Doomed to live with corruption
I am tired in my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me,
Let thy servant depart,
Having seen thy salvation.
—T S Eliot
Nearing the elections, the stakeholders in the federal and the provincial governments have suddenly remembered all that had evaded their depleted intelligence throughout their five years in power. So, one sees ‘development’ schemes being remorselessly unfurled as part of the enactment of an unending people-focussed (read voter-focussed) drama. Be it the thought of carving another province out of Punjab or providing the people of Lahore with metro bus service, it is all happening with sickening quickness. The underlying objective has nothing even remotely connected with public welfare. The activity emanates exclusively from a desire to ‘buy’ votes which is part of a conscious pre-poll rigging mechanism.
Why would otherwise the Zardaris, the Sharifs, the Chaudhrys, the Altaf Hussains and a host of other colourful entities of the country have remained in perpetual slumber only to be woken up by the knock of the general elections? The ceaseless and humiliating drama is only aimed at somehow perpetuating the illicit fiefdoms that these corrupt leaders have craftily developed by consuming funds from the state exchequer. Imagine a few billions thrown away on building a single road leading to the Sharif Empire in Raiwind or another few billions sacrificed on the fortification of the Bilawal House in Karachi! It makes one sick to the core, but there is no regret, nor remorse on the faces of these Machiavellian leaders. On the contrary, each such crude and heartless misadventure widens the grin on their plastic appearances.
The handshake across political divides in the name of saving ‘democracy’ is another shameless manifestation of the leaders’ refusal to let things change in the country. They know that if that happened, they and their ilk would not be able to find their way into the power echelons. So, every effort is being made and all bounties showered on a hapless people in an endeavour to convince them of their ‘sincerity’. The inherent problem is that, because of their own limitations including their economic captivity in the hands of a few, they may be forced to do the dictated bidding and, in the process, facilitate the same bands of thugs and bandits to come into power to run the corrupt cycle spread over another five years.
To escape public scrutiny and accountability, a series of deviations are being planned and enacted which are cleverly portrayed as threats to ‘democracy, and the ‘democratic system’. Part of the plan is a conscious effort to confront the judiciary and force it to back off from its avowed assertiveness to contain corruption and improve governance. One had hardly forgotten the NRO implementation issue when a repeat drama is being unfurled in the matter of the rental power plants case where the Supreme Court has ordered the arrest of the sitting prime minister who was in-charge of the water and power ministry when multiple contracts were fraudulently awarded to various power companies costing the national exchequer in billions. The Touqir Sadiq affair is another manifestation of the same mindset. When the SC ordered his arrest, he was allegedly helped to escape the clutches of law first by NAB and then by the senior members of the ruling hierarchy. Now when the SC is pressing for its orders to be implemented, it is being portrayed as interference in the affairs of the NAB and other government agencies. The NAB Chief took the unusual step of writing a letter to the President threatening to resign if this ‘interference’ did not stop. The SC, taking cognisance of the unusual step, has already served the NAB Chief with a show-cause notice and ordered him to appear before it in person on February 4.
This could be part of the overall plan to stall the process of all investigation at NAB by accepting the resignation of its Chairman. That will create a void that would only be filled once another chief is appointed at the Bureau which, understandably, may take months if not years. In the meanwhile, it’ll be time to dissolve the assemblies and announce the next elections. The PPP leadership is desperate to enter the election circus bearing the cross of persecution and portraying itself as a victim at the hands of other state institutions, most notably the judiciary, thus cleverly fabricating an excuse for its failure to deliver on its promises, its abdication of governance at all levels, its inability to secure the lives of its people and provide them with opportunities to survive in an environment that has grown menacingly difficult with the passage of each day. It is also keen to craft an excuse for the liquidation of all state institutions and the involvement of its leading lights in mega graft scandals.
In the larger context, what is really worrying is the extent to which the incumbent governments have politicised all state institutions by offering them access to avenues of corruption and then helping them with escaping accountability through a blatant use of state machinery. This is so because the leaders at top, whether at the centre or in the provinces, carry indelible stains of blood on their sleeves but they refuse to surrender, thus obstructing the path of justice. In doing so, they have succeeded in inducing scores of others in their echelons with similar inclinations who have since become hardened criminals. Ostensibly, this has not only blocked the path for the induction of any clean dispensation, it has also made conditions extremely difficult for any such dispensation to survive even if it somehow manages to find its way into power. So, should one say that we are doomed to live with corrupt, inefficient and ineffective governments in the foreseeable future?
This is a sad thought to contemplate, but it may not be far from true! The next sequence of this degenerate drama is about to be enacted.
The writer is a political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected]
