://richpaki.tripod.com/briefhistory.htm

  Google away.

  Whatever the record and national interest in privitization of public assets and programs, perhaps overlooked is how to keep public attention and political focus on that form of civic issue.

  In a sense, platforms that methodically define issues and set out each party’s stance on them lend shape to a civil politics. When security events dominate the news, more productive concerns take a back seat and then inattention over time makes for mischief.

  In Kenya this past month, violence seems to have bloomed out of two broad sources: long-term neglect of economic disparity and social misery in the political body; the opposition’s ability to frame that suffering in tribal terms and with accusations of nepotism on the part of the incumbent and related economically dominant people.

  Instead of working into economic and inclusion issues programmatically, Kenya’s President and opposition leader have between them let time, which moves quickly in conflict, erode the government’s power to secure the country against violence and forestall the start of a cycle of aggression and retribution in various communities.

  Politicians in working systems talk, propose, formulate, reformulate, install, and amend laws continuously in response to grievance. Wherever governments don’t do that–and of course it’s the work of leaders and representatives to get that work done and sustained–they falter.

  In Kenya, suggesting the cause of one’s misery must be one’s neighbor belies for those easily inflamed much more complex political and economic realities.
  —
  One message I feel I’ve read repeatedly this month as regards events in Pakistan is articulation of the urge to shift public interest from families and personalities toward core issues and then to expect to be able to enforce that (through emphasis on accountability, oversight and press freedom, transparency in government, etc.) and with it to better compete open fields of poltical contenders.

  Wiki’s got a too modern term in “kleptocracy” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptocracy), but that’s potentially in the mix too and how to avoid putting or keeping anyone in power whose sense of entitlement does that seems also an issue for Pakistan.

• 6 Ali Raza // Feb 4, 2008 at 12:33 am

  Any one excluding the one’s who governed pakistan before Will be the same because of Pakistani policies . I mean they r not straight and clear . For example relation between Pakistan and Israel.

Leave a Comment