The Last Hurrah
The word “principle” is usually missing from the epithet-laden vocabulary of Pakistani politics, not so in the case of the lately lamented former Prime Minister of Pakistan and President of Pakistan Muslim League, Mohammad Khan Junejo. Brought in essentially as a puppet on a string by the late Gen Zia in his version of democracy, the late Junejo displayed his mettle by quietly refusing to let the vestiges of Martial Law survive with democracy. He made up for a singular lack of charisma by the sheer strength of his character, setting accountability in motion in a society afflicted with the Unaccountable by sacking some powerful Cabinet colleagues against whom there was prima-facie evidence of corruption. A man of old world courtesy and grace, his opponents found it impossible to criticise him on weaknesses normally attributable to politicians. The Geneva Accord on Afghanistan in the face of late President Zia’s inflexibility on key issues was Junejo’s most memorable foreign policy achievement, on the domestic front he left a lasting impression about the only genuine initiative in Pakistani history about austerity by his symbolic Suzuki-isation programme. Late Gen Zia ostensibly sacked him as PM because of Junejo’s determination to take action for those criminally culpable for the Ojhri Camp blast, in reality the senior members of the bureaucracy who could not stomach any more erosion of their service “perks” worked toward (and benefited most from) his ouster. Lying sick with terminal Leukemia in far away John Hopkins Hospital in USA, he had unknowingly become a bone of contention within the PML, a rallying point for the anti-Nawaz Sharif dissenters. His demise is thus extremely untimely as he could have stemmed the self-destruction mode the PML is presently programmed into.
Inaugurating the Fish Harbour at Gwadar, the Prime Minister made the first public move at checking the rot in his government (and PML internal politics from rapidly resembling a fish market) by denying any rift between him and the President. Where there is smoke there is bound to be a fire and while his categorical denial was quite unbelievable given the regular one-way traffic to the President by a mix of political dissenters at odds between themselves but united in their hate-Nawaz chorus, the symbolic waving of the white flag was quite welcome and showed political maturity. Whatever may be the President’s misgivings, the ball is now firmly in his court to reciprocate.
