Moborate

We are sometimes accused by partisan supporters of opposition political parties of being soft on or for not being more vehement about denouncing the alleged corruption or misgovernance of the currently ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). While I could point to dozens of examples to dispute these claims, I would like to explain, once again, a couple of things. Firstly, we do not brook real corrupt practises, arrogance or misgovernance; our only problem is when either claims are made without substantial proof or when such allegations are made arbitrarily only against the PPP and without context, as if everyone else - from the military to the judiciary to other political parties - is innocent of any blame and everything was hunky dory aside from the times that the PPP has been in power. This is not to say that the PPP should not be hauled up for its sins, only to provide a more balanced perspective. But even more importantly than this is the fact that in the context of a mainstream medi...

It's been a busy day for lovers around the world. In Malaysia , authorities arrested 80 umarried Muslims from budget hotels and parks . The catch would no doubt have tripled if they'd dared to go upmarket. In Pakistan, the transgendered community distributed flowers and luddoos in a hospital. And in Uzbekistan , the state picked bromance over romance and cancelled an annual Valentine's Day concert and aggressively promoted the birthday of the Mughal Emperor Babur instead. But you know the world really is going to hell in a handbasket (with a little red bow and some flowers) when you turn on the TV to cleanse your palate of the faux-sentimentality of February 14th with that most bitter of things, local politics, and find Hamid Mir on Geo's  Capital Talk wearing a red shirt and talking about how what Pakistan needs now is love, sweet love. If that isn't surreal enough for you, consider the intro, in which some of our elected respresentatives unite to wish us Hap...

I had promised a comprehensive post about the unraveling of Husain Haqqani when it first happened. The different aspects of the case (technical, political, legal) that led to his resignation as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States - now commonly and irritatingly dubbed 'Memogate' - however, not only required a lot more time to deal with than I then had available, but has already been commented upon in bits and pieces by various analysts all over in newspapers, on television and on the net. Far more importantly, it now seems like a footnote in the rush of current events.   Eye of the storm: Husain Haqqani Because I had promised a post on it, I will state briefly what I thought of the entire episode as well as state some things that all should be aware of: *** The Unravelling of Husain Haqqani *** 1. The military establishment was never pleased with the appointment of Haqqani as Pakistan's ambassador to the US and had been gunning for his head right from the beginni...

Much has already been written and will be written about Begum Nusrat Bhutto , who passed away yesterday. I don't wish to regurgitate those words (you can read more about her life and times here , here and here ). But I do want to write a couple of lines for those who did not live through the times that really defined her (and most Pakistanis now, it should be recalled, were born after 1993) and who wonder what the massive outpouring of emotion at the death of an 82-year-old woman who had not been seen in public for more than a decade is all about. Nusrat Bhutto with Chinese premier Zhou En Lai and Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1964 (Photo: Dawn) To understand the connection that millions of people - and not just the supporters of the Pakistan Peoples Party - feel with Nusrat Bhutto, one must understand how her grace under pressure and in the face of overwhelming tragedy - here was a wife and mother who lived to see most of her immediate family wiped out - inspired count...

Credit for digging up this Video of the Day, and even inspiring the title should go to @shahidsaeed on Twitter... This is from the anti- Zulfiqar Mirza protests outside the Karachi Press Club on October 10, which followed the return to Pakistan of the former Sindh Home Minister and his attempts to stoke controversy yet again by bilious rants against his bete noire, the MQM and its leader Altaf Hussain . The MQM castigated the media for giving too much importance to the "nobody" Mirza and pretended it had nothing to do with the "spontaneous" protests while at the same time, through its testy reactions, it probably gave Mirza exactly the importance he craved. In any case, do not miss this hilarious clip where the chant leader begins with slogans of ' Altaf Kutta ', which he belts out twice before realizing what protest he's at, upon which he slaps his head and does a 'tauba '. Unfortunately, it still doesn't prevent him from receiving a repro...

For the last five or six days I had been contemplating how best to present the information contained on a website that someone had stumbled upon and forwarded to me. Not because one did not believe the authenticity of the information on it but because it left unanswered a number of questions. Not least of which was who was behind the website and to what end. I could make a fairly straightforward and educated guess about the persons behind the site even though the site's owners had chosen to disguise their ownership while registering it. Zulfiqar Mirza swears on the Quran (Photo: PPI) After today's "atom bomb" presser by the redoubtable former Sindh Home Minister / PPP Senior Vice President / Sindh MPA Zulfiqar Mirza , I think it is quite obvious who is behind the site. The site of course is the imaginatively titled terroristleaks.com and contains pretty much all the information Mr Mirza spoke about and brandished in his presser today. Not only does it have the facs...

The recent spate of violence, mayhem and bloodletting in Karachi has drawn a number of responses, ranging from the outraged to the resigned, the depressed and confused . And all of them are understandable on their own terms. It would be fair to say, however, that in a city as teeming, complex and diverse, there is no single truth about the causes for the flare-up that trumps all others. Every actor in this sordid saga can (and does) point to the actions of other actors as an excuse for their own villainy. 'The burnt out ends of smoky days' (Photo source: Times of Karachi) If the MQM operates like a mafia, there is also no denying the underworld nexus that parties like the PPP and ANP are using to carve out their own slice of turf in the city. If Karachi's law enforcement is inefficient, corrupt and politicized, it is not an aberration from the rest of Pakistan where the writ of the state has been steadily eroded. If politicians are venal and self-serving about their po...

Only a couple of weeks ago, I had posted a couple of exchanges on live television which provided a sad commentary on the levels political debate in this country had sunk to. One of those exchanges involved Jang columnist and Geo presenter Hasan Nisar and the PML(N) 's Senator Mushahidullah . We had no hesitation in laying the fault for that disgraceful verbal sparring at the feet of Nisar and had called on him to offer apologies. But it seems Mr Mushahidullah is no stranger to crudities on television. See the following clip from News One 's Bang-e-Dara programme with host Faisal Qureshi from April 28 (thanks to Jalal Hussain for bringing it to our notice). The target of Mushahidullah's seemingly petty wrath (thankfully, we are spared the worst of it because of News One's bleeps) is Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf 's Secretary General Dr Arif Alvi . Having watched the entire programme here , I can safely say that no one in the programme comes away with flying colours. Dr. ...

I have to admit I'm not particularly fond of PPP Senator Faisal Raza Abidi 's appearances on television. But that's just because, my ears having been bled from the apparent dominant paradigm of anchors and participants on Pakistani television talk shows, I have a general aversion to over-emotional and LOUD grandstanding. And nobody gets more emotional and louder than Senator Abidi. However, this typically cataclysmic rant from him on Aaj TV 's Aaj Ki Khabar programme on March 17th (which one missed partly because the England - West Indies thriller was on the same night and partly because one doesn't normally bother with Aaj in any case) deserves to be heard. To be fair, he only let loose after the other participants (including the host Absar Alam , Khalifa-ul-Waqt Ansar Abbasi , Justice (retd) Tariq Mahmood , PMLN's Pervez Rashid and Jamaat-e-Islami's cretinous  Fareed Paracha ) all pointed fingers at the federal government for either letting 'Raymond...

Just when you think Pakistani political discourse cannot sink any lower, your delusions are undermined with even more sleaze. Our SleazeMaster of the Day is none other than Sindh Home Minister, Dr. Zulfiqar Mirza , who has never been a stranger to spouting crude diatribes in an 'I'll say what I want and I don't care what you think!' fashion. He has understandably been under some pressure recently since his party, the Pakistan People's Party 's (PPP's) main parliamentary ally, the Muttaheda Qaumi Movement (MQM), had sort of made his removal from his current post or a restraining order on his mouth a precondition for continuing support to the government. He seems to have been particularly irked by a story in The News and Jang  on March 14 that he was about to be shown the door as Home Minister within 10-12 days and it was partly the intervention of his wife, Fehmida Mirza , the current Speaker of the National Assembly, that prevented an immediate boot. Nothi...

Guess who was spotted on November 9 in Washington D.C. at a reception for American and Pakistani media personnel thrown by US AfPak ambassador Richard Holbrooke 's media assistant Ashley Bommer ? Mir Ibrahim Rehman , scion of the house of Jang and CEO of the Geo TV Network. He walked in with The Friday Times editor and Dunya TV's Najam Sethi but stayed long after Sethi left the party. Mir Ibrahim Rehman (c) at his master's convocation earlier this year Mir Ibrahim (MIR) apparently jetted in for a mysterious three-day visit to the US, during which, our sources say, the main objective was to convince the US administration that Geo was neither anti-US nor anti-democracy, the line being peddled by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government. MIR also wished to gather official American support for the Jang Group against the PPP boycott of the group as an instance of an assault on freedom of the media. Our sources claim that MIR did not find too much traction among US offic...

Apologies for the long absence from blogging. Much to write about. But first, a clip: the latest example of the degeneration of political discourse in this country. Had heard about this yesterday. The channel is Business Plus , the programme The Pulse . The participants are (from left) former information secretary PPP and Bilawal House spokesperson and current adviser to Sindh Chief Minister, Jamil Soomro , former Citizens Police Liaison Committee head Jamil Yusuf , and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's Sindh President Naeemul Haq . See it and wonder. Here's the Daily Times report on this ( The Daily Times being, of course, Business Plus' sister concern.) I wonder if their owner Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer thinks: some excitement at last on Business Plus!

Remember this story in The News on November 3 by its Group Editor, Shaheen Sehbai ? The front page 'expose' of an allegedly massive corruption scandal around the Reko Diq copper and gold mining project in Balochistan set tongues wagging all over Pakistan and among Pakistani expatriates abroad. The scale of the scandal was said to dwarf all previous scandals. The headline screamed: "$260 billion gold mines going for a song, behind closed doors"   Front page of The News on November 3, 2010 Now, in case you didn't follow the story or do not remember the exact words Mr. Sehbai used in his typically convoluted but bombastic style, let me briefly remind you what the investigative story said. Mr Sehbai begins by building conspiratorial suspense, clearly implying that President Zardari and his partymen are on the take to sell national wealth down the river to line their own pockets: "Quietly, and below the media radar, some 20 top corporate bosses and lobbyists of...