Open Letter to Prime Minister Jamali

Feroz:

Sorry for the late reply. Hadn`t checked out the posts on this thread for some time.

I totally agree that a bad system in reality is better than a good system in theory. And even a BAD system needs the assurance of time and space to evolve. Parliamentary system hasn`t lived up to expecations in Pakistan because those kicking out regimes were Faujiz and NOT the people.

But when you say there is no alternative to the presidential system, that is where I disagree. Supposing we are talking about the same presidential form of system, I still have no heard HOW that will be any better.

With regards to separations of power- between legilative and executive. With regards to who controls the finances of the country. Keeping in mind that the Pakistani population has been fragmented and votes along `tribal` lines solely due to the divisive politics of the Army, how will a presidential system assuage the fears of the smaller groups?

Outside the argument that Pakistan has historically been a de facto presidential system (which it really wasn`t as it wasn`t a `system` at all as a `system` needs a legitimate process) I`ve seen NOTHING on the ground that shows how the presidential system will be a better alternative in coping with the dynamics of this country`s heterogeneous mix.

My final and oft stated argument is that no matter what system you have in place, as long as the faujiz are meddling, it won`t work.

re: Rozaiba

The answer, to your question, was in the conclusions of my last post. I had left them open-ended for you to draw your own conclusions. Pakistan has existed, for better or worse, under a presidential system, as a result of which the parliament was never allowed to evolve and had it, we in Pakistan would not to suffer the politics of personalities.

My dilemma is that Pakistan was never intended to be a presidential system and even though the constitution of 1956 made it into a republic, the majority of the powers were still vested with the prime minister. Ayub Khan changed and to this day, we have not been able to divert the powers back to the prime minister and the parliament. If Pakistan were a true parliamentary system, would it not make sense for the prime ministers to nominate the presidents and not the other way around?

Going back to a true parliamentary form of government in Pakistan is risky. I am not of the opinion that we should create the Westminister model, because I do not think that it will work. Even in Great Britain today, there is avery interesting debate raging that the government of Tony Blair has brought about a presidential form of rule in England. Blair has a solid majority in parliament, just as Nawaz Sharif once did in Pakistan, and there is nothing wrong with it. The only caveat being, that parliamentary democracy thrives on a plurality of opinions and what you would call populism and not absolutism of power.

A true parliamentary democracy, in which there is a marked degree of different opinions and the government operates on the basis of the political consensus, of other parties, only exists today in India and not even in Great Britain. Parliamentary governments, are generally speaking, made of coalition governments and even when they are majority governments, they are so by handful of seats, which can easily tilt the balance in a vote of no confidence. Blair has such absolute majority that he can safely ignore the parliament and carry out, what amounts to a specific party platform, which is often presented as a national mandate. Nawaz Sharif used his ``heavy mandate`` to pass the 15th amendment, which would have enforced Islamic sharia law in Pakistan under the same pretextual arguments. Parliaments with overwhelming majorites tend to ignore political discussion or plurality of disagreements and pass laws, which are not agreed to by a parliamentary consensus, through their majorities. In a parliamentary democracy, laws are made on the basis of consensus, with other political parties, and not imposed through the law of over bearing percentages.

Ask yourself this question. Has any civilian government or its prime minister, ever allowed the parliament to express an opinion, which was against the party in government in Pakistan?

It is not that I favor a presidential form of government; it is because I see no alternative to it. I would much rather see a process, which transforms this presidential form of government, to what was envisaged in the 1956 constitution than see any more political experimentations in Pakistan. Let us take the system, as dysfunctional as we have, and make some sense out it instead of always debating, which system we should have in Pakistan. In all of this debate over a prime ministerial or a presidential system, a political vacuum has been created and it is being filled with ideas of extra-constitutionalisms. Any system is better than no system and a bad system in reality is better than a good system in theory.

I know that you will disagree with the last sentence, and I am expecting that disagreement from you. Pakistan cannot exist for ever as a class project in a remedial political science class 099, where we debate day in and night out, what political system we should have in this nation.

Another thing, which you will disagree with me is that regardless of any system, we might end up with it, it will always be undermined by the presence and the influence of the military in the politics. The disagreement comes from the fact, that the role of the military in Pakistani politics might be lessened, but it will not be removed. The military will always be a part of Pakistani politics and no amount of wishing otherwise is going to scare it away. The system, which will emerge in Pakistan, will be the one under which the military has been able to institutionalize its presence in Pakistani politics in a constitutional sense and that is, what the emerging reality in Pakistani politics todays seems to hint. We are seeing the mutatation of Pakistani politics into and along the lines of the Turkish politics, with a similar minded role for the armed forces in Pakistan; as one of a major political party.

Ciao

dost-mittar #193: I am not sure. I just watched the Indian channel, and they said, at 26, Bains was the youngest.

Some information to clear your fears, a bit. My previous views are based on the limited information I have experienced, during the campaign. It turns out that the Indian community did support Wajid. They came to the fund-raising dinner etc., and supported him as a Liberal. It is just that amongst the campaign workers, there was a clear division amongst Indians and Pakistanis. Apparently, amongst the voters there may not have been. Will have to do more research....

Ruby Dhallah is an attractive lady. She speaks well, also. She was born and bred in Canada. She recently became a chiropractor in 1999. So she is probably around 30 or so.

Bains speaks well also. Seems like a reasonable guy. I didn`t even know he wore a kirpan, until I read the article you posted. I watched some of his debates. The issue of kirpan never came up. It was all around health care, Paul Martin etc. etc. Quite an achievement to be an MP at 26. I think he may have been born and bred here.

Wajid was a military pilot. A few years ahead of NHK, probably. He was a POW in India during 71 also. I thought he was a Sargodha college grad, but apparently wasn`t. He has the biggest Mazda car dealerships in Canada......His wife is actually a practicing pathologist at a local hospital. He has sponsored quite few scholarships for retraining immigrant engineers...

If Dhullah is a Punjabi name, then four out of the eight MPs of the area speak Punjabi. And a fifth depends on the support of Punjabis. This was the worst time for Liberals politically, yet all these guys won. So I don`t think they will be losing their seat for a while........

Romair:
I thought that the youngest MP is the Ottawa tory (Pollivier?) who defeated the Defense Minister David Pratt.
Ruby Dhalla will at least add some much needed glamour on the Hill if nothing else!

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dost-mittar: Some more info about the elections, if you are interested.

The Sikh guy with the kirpan, is the youngest MP in Canada now. He is only 26 years old. Similarly, Ruby, a South Asian lady elected from here, is now the youngest female MP in Canada.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

good one Aisha. Now I can say lucky Yasser.:)

Dullahbhatti:

If Jinnah were alive, I really wouldn`t be asking Yasser out, would I?

(Couldn`t resist this when I heard about your comment :) )

Aisha Sarwari

note: #186 was for dost-mittar.....forgot to mention his name.....

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I think I may have over-emphasised the ethnic nature of the elections, since the discussion started when you posted an article highlighting the fact that so many Punjabis had been elected.

There is definitely a strong ethnic basis in the elections. No doubt about it. Desis will vote for desis, just because the candidate is desi. Indians will vote for Indians, Pakistanis for Pakistanis, Sardarjis for Sardarjis, and will cross partylines to do so. I would have to honestly say, that I would probably do so myself (assuming there was nothing drastically wrong with the candidate).

However, this is a common phenomenon for communities that are trying to establish themselves in a society. It is not unique to desis. Jews would strictly vote for Jewish candidates, till a stage reached where enough Jewish candidates were elected where they could start voting along partylines, again. Blacks would do the same, until enough Blacks got elected. If tomorrow Colin Powell participated in a Presidential election, don’t you think a large portion of Blacks would cross over to the Republican side to vote for him? They would continue to do so, until enough Blacks got into position, where it became common for them to become President. Jews would do so, for a Jewish candidate. And so on.

However, Irish and Italian Canadians will not vote across party lines, because there are enough candidates representing them on both sides. One can see that with the Sikh community, in this area. They have been established here the longest. And now one can see Sikhs competing for nominations in multiple parties. So now Sikhs will stop voting across party lines, i.e if both parties have Sikh candidates, or both parties court the Sikhs, they will stop worrying about the fact that they candidate is Sikh or not.

In our case, we supported a Liberal candidate, which is a party whom the desis always support. He got the nomination from the Liberal party, not because he was a Pakistani. But because he appealed to all the Liberal voters, The Pakistani group in the locality is large, but still not nearly as large as the combined gora group. The area where Pakistanis helped our candidate was, infact, not through votes. We did an analysis of individuals who voted, and found out that very few Pakistanis actually came out and vote. Where the Pakistanis helped was in running the campaign. The came from all corners of GTA to help run the campaign.

The only oddity was the fact that Hindu Indians, all supported the Conservative candidate. Even though they are mostly Liberals, themselves. They specifically supported her, because she was of Indian origin. They were supporting Liberal candidates everywhere else. I don’t think they supported her because they did not want a Pakistani as an MP. They just want more and more individuals of their community in the Parliament.

I don’t see anything wrong with this, at the moment. This is a natural way of evolution. People vote for communities, until the communities get empowered enough to join the mainstream. Then the vote along partylines, completely.

Just to make you feel better, Mississauga is one of the fastest growing and wealthiest communities in Canada. It probably has the top five highest housing prices. The average household income in our riding is 86,000 dollars. Very high. It is also the safest city in Canada, and the sixth biggest in size, and third biggest financial district. It has the country headquarters of Microsoft and Oracle. Brampton has the international headquarters of the largest company in Canada, i.e. Nortel. i.e these areas are not desi ghettos.

So the areas are doing well. Keeping this in mind, in the recent mayor elections, the opposition candidate was a Pakistani. The incumbent was an 85 year old gori lady, who has been a mayor for decades. She got 92% (or some similar number) of the vote. This means all the desis, including Pakistanis, voted for her also. In this case, I would have voted for her, as well. Because, as a mayor, one requires good admin skills. While as an MP, one requires the ability to articulate and highlight and present the interests of a group. The grandma mayor is an excellent administrator. But she has allegedly been called a racist. So while I like her as a mayor, I am not sure how much access she would give to me as an MP. For that position, I would vote for someone, who gives me access.

Romair:
Your response, instead of reassuring me, makes me even more sick. I am wondering what has Canada done to deserve the dredge of the world like us. It started a policy of multiculturalism, hoping, that every group will bring in the best of its culture and add to the beauty of the Canadian mosaic. The formulators of that policy didn`t reckon on us desis bringing the worst of our stinking baggage, our prejudices and religious-gender biases to pollute the atmosphere here.
Why should south asians vote even for another south asian? Some of these elected yo-yos make Laloo Yadav look like a polished statesman and are just going to sit in the parliament and not even open their mouths (and I can only hope that they dont open their kirpans); one of them has been reelected for a third term and his sole contribution was to make the parliament hill available for celebrating baisakhi. We came to this country because we liked it, not to turn it into the wretched places we came from.
Even the process through which we have become candidates of established parties is sickening. Ten years ago, a desi Liberal went to the nomination meeting of his riding and found that there were only a handful of members present to elect their nominee; so the brilliant idea came to him that all he had to do was sign up a hundred or so members of the party, maybe even pay for their membership, and get himself elected the next time round. Voila, a winning formula was found. Now, that the practice is well-known, it takes more than a thousand to accomplish the same task, but the process is still the same - no respect for the party ideology/program, etc. - people even buy multiple memberships with the sole purpose of affecting the outcome of the nominating meeting. They have alienated the long-term party members who have been active in their parties for all their life, and even for generations. I hope that the parties wake up and try to do something about these `members of convenience` which is no different from `marriage of convenience` or `refugees of convenience`.
God save Canada form us - but I dont think God stands much chance agaisnt the followers of allah, ishwar and wahe guru!
In the meantime, Happy Canada Day. The fireworks were beautiful!

If dullabhatti and Romair can post here then ....

Who is this Pakistani? Take a guess!

“Never mind. The press really didn’t mind while this pathetic charade was going on. Chalabi’s spokesman here in London, a Pakistani, still frequents chic dinner parties accompanied by his American social-climbing art-dealer blonde, and no one raises a plucked eyebrow.”

1-Mantolives
2-Malik99
3-Romair
4-Stuka

Dullah

Nahin yaar ... not any more than you would marry dullah bhatti... I don`t think you will appreciate some false information about your hero... or at the very least you will try and correct the misnomer.

The problem here is that in the 1960s Ayub Khan invented a story to justify his dictatorship... Like I said in my last post... no scholar of any repute ever put it like this... even Wolpert who is taken to journalese rumor mongering doesn`t say this. My other hero... the Great Kemal Ataturk was a dictator... but Jinnah was not. He had actually prepared a constitution modelled after the French constitution of 1946 (4th Republic) but he couldn`t even impose that on the Pakistan Constitutent Assembly.


Sincerely

YLH

swear God..I bet you guys if Jinnah was alive today Manto would have dumped beautiful Aisha in seconds to marry Jinnah...Aisha is lucky(or not :-)) that Jinnah sahib is dead and no competition.:)

more mishri de bol...

``P.S. if one really thinks about, voting jointly along desi lines (Hindus + Pakistanis + Sardarjis), for a desi candidate, is also not correct. But that is what minorities do, until they get large. ``

since Romair moved to Toronto, minorities are already having problems in CANADA...:)