A lot has passed under the bridge for Nawaz Sharif. Now, he is the harbinger of open voting for Senate polls while once he was afraid of thumb impressions; not calling it a change would be unfair towards him. Although past never stops haunting, Nawaz Sharif says he hates horse-trading. It looks like he has forgotten the infamous 1989 horse-trading against PPP. The past cannot be edited; it’s not a movie.
There was uproar by Khursheed Shah &Co., when Chairman Imran Khan rightly pointed out at the menace of money in Senate polls, and how they are wrongly managed. He showed them the mirror and they broke it instead of removing the scars, the scars of horse-trading and buying MPs. Looking at the ongoing Senate elections each and every word Mr Khan said is proving to be correct, and these status-quo people never fail to prove themselves wrong.
PTI has a rock solid approach towards Senate polls: no imparted candidates, candidate from the province should be from that particular province. This shows the level of commitment PTI has towards people and rights of provinces for a strong federation. And look at the old parties, PML-N and PPP, and how oblivious they are to this fact. More surprising is the approach of PPP – once a champion of democracy now fighting for secret ballots. PPP wants its Chairman Senate and for that it can go to any level of compromise. That also makes me think that the COD, the infamous Charter of Democracy, is now gradually being replaced by compromise on democracy. It makes me believe that this charter was a farce from day one.
The role of Election Commission is also disappointing. I can’t help making its analogy with the dumb, deaf and blind monkeys of Gandhi.
Discussing elections also reminds of Local Bodies elections, the most important feature of any democratic society. Karachi shows a dismal picture of poor infrastructure, lack of basic facilities like health and education. Even Lahore doesn’t lag behind Karachi in this matter. The panacea for all these ills is local government polls but both the old parties, PML-N and PPP, are afraid of losing these cities to PTI if the local government polls are held. Their fear is genuine but ironically they are seemingly helpless, clueless and aimless, before fait accompli. For PPP, it can be said that it’s a shadow of its past, which is really sad. However, these delaying tactics employed by these two parties at the cost of common man won’t help them. On the contrary, it will lead to much-awaited awakening of people. They are not considering the fact that as running water makes its own way. Similarly, a nation with a cause selects its own leader, they don’t believe in leaders who have been forced upon them.
So-called leaders believe in metros, on roads, on parks but a true leader believes in the nation. Once the nation rises like a Phoenix from its ashes then nothing can stop us from making the country grow.