Category: Pakistan Politics

KARACHI, March 3 – After a prolonged absence from the local political scene, former city nazim of Karachi Syed Mustafa Kamal was holding a press conference in Karachi on Thursday.

The joint press conference with his former fellow Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Anees Qaim khani was being held in DHA phase 6 area of Karachi. Kamal had said that he would apprise the media over key matters.

Addressing the media, Kamal lashed out sharply at MQM chief Altaf Hussain, with whom the former Karachi mayor has had a falling out since years. Kamal said that his press conference would be divided into three parts. “First part will be about why I and Anees left the party. Second, why we have cameback, and what we will do next.”

Kamal said that Altaf had insulted workers several times in public meetings, especially once in May 2013 when he changed the party set up overnight. “How can a commander insult his sepoys other than to serve him?”

“We have returned today because every child of Pakistan, every party, the establishment of Pakistan as well as the present and past government’s know, that Altaf Hussain has links with the Indian intelligence agency RAW,” he alleged.

He recalled that during his time in the MQM, the Rabita Committee would be degraded and insulted by Altaf Hussain within weeks and months but recently the situation became such that the Rabita Committee would be insulted every few minutes.

What was first done in private settings was being done in public through media channels, he said. He recalled how the MQM Rabita Committee was manhandled by people when the PTI secured 800,000 votes.

He also revealed that a time came when former interior minister Rehman Malik would dictate the press releases for MQM, adding that Malik had access to the MQM chief even more than MQM leaders.

Syed Mustafa Kamal served as a city nazim of Karachi from 2005 to 2009. Both the leaders were appearing before the media after almost three years of absence from the political scene in Karachi.

Senior journalist Talat Hussain said that the two leaders, who have been estranged from the MQM for years, might provide an alternate leadership to voters of the MQM.

Sources told that the MQM leadership has called its workers and top activists to the party’s secretariat in London, where party chief Altaf Hussain is based.

According to the sources, Altaf is also expected to be present at the meeting. But MQM senior leader Wasay Jalil rejected the news of the emergency meeting. “Neither any meeting has been summoned nor workers have been called in London,” said the leader in a message posted on Twitter.

The MQM leadership has remained tight lipped about the press conference stating that it will only comment after the press conference takes place.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s uncharacteristic outburst against the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) this week resounded more than it astounded political circles and commentators.

People did not miss Imran Khan much, who has been holidaying in the Maldives, as television channels and newspapers continued to analyse the reasons and consequences of the sudden hard feelings of the otherwise cool elder Sharif.

If frustration was behind it, as some say, it would be understandable.

After all, the prime minister and his party were expecting acclaim over their achievements – standing his ground against PIA strikers and closing the multi-billion dollar LNG deal with Qatar – instead of being hounded by the talk of a NAB probe into the deal and other pet projects such as the Metro Bus, Orange Train, LDA City.

Even worse was the talk that old cases against Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif might be reopened, even though they have obtained stay orders from the courts.

In his attack on NAB, the prime minister broadly suggested that the PML-N could cut NAB down to size, or form a commission to watch over its activities.

That would be politically incorrect, since today’s NAB and its chairman, Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, are the product of a bipartisan consensus. Not only would the PML-N be doing what it had loudly criticised the PPP for doing in Sindh – reining in the powers of the Rangers – but would also lend weight to PPP charges that the PML-N government used NAB and other federal agencies to carry out ‘selective accountability’ and a ‘witch-hunt’ in Sindh.
Indeed, the situation looks much more ominous to political observers and analysts, who wonder what made the prime minister take on NAB personally, when a lesser figure in the cabinet or party could have fired the warning shot just as easily.
In background discussions, lawmakers from different political parties and government officials privy to the development, provided no direct clue and yet, expected more fireworks.

Some thought that the PML-N leadership would want to smother any activity that paints it black in the run up to the next elections, even if they are far away.

It would like to enter the battle in the shining armour of progress and with state-of-the-art edifices firmly in the ground.

It was Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif who prodded his elder brother “to be tough”, according to a ruling party parliamentarian. “NAB had turned its eyes on Punjab and was in the process of going ahead with a few important arrests from within the ruling party on the charges of corruption. That would have stained the party’s clean image in the public eye,” he said.

Others added that the arrests would have had knock-on effect on the bureaucracy, the mainstay of the PML-N’s governance. “In the event, government officers will think twice before doing the bidding of their political masters, and that will directly affect our party’s development projects,” explained one.

A PTI lawmaker said the prime minister’s harsh remarks against the NAB reflected the frustrations of the PML-N leaders both at the centre and in Punjab. “Instead of improving the life of the common man, their hopes to hanging on to power hang on building roads and flyovers and metro bus,” he said.

To him PML-N was “habitual of picking up fights with institutions, mainly to divert attention from the failures of their government. I will not be surprised if the duo blasts other institutions in the coming weeks,” said the PTI lawmaker.

A PPP MNA from Sindh did not agree that the PM’s attack on the NAB put the PML-N and the PPP on the same side. “Just wait and watch how things unfold,” he advised. “A little retrospection would reveal that whenever the PML-N leadership throws the gauntlet against a state institution something serious is brewing.”

Meanwhile, sources close to the NAB and the security establishment say no one should expect them to back off from their campaign against corrupt elements and banned outfits hiding in the southern districts of Punjab.

Whatever may have led the prime minister to attack the NAB, “we will spare no suspect whatever his party affiliation,” said a senior NAB official.

A security official was even more forthcoming. “A contingency plan is already in place to go after the activists of the militant banned outfits. Soon action will start against them,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2016

ISLAMABAD, Jan 11: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Raheel Sharif had green-lighted stern action against retired military officers and civilians involved in the Rs62 billion Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Valley scam around six months ago, sources in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) have told Dawn.

A top NAB officer said on condition of anonymity that a senior military official had called on NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry in July last year and assured him of the army’s full support to the bureau in investigating the matter.

The NAB chief was informed that the COAS was determined that no-one should be spared in the investigation, even army officials.

“The message Gen Sharif conveyed to the NAB chairman was that no-one involved in the scam should be spared and action should be taken, even if his own brothers are found to have links to the scam,” an official privy to the meeting said.

NAB has recently started flexing its muscles against Bahria Town chief Malik Riaz, brothers of former army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and some DHA officials. Now, it is looking into irregularities in the construction of the DHA Valley scheme — meant for families of military personnel who were killed in the line of duty — which was to be built on Punjab government land at the site of the Dadhocha Dam, near Rawat.

When contacted, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) declined to comment on the matter. However, it has been widely reported that the management of DHA has formally filed a complaint with NAB, asking it to investigate the matter.

The NAB source said that during their meeting, the military official had inquired about a NAB investigation into a complaint, submitted by retired Lt-Col Mohammad Tariq Kamal in Sept 2010. The complaint alleged that the DHA Valley real estate project was being developed on an area reserved for the proposed Dadhocha Dam. Following the verification of the complaint on June 13, 2011, the bureau had authorised an inquiry on July 3, 2012.

The NAB chairman had, at the time, indicated that former army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s brothers and other retired army officials were implicated. At this, the source claimed, the military officer told the NAB chief that Gen Sharif wanted a just investigation and that no-one should be spared.

The case was later tried by the Supreme Court and a two-judge bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja heard the petition on July 16, 2015. In addition to demanding an explanation from NAB, the court also asked the Punjab government to respond to the petitioner’s allegations.

The petition claimed that DHA, Bahria Town and a private construction firm Habib Rafique had entered into a contract to develop various housing schemes including DHA Valley, DHA Phase II Extension, DHA Expressway and DHA Villas in Rawalpindi, as a joint venture (JV).

According to the petitioner’s evaluation, DHA Valley was valued at Rs110 billion, DHA Phase II Extension at Rs70 billion, DHA Expressway at Rs50 billion and DHA Villas at Rs100 billion. DHA-I and DHA-II are already-developed housing societies, but DHA Valley is yet to be developed.

According to NAB investigation, those who had paid for plots in DHA Valley found themselves in an awkward position when, in 2009 DHA transferred all the funds it had been paid (Rs62 billion) to the accounts of Bahria Town, which eventually failed to develop the scheme. Those cheated out of their money included 110,000 civilians, 41,000 serving and retired military officers, jawans and families of martyrs.

Gen Kiyani’s brothers respond

Also on Sunday, retired Brig Amjad Parvez Kayani issued a statement, claiming that the former army chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani had nothing to do with the actions and business interests of his brothers.

“Rather than talking about us as individuals, a reference is always made to Gen Kayani, as if he sponsored and facilitated us in everything we did or did not do. Everything under the sun is attributed to us without a shred of lawful or even raw evidence, departmental records or proof. These allegations are baseless. Gen Kayani never, in any way, sponsored or facilitated our business interests,” the statement said.

Brig Amjad claimed that his brother Kamran Kayani, an accused in the DHA City Lahore scam, was not a partner in the JV between DHA Lahore and Eden Private Limited, nor did he facilitate a deal between the two in favour of EDEN City. “In this JV, DHA Lahore is the senior partner and all plots/files which were marketed would have been issued by DHA and no-one else (including Kamran Kayani),” he said.

Kamran Kayani also has no connections with another JV, signed in 2009 between DHA Islamabad and Elysium. “Ownership of the Elysium was clearly established in a Supreme Court’s decision, which ordered EOBI to return 50 plots to Elysium and the company to pay back Rs1 billion to EOBI. The decision of the Supreme Court was implemented,” he said.

 

It’s been eight years since Pakistan’s former prime minister and one of the country’s most charismatic leaders, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in the city of Rawalpindi during an election rally.

Her son Bilawal Zardari, whom she had designated as her political heir in her will, is due to address the Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) supporters in Ghari Khuda Baksh, a small town in the southern Sindh province, on Sunday. But Bilawal has neither the leadership qualities nor the support of the masses that his mother or his grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, enjoyed. And yet the 27-year-old scion is trying his best to revive the party.

Since 2007, when Bhutto was shot dead by unknown assailants, her widower Asif Ali Zardari has been leading the party alongside his son. After Bhutto’s death, the PPP won the general election in 2008, allowing Zardari to become the president of the Islamic country, but in the 2013 parliamentary vote the party was almost wiped from the political landscape, and was reduced to its Bhutto stronghold in the Sindh province.

Zardari’s administration was marked by massive corruption scandals, incompetent governance, nepotism and the inability to rein in home-grown Islamist militants. But what dissuaded the PPP supporters most was the former government’s lack of will to bring Bhutto’s assassins to justice.

A United Nations commission, set up to investigate Bhutto’s murder at the request of the former government, revealed in its detailed 2010 report that the security arrangements for Bhutto were seriously inadequate, and that some military agencies had tried to hinder the initial investigations.

Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has also been implicated in the Bhutto murder case. He denies any involvement and blames the Taliban. The Islamist group says it didn’t kill Bhutto.

Veteran politician and PPP senator Taj Haider refutes allegations that the former government didn’t do much to find Bhutto’s murderers.

“It was a very big controversy that resulted from Benazir’s murder,” Haider told DW. “We wanted to be on the right track, and we want to conduct the investigation on scientific lines. In the first place we involved the UN so that the wider parameters of the conspiracy behind her murder would be determined.”

The end of dynastic politics?

But the debate in Pakistani politics has now moved far beyond Bhutto’s assassination. Other big players have emerged on the political scene, such as cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.

The reason that these new parties resonate well with a large section of the Pakistani middle class is their emphasis on governance issues – particularly corruption and political accountability. Pakistan has moved beyond grand slogans of socialistic revolution and the charisma of the Bhutto dynasty, barring a small section of Pakistani liberal intellectuals.

New political players have emerged on the political scene, such as Imran Khan

Many urban Pakistanis believe corruption is the biggest impediment to progress in their country, and they hold their politicians responsible. These educated Pakistanis from big cities like Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi pin their hopes on the judiciary, which they think has finally gained enough independence to try corrupt legislators and politicians.

But the Pakistani anti-corruption movement is also supported by right-wing parties and the private media, besides the lawyers who initiated the movement in 2007.

“The foremost thing is to change the system. To eradicate corruption from Pakistan, we need to emphasize our morals and the accountability of politicians,” Ahmed bin Mateen, a student in Karachi, told DW.

‘The only true liberal party’

Still, the figure of Benazir Bhutto continues to inspire many liberal activists and intellectuals in Pakistan, who believe that she sacrificed her life for the consolidation and supremacy of democracy.

“The PPP is still the only truly progressive party in Pakistan,” Ahmed Murtaza, a PPP supporter in Lahore, told DW. “It is the only party that can confront the military generals and the rising Islamism in the country. Bhutto will always be our inspiration as an icon of liberal democracy.”

“The anti-corruption movements you see these days promote a right-wing agenda. Bilawal is not an ideal leader, but he is Bhutto’s son and is carrying forward her mother’s mission. We should give him some time,” he added.

‘Zardari’s PPP’

But many people in Pakistan say that Benazir Bhutto’s PPP does not exist anymore – that it died with her in 2007. They say the current PPP is simply Zardari’s party, and that it now pursues a different ideology.

Many people say Zardari’s PPP now pursues a different ideology than Bhutto’s

Naheed Khan, one of Bhutto’s closest aides, who fell out with the former president after Bhutto’s assassination, blames the new party leadership for the downfall of the PPP.

Khan told DW that the PPP’s defeat in the 2013 election was not unexpected. “The present PPP leadership is only interested in power. They have abandoned the PPP ideology,” Khan said.

Khan advised Bilawal Bhutto to revert to his mother and his grandfather’s ideology and distance himself from his unpopular father if he wanted to revive the party.

But some experts say that even Bhutto’s politics were not very progressive. During her second term as prime minister the Taliban invaded Kabul and started their ruthless Islamist rule – some say with the backing of the government in Islamabad.