Daily Times Editorial Nov 7, 2012

> Now another institutional clash? Speeches the other day by COAS General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had much in common and much to commend them. However, they did also contain some things implicitly that have aroused concern. On the face of it, the COAS in his speech to officers at GHQ seemed to be responding to recent criticism of some retired Generals charged with interfering in the political process (the Asghar Khan case, in which a former COAS and former head of the ISI have been squarely put in the dock), and corruption (in the NLC and now Fauji Fertilizers cases). The COAS’ take on this was that individuals’ mistakes in the past should be left to the judicial (due) process and guilt or innocence should not be presumed before that. Additionally, and perhaps more ominously, the COAS hinted at judicial berating and a media trial of the institution itself, which the COAS believes was undermining the public’s confidence in the military, creating rifts amongst the high command (perhaps mere speculation) and between the high command and the rank and file of the military. Obviously, any such development that impacts on the internal cohesiveness and discipline of the military is bound to arouse the concern of the top commanders. At the hands of the judiciary too, apart from the Asghar Khan case, the missing persons and law and order cases in Balochistan have seen the judiciary criticising the policies and actions of the military and its intelligence arms in unprecedented fashion. It has been a rough two years for the hitherto unassailable and immune reputation of the armed forces, starting with the Abbottabad raid and winding its way through other embarrassing revelations and open criticism. This has naturally rattled an institution and its top command, accustomed as they are to a culture of unquestioning impunity inherited from our past of being a security state. The CJP hit the nail on the head when he said in his speech to civil servants that national security is no longer measured in terms of military hardware, but rather whether a state is answering to the needs of its citizens. Were that not the case, a superpower such as the Soviet Union would not have been banished into oblivion. But where there is room for concern is the reiteration by the CJP of the “ultimate jurisdiction” of the Supreme Court (SC) in matters constitutional and legal. The letter of the law certainly conforms to the CJP’s formulation. However, in its zeal to correct “past wrongs” and set ‘everything’ right, the SC stands accused of intervening in matters beyond its turf. This activism, arguably unfettered by the time honoured juridical principle of restraint, has caused the court to become increasingly controversial, having brought it into conflict incrementally with the executive, parliament, and now potentially the military. Rights and wrongs embedded in the system inherited from a chequered past cannot be transformed to the ideal overnight with the wave of a magical judicial wand. Without in any way disrespecting the good intentions of the court, it must be reiterated, as we have consistently done in this space, that the respect and dignity of the judicial institution is too precious to allow even the shadow of doubt or accusation to fall upon it. In this regard, where there is much to commend in the SC’s judgements over the past almost three years, there are also rising concerns about conflict and clashes between state institutions, which is neither the intent of the court, nor welcome, yet seem to be the inevitable and logical outcome of the court’s well intentioned but arguably overzealous interventions in matters of great and even small import. It is not without interest to examine the process of evolution of the democratic system in the last five years. State institutions seem to be jockeying for turf and space, a process known to have been part of the evolution of mature democracies. President Zardari the other day characterised this process as the “dying kicks of the old order”, implying the certainties of the past on which state institutions may have rested so far, were yielding to new realities in which each institution had to re-examine its powers, boundaries and limitations. It is no surprise therefore that every time a powerful head of one or the other state institution speaks publicly, the common point of reference tends to be a recognition of, and respect for, the legitimate purview of each institution, and appeals for restraint as far as straying into the turf of other institutions is concerned. May this democratic evolution finally arrive at an agreed delineation of these matters that proves mutually acceptable to all institutions. There lies hope and confidence of a better future.

Daily Times Editorial Nov 6, 2012

SAARC Speakers’ conference In his address to the conference of the Association of SAARC Speakers and Parliaments in Islamabad the other day, President Asif Ali Zardari urged the regional countries to unite to fight the menace of terrorism and extremism. He underlined Pakistan’s suffering at the hands of the fanatics, enumerating the loss of 40,000 lives and Rs 80 billion in economic losses. The president said a collective approach was required to face the challenges confronting the region and to benefit from close cooperation in all fields. The parliaments of the region should play a leading role in solving complex issues by protecting political liberties, human freedoms and the rule of law, the president went on. Zardari said parliament in Pakistan had been empowered and a democratically elected government was nearing completion of its term (these may seem commonplace achievements in older and more established democracies, but given Pakistan’s chequered history, are counted amongst major achievements of the democratic order ushered in in 2008). Pakistan is poised, the president underlined, to achieve the first peaceful democratic transition through the ballot box. All this promises Pakistan is well on its way to realising democracy’s dividends, the president added. Interestingly, he argued that some people might feel parliament was still under assault from some quarters, but these were merely the teething problems of a genuine democratic transition. They represented the dying kicks of the old order, he underlined. The president’s address also dealt with the problems of drug trafficking and food security, the former providing a major source of finance for militancy, while the latter remained a serious challenge. SAARC enjoyed the advantage of cultural affinity amongst the people of the region, the president emphasised, but it must be said that these advantages have yet to be translated into a realisation of potential. People to people contact, interaction amongst parliamentarians and other such confidence building measures could certainly go a long way towards achieving the peace dividend in the region. It may be useful to recall that in the last decades of the last century as well as the first two decades of the 21st, the well known pattern of the growth of drugs trafficking in regions torn by wars has retained its virulence. In the Indo-China wars of the 1960s and 70s, for example, the area began to be characterized as the ‘Golden Triangle’ (of the drugs trade). Today, the ‘Triangle’ in South East Asia has been transformed into the ‘Golden Arc’ of the Af-Pak region. Interestingly, the president characterized heroin as a weapon of war developed by the ‘international community’ (read west) against the rival ideology (read communism), which still remained to be dismantled long after it has passed out of the hands of covert efforts to fund irregular combatants fighting the ‘enemy’ and transformed, along with kidnapping for ransom, into the main source of terrorist financing. For all our foaming at the mouth against the terrorists, not enough attention has been paid to starving the terrorists financially by interdicting drugs, stopping money laundering, and tackling the menace of kidnapping for ransom. This is doubly crucial now that the past sources of funding from certain Gulf Arab countries has dwindled to a trickle after the ‘sponsors’ of jihad themselves found they were increasingly becoming targets of those sections of yesterday's proxies that had slipped the leash. What unites, actually or potentially, the region of South Asia are the common challenges of terrorism, poverty, underdevelopment and finding SAARC’s place in the sun in the world community. Taking a leaf from the book of successful regional blocs such as the EU and ASEAN, it is obvious that the gateway to ‘heaven’ lies in economic cooperation and trade. If SAARC can move towards this goal, and recent moves bettering India-Pakistan relations offer the best hope for a long time, it can improve the lives of all its peoples while becoming a formidable trading bloc with the rest of the world. When the advantages are so obvious, all that is needed is the political will to implement these ideas.

Daily Timews editorial Nov 3, 2012

Raisani in trouble A state of suspended animation and constitutional deadlock has gripped Balochistan’s government. At the centre of the storm is Chief Minister (CM) Nawab Aslam Raisani. The ‘suspended animation’ flows from the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) October 12, 2012 interim order, in which the SC held that the Raisani-led Balochistan government had failed to run the province according to the constitution. Whereas a defiant Raisani told a press conference in Islamabad that he would appear before the SC and defend the record of his government, the hearing on Friday failed to move the impasse out of the dead end it has landed in. The hearing was postponed amidst reports that Raisani had decided to move a review petition against the SC’s October 12 order. Be that as it may, while still reeling from the apex court’s pronouncement, Raisani has now been assailed from an unexpected source. His own party, the PPP in Balochistan, has found a voice of dissent in the provincial chief Sadiq Umrani, who has suspended the party membership of the CM for three months. In addition, the speaker of the Balochistan Assembly, Aslam Bhootani, has refused to call a session of the assembly in Gwadar on November 9-10, as requested by the CM. The Speaker is of the view that after the SC’s order, summoning a session of the assembly on the CM’s request would be tantamount to contempt of court. He has asked the Governor to ascertain from the SC the legal/constitutional status of the Raisani government. This stance of the Speaker has given rise to a constitutional deadlock in the province. Raisani has tried hard to refute his critics and defend his government’s record, but the sceptics outweigh by miles those who may still be inclined to support the ‘absent’ CM, who has spent most of the last five years in Islamabad rather than in his troubled province. Sadiq Umrani has accused the CM of all sorts of violations of party policies. Despite he says, notices being sent to Raisani, he had failed to mend his ways. Umrani even went so far as to accuse Raisani of being involved in doctors’ kidnappings for ransom in Balochistan. Currently, the whole public health sector in the province has shut down after the doctors’ community went on strike in protest against the latest incident of the kidnapping of a senior doctor who has yet to be recovered. Umrani has asked the party’s high command to dismiss the Raisani government, given that the CM is damaging the image of the PPP in the province and in the country. To add to his woes, Raisani’s boast in his press conference that his coalition allies would accompany him to the SC had cold water poured over it when the ANP indicated its minister would not accompany the CM to the apex court hearing. Clearly, with this distancing from the embattled CM by the ANP, the ‘coalition’ shows signs of crumbling from within. (It needs saying that this coalition had all but one opposition member of the assembly, who has just been arrested on the orders of the SC, as either ministers or advisers or parliamentary committee heads, i.e. in positions to make hay while the sun shines without a care for the situation of the province.) Reports say the PPP is contemplating either an in-house change or the imposition of governor’s rule in the province. The former option is preferred, given that it may only be a few months until the general elections. However, whatever change of face is implemented through either an in-house manoeuvre or governor’s rule, it will make little or no difference to the ground situation in the insurgency-wracked province. The reason, which has been reiterated constantly in this space, is that the provincial government installed in 2008 has never been more than a government in name only. The real ‘rulers’ in Balochistan are the military, its intelligence arms, and the paramilitary Frontier Corps. Since this reality is unlikely to yield to either the SC’s repeated strictures in the missing persons and law and order cases of the province, or any hidden desire (so far conspicuous by its absence) on the part of the federal government or PPP high command to seriously tackle the problem of Balochistan, Raisani’s seemingly inevitable removal will not change things in the province one jot.

Daily Times editorial Oct 27, 2012

A sombre Eid This Eid-ul-Azha should be an occasion for us to introspect somberly on the state of the Muslim world in general, and Pakistan in particular. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, in his Hajj khutba (sermon) reminded his three million audience from 189 countries physically present at Masjid-i-Namra in the plains of Arafat on Thursday, as well as millions more Muslims throughout the world of the teachings of Islam and the imperative of following these principles. These principles include peace, brotherhood, patience, tolerance and abhorring all types of violence in society. He further underlined that Islam could be implemented by following the Sunnah (practice) of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). Admirable as these principles are, the question cannot be brushed under the carpet whether the Muslim world shows any signs or resemblance to the kind of society and community the Grand Mufti sketched. Ironically, the very country of which he is the Grand Mufti is held responsible for spreading an intolerant, literalist, narrow, fanatical and therefore violent deviant of the Islamic message. This Wahabi assertion through funding madrassas that impart such views to young minds, lubricating their transition to jihadi extremists and suicide bombers, is arguably at the heart of the Muslim world’s current paroxysms. Who knows this better than Pakistan, currently reaping the whirlwind of its decades-old project of using jihadi extremism as a tool of power projection in the region and setting the national political agenda at home. Admitted, our own ‘contribution’ to bringing us to this pass, particularly of our military establishment and its intelligence arms, cannot be denied. Nevertheless, the Saudi and Arab (Gulf) connection was, and arguably remains, the financial lynchpin of the whole jihadi project. Not only did the encouragement and support of extremism help military dictators like Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf retain their grip on power for long years, it is responsible for the outbreak and spread of regional conflicts, whether in Afghanistan, against India in Kashmir, or in the Arab world. Little surprise then that the Muslim world portrays an ummah hopelessly divided, rent asunder with intra-regional wars and conflict, sectarian genocide and with increasingly aggressive assertion of their political agenda by extremists from South East Asia, across the expanse of the Muslim world all the way to Africa. What a Frankenstein’s monster has been unleashed by the Wahabi mother hen! Many of those three million performing the Hajj this year belong to countries that have gone through the Arab Spring, whose outcome has been more of a winter of discontent rather than any new beginning hoped for implied in the appellation ‘Spring’. Old established and hitherto repressed Islamist parties have been the main beneficiaries of the ‘Spring’, from Egypt to Tunisia to Libya (with help from the west). The Syrian conflict threatens regional spillover and even war because of the intervention of Muslim neighbours near and far in the civil war, with the west once again ‘leading from behind’ as in the case of the overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi in Libya. In Syria, however, the western, increasingly jihadi project for the overthrow of Bashar al Assad and the Baath Party rule has run up against unexpected resistance, causing a rethink in certain quarters that perhaps the Syrian case will not easily lend itself to the Libyan model and a negotiated political compromise may be better for everyone. The spread of Wahabi-inspired extremism emanating from Saudi Arabia first and foremost has over the years reduced some countries in the Muslim world to basket cases. Amongst these ‘shining’ examples of what extremism can do to state and society, with the possible exception of Afghanistan, it is Pakistan that has suffered the most from terrorism, law and order problems, and consequently a tanking economy. The cost of defeating Soviet and Afghan communism therefore has been unaffordably high and lessons should be drawn from gung-ho short term objectives at the price of a debilitating blowback from the extremist genie let out of the bottle. Where the Grand Mufti is correct in stressing the fundamental principles of Islam, practiced more in the breach, Muslims also must revisit their attitudes on blasphemy and respect for the Prophet (PBUH). Laws subject to abuse on blasphemy have taken their toll of Governor Salmaan Taseer and Federal Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, and continue to swallow up new victims every other day. They must be either repealed or safeguards provided against false accusation, a recurring curse in Pakistan. As far as the Prophet (PBUH) is concerned, our puny and misguided efforts to defend his respect and dignity and the ‘methods’ we are prone to applying for this purpose is having exactly the opposite effect. While the struggle to persuade western secular societies to avoid unnecessary provocation for mischievous purposes must be continued, we ourselves should look within and realise that the agents provocateurs are having a field day and are encouraged by our violent response. The Prophet (PBUH) and his response to provocation and insult, let alone attacks, should be our (Sunnah) guide: tolerance, patience, logical persuasion. Time to become mature societies, not the ‘wild people’ we are being painted as in western perception.

Daily Times Editorial Oct 25, 2012

The debate and Pakistan What came through as an unmistakable message from the final debate between the US presidential hopefuls, incumbent Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, was their convergence of views on Pakistan. Obama underlined his conviction that unlike what Romney had held when he was a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, if he had followed Romney’s advice and asked Pakistan for permission to go in after Osama bin Laden, the latter would likely have escaped. Romney in response could not but endorse the raid, given the level of satisfaction amongst the American electorate on the taking out of the architect of 9/11. Romney not only said he too would have ordered the raid, he also supported Obama’s drones policy. Where he differed from Obama however, was in stating in line with a bipartisan US Congressional opinion that aid to Pakistan should be conditional to Islamabad’s performance against certain benchmarks in the war on terror. In essence though, Romney embraced Obama’s position on Pakistan and did not blame him for the troubled ties with the US’s ostensible ally. Romney went on to express concerns about the safe havens enjoyed by the Haqqani network on Pakistani soil, especially since it is this group Washington holds primarily responsible for some if not all of the spectacular attacks against the US/NATO forces, including the attack in Kabul on the NATO headquarters. He also opined that the ISI was a very powerful institution and the civilian elected government was not calling the shots in Pakistan. When asked if he thought it was time to “divorce” Pakistan, Romney replied in the negative, arguing that a country with around 100 nuclear weapons and building perhaps double that number, with terrorists on its soil, could not be ignored or isolated. On Afghanistan, Romney felt the solution to that country’s woes could not be seen in isolation from Pakistan. What happens in Afghanistan after the troops withdrawal by 2014 was critically dependent on what happened inside Pakistan was his contention. He argued that continued engagement with Pakistan was essential for all these reasons, albeit his strictures on conditional aid may not sit well with a Pakistani audience. Although on the evidence of the final debate before the US presidential elections, little appears to separate the two contenders vis-à-vis their policy towards Pakistan, Romney’s stance is being interpreted by observers as in line with past Republican administrations, whom the track record seems to indicate tended to ‘tilt’ towards Islamabad. However, too much should not be read into campaign pronouncements, let alone televised debates aimed at convincing the American electorate of the credentials of the respective candidates. It is well known that Romney’s Republican Party is chock-a-block with neocons and those agreeing with, or at least influenced by, the fulminations of the Tea Party. What that may translate into if Romney does manage to win the elections, which is far from a settled matter, given the surprising closeness of the race according to public opinion polls, is a far right orientation that will probably be reinforced by his foreign policy and military advisers. It is advisable therefore to refrain from rooting for Romney just yet in Pakistan. The undeniable and irreducible fact remains that US foreign policy often enjoys bipartisan consensus cutting across party lines, particularly given the perception in the US amongst the public and media that Pakistan is not just a difficult ally, it has worked against US interests in Afghanistan while cloaking its dual policy behind a screen of being Washington’s partner in the war on terror. If it has, Pakistan has at best been a ‘selective’ ally of Washington, joining hands with the latter where its own interests were concerned, diverging where US interests did not entirely conform to Islamabad’s. This truth seems unlikely to change in the foreseeable future whoever wins in the US in November, despite the cost Pakistan’s policy of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds as far as the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda are concerned.

Daily Times Editorial Oct 24, 2012

Rumbling on Since the Supreme Court (SC) verdict in the Asghar Khan case, the PML-N appears to have been placed on the back foot. In defensive mode, the party and its spokesmen have been literally flailing in the water trying to offer their mea culpa and shift the focus onto alternative ways of following up on the SC verdict as well as throwing red herrings in the path of its implementation. To illustrate, sometimes the PML-N argues that the verdict does not indict the PML-N or the Sharif brothers, only those who violated their oaths of office, at other times they shift the focus of their counter-attack on doubts about the impartiality of the FIA, whom the SC has charged with investigation of the politicians alleged to have received funds from the ISI to manipulate the 1990 elections against the PPP. Demands are flowing thick and fast from a perspiring PML-N leadership that the UN, some international institution or an independent commission should conduct the investigation, i.e. anyone but the FIA. Their reasoning is that the FIA is not independent, is under the control of the PPP, and therefore not an impartial arm of the state. However, what this line of reasoning is ignoring is that the FIA investigation will be conducted under the watchful eye of the SC, the very apex court the PML-N otherwise swears by. The PML-N is also reportedly weighing its legal options, including the possibility of a challenge to the SC verdict through a review petition. They have even thrown the hat of the manipulation of the 2002 elections through illegal use of funds as revealed by General Zamir into the ring. The question remains however, whether the wheels of justice, admittedly long delayed, now that they have begun to grind, will grind ever so fine or not. Can the PML-N, and all those politicians named in the verdict, be able to escape the seemingly inevitable advance of the juggernaut threatening to spoil the best laid plans of (some) mice and men? The PML-N’s critics, especially the PPP, have thrown their weight behind the argument that all these are nothing but delaying tactics by the PML-N, the latter hoping thereby to stretch the process so far as to become lost in the tug and pull of the upcoming elections that are quite capable of overtaking the investigation before it has reached any conclusion. Nevertheless, whether the case achieves closure before the scheduled elections or not, the outcome of the case has certainly damaged the PML-N’s electoral prospects. The SC’s verdict is not only historic therefore in the principles it has enunciated against the interference by powerful individuals or institutions in the democratic process, it is also historic because of the implications for the political lay of the land in and after the upcoming elections. While a former (late) president, former COAS and former head of ISI have squarely been put in the dock by the verdict, some worthies have escaped the attention of the court for being outside the scope of the questions being addressed in the petition. For example, the role of former ISI chief General (retd) Hamid Gul, that champion of jhadi extremism as an instrument of power projection by the Pakistani state and advocate of extremism inside Pakistan, has failed to find mention. Perhaps the can of worms the SC has opened may yield richer ore when the investigation gets going and might well rope in all the ‘peripheral’ (to the case in question only) actors whose contribution to the derailing of the country from the path of genuine democracy begs to be exposed too.

Daily Times Editorial Oct 22, 2012

Asghar Khan case fallout The Supreme Court’s (SC’s) long delayed verdict in the Asghar Khan case has put the cat among the pigeons in terms of its fallout for the politics of the country, now and in the future. The former COAS General (retd) Aslam Beg, former head of ISI Lieutenant-General (retd) Asad Durrani, some prominent politicians alleged to have received funds from the Rs 60 million out of the Rs 140 million given by former Habib Bank and Mehran Bank head Younis Habib, have all been put in the dock by the verdict. Although the detailed judgement is to follow, the short order of the SC has directed the government to take action against the generals and the politicians, as also Younis Habib for manipulating the 1990 elections through the formation of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) with the help of these secretly distributed funds, which were also aimed at helping anti-PPP politicians and parties to win the 1990 elections. Late president Ghulam Ishaq Khan has been found to be the main culprit in this shoddy business. An election cell operating within his presidency ordered the COAS and ISI chief to distribute these funds, facilitate the formation of the anti-PPP IJI and ensure the mandate of the electorate did not go in favour of the PPP, then led by Benazir Bhutto. Certain questions have arisen in the wake of the court judgement, a judgement that cannot be considered anything but historic, given the history of manipulated elections in the country, and arguably a game-changer, provided the investigations ordered by the court are conducted thoroughly and no one, no matter how prominent, spared the long arm of the law. As far as the errant generals are concerned, the question of what law or legal regime to try them under remains unresolved. One view is that they should be court martialled. Recently, in a case of embezzlement of funds, retired generals have been ‘reinstated’ in order to be court martialled. Although that has set a new precedent, it is not clear whether the present military leadership would be wiling to extend this precedent to two such prominent past generals. The other view is that the two have attracted the provisions of Article 6 of the constitution, dealing with treason and violations of the constitution. That would be an explosive departure, given the continuing dominance of the military in national affairs and the high profile of the two accused generals. This could prove a ticklish matter for both the army high command as well as the government. As far as the politicians named as beneficiaries of the ‘largesse’ of the ISI/military establishment in General Durrani’s affidavit in the SC are concerned, the court has ordered the FIA to investigate the charges and take legal action against all those found guilty of accepting these ‘gifts’. How long such an investigation might take is another concern. The FIA thinks it can complete it within two months, Federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira thinks it can be done fairly quickly and before the caretaker setup takes over to conduct the general elections after the PPP-led government’s tenure expires on March 18, 2013. It certainly looks, despite these confident assertions, that this might be a race against time. If the investigation is not completed before the present government departs, it would remain a matter of conjecture what might transpire in the tenure of the caretaker government: continuation without break of the investigation, or its getting lost in a cloud of uncertainty amidst the political changes taking place then. Another cloud of uncertainty kicked up by the verdict are the strictures in the verdict against the president’s office transcending its constitutional role to intervene in politics, that too in a malign manner. The SC has ordered all election cells in the presidency and the intelligence agencies abolished, and reiterated the politically neutral role of the presidency according to the constitutional construct. That inevitably has implications for the present incumbent, who is both president and co-chairperson of the ruling PPP. Mr Qaira has manfully risen to the defence of the president’s political role, arguing that the president’s office is inherently political, part of parliament, and therefore inherently allowed to conduct politics, albeit in a neutral manner. This is a questionable line of argument, if measured against the conventions of parliamentary democracy in mature democracies. The head of state in a parliamentary democracy is by convention supposed to abjure involvement in politics, except at moments when after elections governments are to be formed, and then too, he or she is supposed to exercise their minds by reference to guidance from the party claiming a majority in parliament. Only if no party enjoys a clear majority does the president ask the party enjoying a plurality or the next largest party in parliament whether it is in a position to form the government in coalition with other parties. Other than that, parliamentary conventions enjoin the president to refrain from intervention in politics. Pakistan’s peculiar history of dictatorial or autocratic regimes, with intermittent and weak bouts of ‘democracy’ has meant that such well established parliamentary democratic norms and conventions have not taken root. An added complication is the co-chairpersonship of President Zardari. How these two roles are to be reconciled in the light of the SC verdict (and the case in the Lahore High Court on this very issue) will test the political acumen of the ruling party in days to come. Those politicians named as beneficiaries of the illegal funds in the SC’s verdict, particularly the leaders of the PML-N, are trying to kick up as much dust as possible to obfuscate the implications of the judgement. If a transparent and thorough investigation is undertaken by the FIA on a war footing, time being short, no amount of ‘dust storms’ can obscure the fact that past misdemeanours have to be accounted for (including the generals) and a clean break made with this sordid past, that continued up to and including the rigged 2002 elections under Musharraf. This is a test of political will, one that will determine for years to come the shape and character of the democratic system and help roll back the malign influence of any person or institution interfering in the genuine exercise of the people’s will to elect the representatives they want, not GHQ, ISI, or an overbearing president, as happened in the past all too often. This could be a genuine turning point in the political history of the country, provided the thrust of the SC judgement is implemented in its true sprit and without shrinking in the face of the admitted difficulties in its path.