Imran’s letter to President
IT is common sense that the ex-PM’s 6 November letter to the President undermines public interest.
Military does not need permission from anyone to keep the public informed as and when needed.
They owe their allegiance to the Constitution, not to any individual. When Nixon’s recording was made public he had to resign. He had lost moral ground to stay in power.
Alvi (and Imran) refused to resign after the Supreme Court declared Justice Isa’s reference was malafide.
It still merits accountability. America faced a similar situation ahead of the 2020 Presidential election.
Gen Milley, US military commander, had asked Congress to cut powers of the President or regret it.
Milley reminded America in his speech before the election that we take an oath to the Constitution not to a king, queen, tyrant, a dictator or an individual.
He said that joining the Trump church photo-op was a mistake. Trump tried to politicize the military during George Floyd protests (11 June 2020, the Guardian).
Had the US Congress listened to Milley, there would have been no Jan 6. After the attack on Pelosi’s husband, there are fears about civil war (6 Nov 2022, the Guardian).
The lack of progress against Pakistani politicians on corruption, foreign funding, and murder allegations is undermining democracy and democratic institutions.
America shows that politicians should be held accountable and cut in their powers for ending political violence in Pakistan before it’s too late.
After Memogate, Dawnleaks and CoD, Cablegate is another attempt to control the military without democratic system of checks and balances.
Charter of Democracy was passed in the general assembly to end the balance of power passed by the constituent assembly in its 1973 Constitution.
CoD has given unlimited power to the politicians which have pushed the country into the current standoff. Politicians should return to parliament and restore true democracy before it is too late.
In America, slow progress on political cases since Jan 6 is undermining democracy and fuelling populism.
The January 6 committee is still looking at individuals trying to overturn the 2020 election (26 Sept 2022 the Guardian).
Media is questioning if the wife of a sitting Supreme Court Justice faces criminal liability in an attack on the Capitol Hill, her husband needs to rescue himself from election cases after his wife’s texts prove it (27 March 2022, The Guardian).
Reportedly, the justice’s wife texted the WH Chief of Staff between Nov 2020 and Jan 2021 to undermine Biden’s win and keep Trump in power.
She criticized the VP for transfer of power as if it was the end of America. Republicans still believe that the election was stolen, and Trump was the winner.
Allegedly had the matter come to the Supreme Court, transition of power could have been blocked.
2022 Midterms will test such fears for the 2024 US Presidential election and acceptance of its results.
Like the US, the judiciary is also being made controversial in Pakistan at the cost of the Constitution.
It needs to end for democracy. The promotions should be made on merit and suo motu powers of justices and judges be restored.
Judiciary should help ECP implement its decisions to have credible elections. The US Congress replaced EVMs with paper ballot to secure votes. Paper ballot counting in full public view saved US democracy in 2020.
In his latest Iowa speech, Trump said he could return to power to drain the cesspool of corruption, but he failed to do that in his four-year term.
In the Daily Show, America’s Afghan Fiasco, Trevor Noah exposed how Bush, Obama and Trump lied to the American public.
The Washington Post Afghan Papers show $2.26T corruption but the politicians like Imran are not ready to be held accountable for stealing of public money during their time in office.
PDM is blaming PTI for the failure of Pakistan’s economy. Sunak is imposing £60bn taxes on the public to recover£50bn losses caused by Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget.
As per OECD, Brexit is causing 4% GDP annual loss which will increase to 8% in 2030. The economic mess is the fallout of successive UK government policies since 1979 not any military intervention.
Pakistan’s economy is in trouble because we failed to change our economic policies after the 2009 global financial crisis. We need unity for the economy.
BRICS was working on Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) currency for having an alternative to dollar.
Our successive political governments failed to have fallback currency or gold. After Crimea, Putin replaced the dollar with a $600bn gold reserve.
By prolonging the Ukraine war, China, Russia and India have used SDR for 30% imports and utilized cheap Russian oil and gas to sustain their economies, fund their infrastructures and mitigate fallout of Western sanctions.
The Ukraine war has pushed Europe into an economic meltdown. The sanctions era is over. Independent Central Banks are history.
Saudi-Russia alliance will rebalance dollar status. Under country first, Schulz has preserved German trade and energy interests in Asia after China visit.
The US privately asked Ukraine to negotiate with Russia (5 Nov 2022 the Washington Post). Our politicians have failed to prepare country first policies in the new world and they are now blaming others to win elections instead of their performance.
—The writer is senior political analyst based in Islamabad.
