The Official Pakistan Politics thread

[Agent Nationaux]

Originally Posted by Fusion

Osman Samiuddin (formerly of Cricinfo) via twitter, regarding today's Pak/India match*:









* Relax PTI fan boys, he's only joking.

Lol, if his party gets into power Pakistan would overnight become the greatest nation there ever was......roti, kapra, makan

[smalishah84]

Originally Posted by Agent Nationaux

Good point. One of the worst society on the planet.

[smalishah84]

Conditional talks: TTP truce offer finds no takers in military

If this report is to be believed (and it is a pretty silly report) then who actually is calling the shots?

The govt or the military? If the govt cannot call the shots then why is it there?

[Agent Nationaux]

It's there to take care of the admin (which it does poorly anyway) stuff and as a front. Serious decisions are made by the military.

[silentstriker]

Originally Posted by smalishah84

Conditional talks: TTP truce offer finds no takers in military

If this report is to be believed (and it is a pretty silly report) then who actually is calling the shots?

The govt or the military? If the govt cannot call the shots then why is it there?

Because the people are OK with having a military calling the shots.

[smalishah84]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

Because the people are OK with having a military calling the shots.

That wasn't the question

and how did you reach the conclusion that people are ok with the military calling the shots?

[smalishah84]

in the meanwhile the drama continues

Pakistan releases four more Afghan Taliban prisoners | Pakistan | DAWN.COM

[smalishah84]

Pakistan’s ‘shame’: Rape cases in 2012

[Cevno]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

Because the people are OK with having a military calling the shots.

There has been no leader in Pakistan who had the moral authority or popularity to take on the military, to be fair and tell them what their place is.

That was a major difference between India and Pakistan when they were formed. We had many leaders in the Indian National Congress, who were extremely popular and had a moral authority pan India and a established cadre.

The likes of Patel, Shastri etc....and especially Nehru and Gandhi kept India together and the military could never even think of removing them.

On the other hand in Pakistan, Jinnah died very early after Independence and Liaquat Khan was killed too. After that there was a divided polity which came as a result of there being no leader with a moral authority across Pakistan.

This gave military a In and since then it has called shots mostly for all the time, except for a spell where Zulfikar ali Bhutto ruled the country due to the moral authority he had developed. Once that fell and his popularity declined due to all sorts of differences, again Zia Ul Haq came in.

And this is why i think Imran is probably the best option for Pakistan right now. It will be a herculean task but he is a outside chance of gaining that stature, where he can tell the Military to shove it. Also, because let's face it Zardari and Nawaz Sharif have no chance.

Plus this day and age with all the technology and information flow available, it is tough for the military to do a coup as it is and the Judiciary after a long time has shown some little degree of independence.

[Cevno]

I may hate the Indian national Congress in current form, and also hate the Economic Policy that they followed for most part after independence but there is no disputing the fact that if it wasn't for that Party and the top leadership at the time, India would have broken up by now and had Military dictators and what not.

And India was even more divided than Pakistan across Caste and Religious lines and a perfect recipe for disaster and yet they mantained the Secular fabric to a large degree and also tried to make the society more liberal.Shudder to think if we had the fractured polity we have now, and the weak leadership at that time what would have happened.

Should hear Ramchandra Guha talk about the Histories of Pakistan and India, imo.

[Cevno]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

In a democracy, it's rarely the politicians themselves that're the main problem.

The fault, dear brutus...

DWTA, if i am getting what you mean.

Anyway, having said that let me say India is not really a simple democracy, but one bearing heavy shades of Oligarchic Plutocracy and Kleptocracy. While Pakistan due to outside forces playing havoc is something worse.

[silentstriker]

Meh just because you don't like who people vote for, that doesn't make it something other than a democracy.

[Cevno]

Yeah, it's a democracy. Worded that statement wrong first time.

But a Democracy can have overbearing shades of Oligarchy and Plutocracy too.

It's all about the systems and checks in place, and how democracy operates in practice. Not about just having a right to vote once in 5 years after which you can get lost.

[silentstriker]

That's still a democracy. The people ultimately can elect people who can change it. For whatever reason, they choose not to. Unless the elections themselves are somehow unfair, you get the the government you deserve.

[smalishah84]

Originally Posted by Cevno

There has been no leader in Pakistan who had the moral authority or popularity to take on the military, to be fair and tell them what their place is.

That was a major difference between India and Pakistan when they were formed. We had many leaders in the Indian National Congress, who were extremely popular and had a moral authority pan India and a established cadre.

The likes of Patel, Shastri etc....and especially Nehru and Gandhi kept India together and the military could never even think of removing them.

On the other hand in Pakistan, Jinnah died very early after Independence and Liaquat Khan was killed too. After that there was a divided polity which came as a result of there being no leader with a moral authority across Pakistan.

This gave military a In and since then it has called shots mostly for all the time, except for a spell where Zulfikar ali Bhutto ruled the country due to the moral authority he had developed. Once that fell and his popularity declined due to all sorts of differences, again Zia Ul Haq came in.

And this is why i think Imran is probably the best option for Pakistan right now. It will be a herculean task but he is a outside chance of gaining that stature, where he can tell the Military to shove it. Also, because let's face it Zardari and Nawaz Sharif have no chance.

Plus this day and age with all the technology and information flow available, it is tough for the military to do a coup as it is and the Judiciary after a long time has shown some little degree of independence.

:

pretty much sums up the history of Pak politics very succinctly.