See No Rigging

With another showdown between the government and Imran Khan on the horizon, it is important to revisit the root of the current strife; rigging in the general elections of 2013. While much has been said about this subject, we still appear to have people who are not correctly informed as to what happened, or is alleged to have happened, and what are the evidences to support such allegations.

The crux of the arguments from the disinterested, misinformed commentators boils to what I came across in an op-ed around two months ago. Basically that neither the agitators have

“(1) a theory of how the (election) process could have been hijacked; and (2) evidence that the process was indeed hijacked in the manner suggested.”

This contention is just very, very wrong. Since the main battleground is Punjab, let’s focus on the theory and evidence of rigging there.

The basic allegation or theory is that the ROs or returning officers, that were from the judiciary, were not under the ECPs control and influenced the results in favour of one political party; the PMLN. The Election Commission itself has since admitted, and FAFEN has pointed out, that the ROs were not under its control. The ECP has further admitted that the ROs changed polling schemes in various constituencies and cleared many candidates without verification of eligibility to contest polls in light of the constitution.

For example, the constitution states that a person is disqualified from becoming a member of the National Assembly if he has not repaid a loan “for more than one year from the due date, or has got such loan written off”. Thus, according to the constitution, Nawaz Sharif (loan default) and Fehmida Mirza (load write-off) were not eligible to contest polls and are currently members of the National Assembly in violation of the Constitution of Pakistan, which is otherwise supreme.

However, the main transgression the ROs are alleged to have undertaken is changing the results in certain constituencies in favour of the PMLN. That is to say, that the votes cast for one party might be more than the PMLN, but the ROs, who were in charge of tabulating and announcing results, disregarded facts and ballots cast. Instead, they misused their authority to grant the PMLN votes that never existed, or docked votes cast to other parties, to produce a fake or forged result card in favour of the PMLN candidate/s.

In this endeavour they were often assisted by the POs or presiding officers, who delayed/refused announcing results in individual polling stations in order to give ROs time to change results, and/or refused to give polling agents of rival parties a signed Form XIV or statement of count as proof of polling record at individual polling stations.

A further allegation is that the Punjab Police favoured the PMLN candidates and facilitated them instead of trying to stop the party’s high handedness.

It is argued that the ROs, who were from the judiciary, supported the PMLN on account of Former CJP Iftikhar Chaudhary. Iftikhar Chaudhary’s conduct during his time as CJ Vis a Vis the PMLN is open to interpretation. However it is worth noting that his son, the flamboyant Mr. Arsalan Ifthikar took residence at the Punjab CM House Annexe to better conduct his well-documented “business” dealings. This was revealed in a leaked video of then Punjab Law minister Rana Mashood, which though PMLN sympathizers were quick to call forged, the minister himself confirmed as genuine.

The connivance of Presiding Officers and other polling staff, as well as the police, is blamed on the then Punjab Caretaker CM and journalist Najam Sethi. Sethi has since been personally appointed chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board by Nawaz Sharif, in violation of the PCB constitution. After courts removed Sethi, Mr. Nawaz appointed him again. More recently, Nawaz Sharif again personally nominated Mr. Sethi for the post of ICC Chairman.

Mr Sethi has never played cricket at the international or first class level, never commentated, nor does he have renowned administrative experience.

As caretaker CM of Punjab, Sethi was tasked with providing a neutral environment for elections, specifically with purging the influence of Shahbaz Sharif in the Punjab administration. Najam Sethi did not change the home secretary of the province, retaining the secretary that was an appointee of the PMLN government. The Punjab Police is ultimately answerable to the home secretary.

The bulk of the polling staff and POs are teachers and staff of government schools & colleges. Najam Sethi appointed Mubasher Raza as secretary higher education. He was serving as a secretary under the previous regime as well, described as a “favourite son” of Shahbaz, even by the Jang Group. Najam also did not change the Secretary Schools, Aslam Kamboh.

Basically, the Police and most, if not all, POs and polling staff, remained in the hands of Shahbaz Sharif appointees during election. It is not completely unreasonable then that they are blamed for manipulation of the process.

Aslam Kamboh’s role was particularly worrisome, as even before election candidates accused him of being tasked by Shahbaz to rig elections using polling staff.

For his part Najam Sethi explained that he had retained Aslam Kamboh at the request of UK High Commissioner, so as not to disrupt the UK Education Aid Program for Punjab. The UK’s Punjab School Education Programme-I ran from Dec 2009 to June 2014. The UK’s Punjab Education Support Programme-II runs from Feb 2013 to Mar 2019. Aslam Kamboh left the post of Secretary Schools for a choice posting as soon as Shahbaz Sharif assumed Punjab CM-ship, i.e. June 2013. It is unlikely that either of the Aid programs, or another program we might be unaware of, came to an undocumented end in June 2013. It is also unlikely that the month of May 2013 was pivotal in the outcome of said programs.

Still, what is the hard evidence of rigging? Before looking at the evidence though, we must acknowledge that the evidence collection & analysis process itself has been rigged in favour of the PMLN.

This is because the evidence in our case is the votes. And analysis of the votes is to be done by NADRA, which makes them, let’s say, forensic experts in the matter. Would you say this case was fair, if the accused illegally removed the forensic expert? And when the expert was reinstated by the courts, the accused threatened his school going daughter and forced him to flee the country?

For this is what is happened here, in front of everyone. The Prime Minister of our country had the school going daughter of NADRA chairman threatened, after failing in his illegal attempt to dislodge said chairman. After the chairman fled, Nawaz Sharif appointed one of his own in his place, who will now head examining of evidence against the premier.

It is unfortunate that many commentators, even those belonging to the legal profession, just ignore this fact, fact, like it didn’t happen, let alone admit it has bearing on the matter at hand.

Of course counter arguments and difference of opinion can never be ruled out. One can hold the opinion that threatening the life of a school going girl was in the best interests of democracy. One can contend that putting the police and polling staff in the hands of Sharif loyalists ensured a neutral administration. One can even argue that Mr Sethi has cricketing pedigree beyond mortal comprehension. But to disregard or feign ignorance of these events altogether is troublesome when assessing the 2013 elections.

Coming back to the election process, it has often only been explained until counting of the votes. The most important part however comes after; the sealing of all election material in a polling station including ballots, counterfoils (which record thumb impressions against each ballot and serve as countercheck for each vote cast) and statements of counts (number of votes cast against candidates votes have been cast for) of that station in a polling bag.

Sealing all the material in polling bags preserves the record, meaning it cannot be tampered with/changed afterwards. This is the guarantee that records cannot be changed after the counting process is completed.

Now let’s visit Lahore’s constituency NA 124.

The constituency had 264 polling stations, translating, ideally, to 264 sealed bags with polling materials, most importantly ballots & counterfoils as they were on election day. The PMLN candidate was declared winner by the RO and opposing parties cried foul. When inspection was finally carried out, 152 polling bags out of 264 were found not sealed or with their seals broken. 152 or 57% of the polling bags were tampered with, meaning the amount of ballots and counterfoils in them were illegally changed, in all probability. Because self-unsealing bags are not yet in production. Another 80 polling bags, or 30%, upon inspection revealed proven destruction of record and absence of counterfoils. Meaning evidence of actual number of votes cast in those polling stations had been conveniently removed, opening the door for mass ballot stuffing.

In NA 125, Lahore, there were complaints of rigging even when polling was going on against Khuwaja Saad Rafique of the PMLN. After the polling came to an end and the votes were counted, the presiding officers delayed issuing statements of count, and later flat out refused. The constituency’s results were announced the next day. When the “results” were finally put out, Khuwaja Saad Rafique appeared to have polled around 20K more votes than his provincial assembly counterparts in the constituency. This, to my knowledge, is the only constituency in Pakistan that witnessed such a phenomenon.

The discrepancy occurred not because of Saad Rafique’s considerable charm, but because statements of count were forged in the ROs office in his favour. Over a dozen forgeries for polling station statements were made with 100% voter turnout, ALL of them with Saad Rafique getting maximum votes. Many other forgeries of statements of count, hastily compiled, did not even contain a fake POs signature. ALL of these too have Saad Rafique receiving maximum number of votes. These have been brought to the attention of the tribunal, and even shared online, to no avail.

Upon inspection, 1 ½ years after the election, the record was found desecrated. Trash instead of polling material in polling bags, and in polling bags that did contain some polling material, voters lists were often missing. Where voter lists were available, the number of votes RO had forged on statement of count did not tally with the number of ballots present.

In NA 122, Lahore, Ayaz Sadiq is alleged to have rigged his way to victory. His “victory” too came after an inexplicable delay in the announcement of results. The tribunal in this case has not been able to inspect the record despite its best efforts for 1 ½ years. However, a glimpse into the constituency is provided by vote verification in six polling stations of its provincial counterpart, PP 147. According to the result manufactured by the RO 4,700 votes were polled here. However, only over 3,700 could be recovered from the polling bags. 700 of these were cast using fake CNICs. This is to say 1000 votes only existed in the ROs imagination, and a further 700 were fraudulent. That’s 36%.  

In NA 128, the RO decided that PMLN candidate Malik Afzal Khokar shall be declared the winner, for reasons best known to him. Upon inspection of the record it has been revealed that 175, 175, POs did not submit any record of ballot papers used in their polling stations. Meaning ballot stuffing was, for all intents and purposes, untraceable. Even with a free hand in 175 polling stations, 30 thousand votes that the RO had counted did not actually exist. A further 21K ballots were missing when the polling bags were brought forward.

NA 118, Lahore. Malik Riaz, the PMLN candidate had “won” the election there, but an audit of the votes was proving troublesome, which led to the Tariq Malik episode. In the end, it was revealed that no record was found of over 80 thousand votes in the constituency’s polling bags. That is to say; the RO had added over 80 thousand votes to the final result of the election no evidence of whom was present upon physical inspection of the record.

Now, for anyone keeping count, that’s 5 out of the 12 Lahore constituencies that the PMLN “won”. 41% of the constituencies where the PMLN were declared winners by ROs on May 13/14 in Lahore have revealed evidence of mass scale result manipulation. I have deliberately not mentioned thumb print verifications because PMLN and their sympathizers are campaigning hard to undermine credibility of thumb print verifications.

Even without counting the unverified votes, mass manipulation is evident in 5 of the 12 Lahore constituencies the PMLN won. Manipulation, not irregularities. Use of bad ink is an irregularity, late opening of a polling station is an irregularity, lesser than subscribed amount of polling booths is an irregularity. Forged statements of count, missing counterfoils or missing ballots, unsealed and tampered with polling bags, and absence of votes counted by the RO towards final results, from the physical plane of existence, is evidence of manipulation.

In fact, short of Nawaz Sharif confessing in an address to the nation, there cannot possibly be any other evidence to substantiate the mass fraud that took place on May 13^th.

5 of 12, in Lahore, the provincial capital with all the media’s eyes fixed upon it. 41%. How is that for “industrial scale”?

And it is not all. It can easily be 6 of 12, because NA 127 Lahore also has similar issues with statements of counts, it even has cases where the RO awarded more votes than were registered in a polling station, but the tribunal decided not to inspect the record. For reasons best known to everyone. 50%.

This phenomena is not restricted to Lahore either, this is a theme. According to what has been reported in the media so far, in almost every Punjab constituency where the tribunal was kind enough to grant a vote audit, similar mass fraud was unearthed.

In NA 139 Kasur PMLN had won. Upon PPP candidate’s request for audit of the result, it was revealed that of the 272 polling bags representing each polling station in the constituency, 12 contained litter instead of votes of the corresponding polling station. 32 polling bags did not contained counterfoils that did not have thumb impressions on them, 5 did not contain counterfoils to begin with. 27 polling stations had votes present far exceeding the number of counterfoils.

In all, 103, 400 votes were bogus. PPP are set to begin criminal proceedings against the RO.

In Hafizabad, 54 K counterfoils were recovered while the RO had stated that 72K votes were cast. A total of 21K were declared bogus.

In Lodrhan NA 154, inspection revealed that seals had been broken on polling bags from 80% of polling stations. 9,900 votes were rejected to in a winning margin of 10K votes, and a further 20,000 were proved to be bogus.

Again, except for a Nawaz Sharif confession on TV, the evidence is in the polling bags. What’s preventing the rest of it to come forward is the abysmal, non-transparent and illegal conduct of election tribunals. The election tribunals were legally mandated to decide these petitions within 4 months, which they did not. Even with the illegal delays, the tribunals have been incredibly reluctant to order inspection of records, let alone vote verification by NADRA. An extremely vast majority of petitions have been dismissed without any inspection of votes whatsoever. Even in instances where inspection is ordered and massive manipulation uncovered, like NA 124 with 87 % of polling bags were tampered or containing destroyed, missing record, the tribunals have ruled in favour of returning candidate. Who invariably tend to be from the PMLN.

It really is sad that people still prefer to indulge in partisan bickering rather than wake up to how comprehensively the elections, their elections, were manipulated. 

On Rigging

First, a few observations on the new narrative being constructed about rigging; specifically the ‘electiontribunals’ argument made famous by who appears to be Fakhruddin Ibrahim’s son. While many went gaga over it yesterday, this 'view' has been here for a month now. I first read it in a Dawn column at the start of last month, and in a Five Rupees blog the next day. Since then it has been furiously parroted by at least one PMLN guy on TV; the new Punjab law minister. 

The argument basically is that the election tribunals are working fine, with 78% (latest FAFEN report) of the petitions disposed of already. ‘Already’ and ‘fine’ here are obviously relative to which side of the political divide you are.

The tribunals are supposed to conduct hearings day-to-day and under no circumstances grant an adjournment of more than 7 days. They broke the law and granted adjournments of more than 7 days on 2,393 occassions. And 'already' it is almost a year after the stipulated time period for settling the petitions, with the new assemblies having served 25% of their term, and the process isn’t done. Next will come appeals in the Supreme Court.

More importantly, the disposal of these petitions doesn’t have as much bearing on settling the rigging issue as you would think. That has to do more with the manner of their disposal.

Consider that 26 petitions never made it to tribunals, 28 were withdrawn and 22 dismissed due to non-prosecution. By far the largest number, 126, were dismissed on technical grounds, these include some of MQM’s wonders in Karachi, and 30 were dismissed due to ‘unknown reasons’ (FAFEN tried and failed to obtain copy of orders).

Petitions which went to full trial and couldn’t be proved stand at 62. Petitions accepted stands at 24, with the most number of de-seated MPs belonging to the PMLN at 10.

62-to-24 is a pretty serious ratio. Make that 62-to-25 after another MP, again from the PMLN, was de-seated on allegations of rigging in PP-97 Gujranwala.

Additionally, even the petitions that went to full trial and couldn’t be proved include many where influential government figures held sway and recounts or vote verifications were never carried out.

Which brings us to NA 110. Khuwaja Asif’s victory here was challenged by the PTI as one of four constituencies where they demanded recount and vote verification. Video evidenceof PMLN polling agents stuffing ballots was also available.

Vote verification was never carried out. Instead, as Mr Ibrahim pointed, the tribunal found that the petitioner was non-serious. This example was also quoted in the initial five rupees blog, which sourced the two pages of the verdict from a defence.pk forum. Also available on the forum was the version of the petitioner, which has been ignored by both the initial blog and the recent article.

The petitioner claimed that he had in fact attended all hearings but the court did not grant the request for vote verification. Later when he travelled abroad with the consent of the tribunal, a hearing was set in his absence and he was declared absent and disinterested in said hearing.

So while vote verification, or even a recount, never took place, the official record for this petition will read “not proved in trial”.

The order in NA 110 by election tribunal apparently annoyed with adjournments from petitioner is dated May 12. On May 16, Speaker of the national assembly Ayaz Sadiq got his stay order extended against recount in NA 122. He clearly hasn’t annoyed any judge. NA 122 is the second NA constituency where the initial demand for recounting and verification was made.

A glimpse into this constituency is provided by vote verification in six polling stations of its provincial counterpart, PP 147. The record for the 6 polling stations showed that around 4,700 votes were polled here. However, only over 3,700 could be recovered from the bags. Around 700 of them were cast using fake CNIC numbers on the counterfoils.

The third NA is 125 with Khwaja Saad Rafique. The petition filed against him states that at the very least 15 polling stations in the constituency that polled at 100 percent should be opened up for verification. 15 different polling stations had a voter turnout of 100 percent. No verification has been ordered.

Voters in the area filmed and photographed Khuwaja Saad barging into one women’s polling station after the other, an upright police SP in tow. The current minister later claimed that he went to the polling stations because all of them, and these are his words, “were taken over by PTI women”.

In the storied history of Pakistani elections, this is the first instance an MNA and a police SP had to rush to different polling stations in order to liberate them from women.

There is another instance of a polling incident involving women & PMLN. In the by-elections after the 2008 election, PMLN workers and police barged into a women’s polling station. They grabbed the ballots from PML-Q women supporters. Before running away with the ballots, they beat the women, molested and “de-shalwared” them, as witnessed and reported here by Marvi Memon, current PMLN MNA.

The last NA constituency is NA 154. It saw Siddique Khan Baloch gain 40,000 or so votes overnight to beat Jehangir Tareen by around 10,000 votes, with rejected votes over 9,000. 2 days later his historic turnaround victory made sense when it was announced he would be joining the PMLN.

After a year of stays when recounting commenced the ballots were found infested with termites. Polling bags are supposed to be sealed after counting so no votes can be added or taken out. 80% were unsealed.

Overall, the three most common complaints in the election process have been:-

1)     ROs, who were judges, helping one party or another & fudging the vote counts provided by Presiding Officers, a la “typo”.

2)      Collusion of POs & polling staff with one party or another to stuff ballots, slow down women’s voting etc.

3)      Refusal to sign and hand over Form XIVs, polling details and vote count, by POs to polling agents. This can later to be used to tally with ROs counts. But only if you get it, get it?

In fact, according to FAFEN, 212 of the petitions that made it election tribunals levelled allegations of corrupt or illegal practices by the administration, election officials and/or polling staff.

This has different connotations for different areas. In Balochistan of course the military didn’t want Akhtar Mengal to win and large scale voter suppression, PMLN’s Abdul Qadir Baloch won by polling a whopping 7,000 votes, helped achieve that end. In Karachi the votes were going to the MQM or the polling staff were going to boris. Etc.

So who did it in Punjab, & how? Nobody talks about this for obvious reasons, but I am sure everyone in the know, knows. In the first week after the election bureaucrats in Lahore were telling anyone who would listen that Aslam Kamboh & Justice Ramday were the king’s men who did what was necessary.

The Election Commission admitted, and FAFEN pointed out, that they did not have complete authority over the ROs. The ROs are answerable to the courts and the POs to their relevant government departments, which for a large part happen to be the education department.

In subsequent reports FAFEN has recommended that the ECP should be empowered to suspend and take action against these public functionaries.

However, the damage in this election has been done. Perhaps stung after finding ‘radi’ filled in polling bags of Kasur, Aitezaz Ahsan is the first and only person I can think of who spoke about Justice Ramday & Justice Khwaja Sharif coordinating the activities of ROs on May 11, to the benefit of the winners in Punjab.

Some police officers were transferred from Punjab to Balochistan before Najam Sethi took office as caretaker CM, not when he was there. While Muneeb & Khwaja Saad will have you believe he shuffled around the Punjab government as much as humanly possible, he did forget to remove one guy.

Aslam Kamboh, who had been serving as Shahbaz Sharif’s secretary for schools since 2009, was accidentally & totally unintentionally allowed to remain in that position by future chairman PCB Najam Sethi during elections. No wonder POs, Gov school teachers, were so reluctant to sign Form XIVs. 

Nobody has publically taken his name so far, but the PTI have hinted at it lately, so he might come up before 14^th August.

Will it make a difference? Not likely. In a country where the caretaker CM of a province said on air that rigging took place & he wasn’t “allowed” to go outside on election day, in the same show where the anchor had ballots in his hand, people are still looking for evidence of rigging.

Evidence that can satisfy these people, and the Pakistani courts, is hard to come by. It is even harder to come by against the Sharif family. Affidavits against them by colluders in riggings past are not it, nor are admissions of money laundering, videos of their goons beating people or even audio tapes of Shahbaz Sharif influencing a judge.

There’s never any ‘evidence’ against the Sharifs.

While it's hard to match the resolve shown in not finding evidence against the Sharifs, people on the other side now have somewhat comparable views on rigging. With the ECP & judiciary already viewed as controversial, to say the least, vote verification by NADRA seemed the only alternative that could satisfy them. The whole episode with NADRA chief Tariq Malik, from his illegal removal by Nawaz Sharif to the current arrest plans, has put an end to that option. And while the court noted that Tariq Malik was threatened & put under pressure to resign, evidence against the Sharifs again eluded them.

Well, buckle up then.

The Elusive Last Straw

I am such an idiot. I thought we should get that out of the way early.

Remember September?

When the whole blasphemy video thing happened? When the PPP “capitulated” to the religious right?

I remember certain people, who hold sway in the media, people who claim to be on the left, being deeply scarred by all of it. I remember their anger and outrage, and I remember them finally running out of patience with their beloved party.

I remember it being “the last straw”. And I remember believing them.

See. Idiot.

Corruption, poverty and just plain slaughter that goes on in Karachi everyday is not of much concern for the intellectually gifted. It’s the pandering to the religious right, the targeting of minorities and the evil machinations of the military that fuel their fury.

Admirable. And perhaps why September seemed like a turning point; a last straw. It was and it wasn’t.

September was a last straw that came after many last straws, and many last straws have come after it. Many will come. What will change? Nada.

There might be some noise made when the circumstances don’t allow otherwise, like in September, but most last straws don’t even register. The camel quite obviously is on steroids and the last straw is but a myth.

Proof, you ask me?

Well, what do you know about the Sunni Ittehad Council? Forget that religious parties are inherently against the “we want a secular state” brigade, the SIC also openly supported Mumtaz Qadri. Mumtaz Qadri, in case you have trouble recalling, is the man who killed Salman Taseer. Salman Taseer, in case you have more trouble recalling, is the man certain people remember every day as the hero who fought darkness, the knight in shining armour and other stuff in that category.

Now, there’s been an alliance involving the SIC and a “liberal” party Salman Taseer called his own. Et tu, anyone? Well, no one, at least no one in the “independent” media and hence; no last straw.

Moving on we observe that the independent media doesn’t only exercise its independence by giving the PPP a free pass. Enter Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, hail Nawaz Sharif, the lord and owner of Punjab. There’s a strange kind of love for his highness Nawaz Sharif in our “leftist” press, despite his very Zia-ish roots.

I first noted that last year and asked Mr. Nadeem F Paracha about this most peculiar phenomenon. A reply has not been forthcoming.

It so happens that the saviours of our Shia community never question PMLNs shady links with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, past or present. And whilst PMLN might have entered into a declared alliance with ASWJ again, during the by-polls, chances are Sana Bucha will talk about the weather when Mr. Sharif graces her show.

Here too the last straw, needless to say, remains unattainable.

What about the military then?

Military = Evil. So, Military+PMLN+PPP = Outrage. This is just simple math, right?

Not quite.

All of you will be pleased to know that in light of Supreme Court’s Asghar Khan case judgement, which stated that military was indeed involved in rigging elections, PPP have done the honourable thing.

The party proudly announced that they will not be probing Punjab owner Nawaz Sharif for taking ISI money and the Asghar Khan case was, their words not mine; buried.

The military interference and the ISI money and the stealing of the people’s mandate; all forgiven. Surely this is the bloody last straw?

In your horny dreams.

So to recap, in the space of a half a week, the PPP and PMLN have combined to

1) Protect election rigging, the famed will of the people.
2) Give cover to military interference and protect culprits in this regard.
3) Form alliances with sectarian outfits blamed for much of the violence against Shias in the country.
4) Form alliances with religious outfits supporting the murder of a sitting governor over the blasphemy law.

And yet no last straw. Actually, no straw at all.

Since 3rd December, when SIC-PPP alliance came to light, till today, 9th, here’s how the honest and upright, the “dissenters”, have reacted:

Express Tribune, famous for their knack of spotting ASWJ flags, did not have an editorial on ASWJ-PMLN, nor did these teary-eyed Taseer fans give space to PPP-SIC. The newspaper also abstained from commenting on PPPs general amnesty for military interference.

Not a single one of Tribune’s “always excellent” op-ed writers was bothered by these trivial happenings. In fact the folks in this “newspaper”, God bless their unbiased heart, did not even report the SIC-PPP alliance.

Dawn News did not see it fit to write an editorial on ASWJ-PMLN, PPP-SIC or Amry-PPP-PMLN. They did not publish a single op-ed column on these developments as well.

Zero editorials or op-eds by The Nation. I could go on.

Beyond pathetic isn’t it. Depressing even.

All is not lost though, for these people will find their voices again once the PPP and PMLN are not in the picture.

Now when that happens, and it will happen, I would be thankful if everyone, respectfully, tells them to take their appreciation for Taseer, their concern for the Shias, their disdain for the deep state, alongside that elusive last straw, and shove it up their ass.

Bash Thy Army

Bashing the military is a favourite past time of the ones who have been enlightened, and rightly so. An increasing number of cool boys now also want to be enlightened, so they have taken to bashing the army too. The tool is a laptop; the location is their cosy house in Defence.

The new army bashers however, in my humble view, need to know a thing or two before launching into a gallant bayonet charge. So I have decided to help them out and will now try to explain how to effectively bash the malicious military, or how to do it ineffectively.

Props to my dear mentor and angry middle aged man, Nadeem F. Paracha; for the master is once again a step ahead of the pupil. He knows the young ones need guidance, so he recently demonstrated how NOT to bash the military.

“We have latest fighter jets for the military, but rickety 27-yr-old passenger planes for the people. Doesn't sound right.”

Let’s put aside the fact that it is terribly distasteful to try and use a tragedy to further your own agenda, and focus on the content.

The rickety 27-year old passenger plane that went down did not belong to the PIA; it belonged to a private airline, so the comparison with military jets does seem ridiculous. They don’t have the same source. The latest military jets also do crash and there have been multiple instances in the current year already.

In any case, Pakistan is doling out billions to the national air carrier so that handpicked Jiyalas in the management can have the prettiest air hostesses to mingle with.

NFP knows all of this, probably better than I do. However when Bhoja crashed a lot of the reactionary anger on social media was directed at the PPP. Naturally, the Jiyala in him had to alter the discourse, so he came up with the above mentioned gem.

We shall get back to this later. Let’s go through other NOT to do bashing routines first.

Another wrong way of doing it is stating incorrect, made-up figures. So vehement had the propaganda been regards the Army’s share of national budget that an army officer’s son once convinced me the military gets 60 percent.

This misrepresentation then allows Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to correct you with a smug look on his face. The share proposed in the next budget is 20 percent, although ET will tell you that coupled with the 2 percent for education, not with the many percents spent on loan repayments to our foreign benefactors. Najam Sethi will add around 5 to 10 percent for allowances and/or pensions.

One more thing I have noticed is the overzealous criticism of the military by some of its main beneficiaries. Yes, I am looking at you; supporters of the Sher who is also Ameer-ul-Momineen. Without any political achievements to boast about, certain people and their supporters have decided to just spout nonsense in this regard; framing it as their biggest draw.

It’s probably because they believe everyone has magically forgotten the identity of Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s Chief Minister in Punjab. Or perhaps they don’t know who Chotay Mian Sahab came to meet in Rawalpindi the night before Long March.

Going back to NFP, the point he was obviously trying to make is that bashing for the sake of it seems stupid. In fact, these are all examples of partisan bashing and people are able to see through them now. Therefore, all they do is harm the good cause. A large section of the population relates patriotism with the military, for good or for bad. With the unwarranted, shallow and often baseless criticism of the institution, enlightened ones continue to alienate those who might otherwise realise that the army has transgressed on many occasions.

There was much momentum gained to this end in the last few years of Musharraf, momentum that could have been harnessed to effectively curb the influence of our establishment. The shenanigans of the political elite however have slowly eroded that momentum. Whose fault is that?

I had grown tired of hearing it and now, thanks to the memo-gate, the excuse that the elite are helpless is no longer a valid argument either. To protect one of their own, they can stare down the combined might of the military and the judiciary, and are helpless only when rights violations are committed against people whose votes don’t matter to them?

In a democratic country, the onus should be on the political class to take the lead in tackling all issues. Questions are to be asked of them, and they have to provide the answers. Try doing that in Pakistan and you will get ridiculed by a certain section of the press who believes the military is responsible for all evil.

Well, even if it is, ask the people you voted for to do something about it. How does the military being wrong make the ruling class saints? It’s the most amazing, awesome logic ever crafted.

The irony is that the politicians they are trying to protect are the same ones who have benefited from the military in the past and continue to do so in the present. The relationship works both ways, appointing the Air Chief Marshal as MD PIA is just another example.

It is also a fact that the Chief of Army Staff is NOT appointed through a general vote, nor is the head of the ISI. Directly, the people cannot hold them accountable. So at the end of the day, you and I can only vote people into parliament and it is up to them to take the military to task.

Bypassing the face of the government seemed logical when a serving Army Chief was also the President. He is not anymore; Bhutto’s spiritual son has taken over. Wake up and ask him to settle matters with the man who gave him an NRO.

Bravo Mr. Zaka – Down with Immy K

I read a Fasi Zaka piece recently, the crux of which was that a vote for Imran Khan is a vote for Zardari.

I would like to congratulate him on such a brilliant and original point of view. It’s a point of view that has not been expressed vehemently over all media outlets by the PML-N, whose leader Mr. Zaka incidentally views as the “most progressive leader of late”.

Zaka has apparently been very impressed by Nawaz Sharif for saying “some extraordinary things for some time now”. Isn’t it wonderful how our so-called analysts love a politician bashing the military? Even though, the mentioned politician was raised by the military under Zia and re-launched by the military in the IJI.

Therefore, the writer astutely pointed out that it is not Nawaz, but Imran who is likely to promote an agenda of the establishment. It doesn’t matter that he rejected their advances during the Musharraf era, there is just something about the Khan that doesn’t fit in for our learned analysts.

The Americans have called him the only Pakistani politician outside their influence, so how can Zaka mark a tick on the box next to foreign policy for Imran? The former cricket captain is also an ally of the Taliban, whom the PML-N and PPP actively supported during the 1990s. Imran would have done so too, little jihadi devil that he is, but he was a Jewish agent back then so it wouldn’t have made sense.

I personally got a little uncomfortable with the sympathy for Zardari – Perhaps I am just biased. After all, during his tenure Pakistan has reached new heights of development in all fields imaginable. We have so much electricity we can export it, we have money to burn, people are happy, suicides are coming down, crime is non-existent, target killing is unheard of and it isn’t like he has billions in looted wealth tucked away somewhere in Switzerland.

Fasi points out the reason for my bias; it’s because our dear President had to deal with a hostile establishment. Yes, nothing says bad relations with the establishment than giving three year extensions to the COAS and his spy master – The ISI chief.

The point though, was driven home at the start. Shrewd as he is, Fasi drew parallels with politics in America to put Imran in his place. No, Imran’s not like the populist Barrack Obama who came to power by promising change in the last elections – That would be silly. He is Ralph Nader, the man who spoiled the party for Al Gore aka Nawaz Sharif and inadvertently helped George W Bush aka Zardari.

It’s a battle between the right and the left you see. We have an unemotional and educated electorate who vote on ideology. They don’t vote because of cult love for Bhutto, or because of sympathy after Benazir’s assassination. I can also testify that there was not one man who voted for Nawaz Sharif because of dislike for Musharraf – Not a single one.

No matter the situation in the country, no matter the popular sentiment, people will vote as they are supposed to and everyone knows that it has been written down for us to vote only for the two parties currently entrenched in power. We just don’t have any say in the matter – It’s not like free will exists!

To the burger boys that turned up at Minto Park in Lahore and keep telling us that we have a third option – you guys can shut up already! Don’t you know that Mr. Zaka has decided who everyone is going to vote for?

And his dear Mian Sahab has already waited an awful while to get his turn.


P.S: If you didn't get the sarcasm; don't have kids.