The impressive gathering in front of the parliament in Islamabad in the early hours of Saturday is supposed to have sent a particular message to certain quarters. What did the message contain? Was there one message or more than one? For whom was it meant? What impact did it have? If there was a message or messages, were they being articulated by one party or many? Who were the people in the big crowd in Islamabad ? Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are not clear. There are as many answers as there are contenders in the movement.
Analysts of the phenomenon are of two kinds: those who support the gathering with a cool and rational head and those who cannot prevent their anger and passion from slipping into their assessments. So there is virtually no impartial observer.
There are 130 district bars in Pakistan and the total number of lawyers in the country is just over 100,000. The long march and gathering was supposed to be of the lawyers’ movement but it was forcefully strengthened by support from a clutch of political parties and sections of civil society formations. There were men, women and children and babies, too, suggesting that overwhelmingly the mass of the people was from the local population of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. There were political parties too, led by the dominant PMLN which rules in Punjab. The APDM rejectionist group was there too, with the Jamaat-e-Islami of Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Tehreek Insaf of Imran Khan making their presence felt.
Some political parties were conspicuous by their absence. The largest party, the PPP, was not there although it was claimed, without proof, by some observers that some PPP lawyers from Gujrat had joined the march. From among the religious parties, the peripheral Khaksar Tehreek was there but not the JUI of Maulana Fazlur Rehman; nor was the MQM represented, which actually has been designated by the movement as a “hostile” entity. The PMLQ sitting in the opposition was not there either although its stance is carefully non-hostile to the lawyers, despite the way their leader from Mianwali, Dr Sher Afgan Khan, was treated in Lahore.
What was the message? The movement had decided that instead of the residence of President Musharraf, it would target the parliament. Although “go Musharraf go” was the collective slogan of the evening, the lawyers said they wanted the deposed PCO-2000 judges reinstated through an executive order and they wanted the PCO-2007 judges ousted. The PMLN, thanks to whom the Long March could gather steam as it passed through Punjab, was clearly asking the president to quit. The party firebrands who addressed the crowd left no ambiguity in their statements that they wanted the president to face impeachment and a trial for high treason. But Mr Ahsan said the march was to pressurise parliament to do the needful.
The people who listened to the speeches included citizens who wanted to hear negative things about a past regime that had given them prices they could not afford and the suffering through loadshedding that was beyond endurance. Among these, most were from the lower middle class who thought the lawyers and the political parties would together bring the prices down, make essential goods easily available, and banish loadshedding. But the message from the leader of the lawyers, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, was that the restoration of the judges under the deposed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry would lead to an economic upturn in the short term which would alleviate the people’s suffering.
On-the-spot analysis on TV said the gathering was not against the sitting government and one senior editor said that, like the anti-Qadiani movement of the 1970s, it was based on principles desiring change of constitution and policy. Another analyst said that the rally was against the PPP and the show did not belong to the lawyers as much as to the PMLN which was sending a message to its ally the PPP. It was also opined that in the coming days, the gulf in the coalition would widen and the PPP would be required to show as much, if not more, strength or lose the support of the masses. More emotionally, the print media analysts blamed the PPP and its leader Mr Asif Ali Zardari of being “on the wrong side of the people of Pakistan”.
The PPP thought it could blunt the direction of the onslaught by facilitating the Long March inside Islamabad. It even offered food to the crowd but the lawyers turned it down, clearly indicating their intent to make the PPP change its mind on the methodology of restoring the judges through its constitutional package. Discussions on TV did focus on the matter of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) which is supposed to balk the PPP, but no one suggested that the lawyers’ movement, instead of pushing the PPP into a suicidal decision, should show it the way out, which of course will have to be the middle way.
The movement is clearly converging to confrontation with the PPP, which will create undue instability and hurt the economy currently being discussed in the National Assembly. After the PMLN ducked out of it, the PPP emerges as the sole custodian of the budget 2008-09, and the hardship it promises even as it tries to alleviate the suffering of the poor with concessions will weaken Islamabad’s will to fight all the battles facing it.
Analysts of the phenomenon are of two kinds: those who support the gathering with a cool and rational head and those who cannot prevent their anger and passion from slipping into their assessments. So there is virtually no impartial observer.
There are 130 district bars in Pakistan and the total number of lawyers in the country is just over 100,000. The long march and gathering was supposed to be of the lawyers’ movement but it was forcefully strengthened by support from a clutch of political parties and sections of civil society formations. There were men, women and children and babies, too, suggesting that overwhelmingly the mass of the people was from the local population of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. There were political parties too, led by the dominant PMLN which rules in Punjab. The APDM rejectionist group was there too, with the Jamaat-e-Islami of Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Tehreek Insaf of Imran Khan making their presence felt.
Some political parties were conspicuous by their absence. The largest party, the PPP, was not there although it was claimed, without proof, by some observers that some PPP lawyers from Gujrat had joined the march. From among the religious parties, the peripheral Khaksar Tehreek was there but not the JUI of Maulana Fazlur Rehman; nor was the MQM represented, which actually has been designated by the movement as a “hostile” entity. The PMLQ sitting in the opposition was not there either although its stance is carefully non-hostile to the lawyers, despite the way their leader from Mianwali, Dr Sher Afgan Khan, was treated in Lahore.
What was the message? The movement had decided that instead of the residence of President Musharraf, it would target the parliament. Although “go Musharraf go” was the collective slogan of the evening, the lawyers said they wanted the deposed PCO-2000 judges reinstated through an executive order and they wanted the PCO-2007 judges ousted. The PMLN, thanks to whom the Long March could gather steam as it passed through Punjab, was clearly asking the president to quit. The party firebrands who addressed the crowd left no ambiguity in their statements that they wanted the president to face impeachment and a trial for high treason. But Mr Ahsan said the march was to pressurise parliament to do the needful.
The people who listened to the speeches included citizens who wanted to hear negative things about a past regime that had given them prices they could not afford and the suffering through loadshedding that was beyond endurance. Among these, most were from the lower middle class who thought the lawyers and the political parties would together bring the prices down, make essential goods easily available, and banish loadshedding. But the message from the leader of the lawyers, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, was that the restoration of the judges under the deposed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry would lead to an economic upturn in the short term which would alleviate the people’s suffering.
On-the-spot analysis on TV said the gathering was not against the sitting government and one senior editor said that, like the anti-Qadiani movement of the 1970s, it was based on principles desiring change of constitution and policy. Another analyst said that the rally was against the PPP and the show did not belong to the lawyers as much as to the PMLN which was sending a message to its ally the PPP. It was also opined that in the coming days, the gulf in the coalition would widen and the PPP would be required to show as much, if not more, strength or lose the support of the masses. More emotionally, the print media analysts blamed the PPP and its leader Mr Asif Ali Zardari of being “on the wrong side of the people of Pakistan”.
The PPP thought it could blunt the direction of the onslaught by facilitating the Long March inside Islamabad. It even offered food to the crowd but the lawyers turned it down, clearly indicating their intent to make the PPP change its mind on the methodology of restoring the judges through its constitutional package. Discussions on TV did focus on the matter of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) which is supposed to balk the PPP, but no one suggested that the lawyers’ movement, instead of pushing the PPP into a suicidal decision, should show it the way out, which of course will have to be the middle way.
The movement is clearly converging to confrontation with the PPP, which will create undue instability and hurt the economy currently being discussed in the National Assembly. After the PMLN ducked out of it, the PPP emerges as the sole custodian of the budget 2008-09, and the hardship it promises even as it tries to alleviate the suffering of the poor with concessions will weaken Islamabad’s will to fight all the battles facing it.
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