We have a new president now. President Zardari has been elected with due process. He has been able to out maneuver his rivals. He has been able to successfully remove a military dictator who had been ruling for over 8 years and was adamant to stay in power. He says he is systematically moving towards solving the problems faced by Pakistan one by one. According to him, next on his agenda is to accurately classify what the powers of the President are and curtail them in favor of the parliament. This would involve limiting or absolutely taking away Article 72B from the constitution which gives the President powers over the parliament.
He also talks about resolving the issue of the judges sacked by the military president General (retd) Musharraf. According to the sacked judges who, lead by the deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary, have been leading a monumental lawyers movement against his sacking, the current Chief Justice Dogar is illegitimately put into place and Iftikhar is the real Chief Justice and needs to be brought back to his justified position.
Meanwhile, some of the judges from the movement, who were supporters of the PPP and Mr Zardari have been backing out of their commitments with the movement and have been taking a renewed oath under the new chief justice and hence damaging the movement badly. About 12 judges have so far done so. But the ones who have not 'sold their souls' are standing tall and are adamant that one day justice will be served to those who are to deliver justice.
Some of the issues the President has yet to speak upon are the numerous security issues. Not only do we have a mammoth problem with the Taliban operating in the NWFP and are having regular skirmishes with the security forces and causing horrendous suicide bombings against innocent civilians and the government is only responding back with force and all efforts of negotiations and reasoning have so far failed. So that's really something he needs to work on. The other problem is of the sanctity of the Pakistan Afghanistan border. The Coalition forces, headed by the US have recently ventured miles into Pakistan territory and actually attacked and in at least one case killed civilians. This is an act of war and the most the government has done is condemn the action and summon the American ambassador and inform him of their anger at it.
Another major issue is the dismal economic condition we face today. There has been rampant inflation earlier in the year. Prices of daily use items have sky rocketed making it extremely difficult for the common man to make ends meet. Much of this has been due to rising oil prices, which has happened worldwide but more so in Pakistan as the IMF has forced the government to remove subsidies on oil and let the populace feel the pressure so that the government can make some of its debt payments. The country's foreign reserves have fallen drastically low due to capital flight as people are very insecure about the government. IMF and World Bank want to step in with more loans so that in the future, they can completely dictate how our government is run. Added to that is the major power shortages the country faces. We have had very high growth in recent years which has resulted in major demands for power. Currently, we face a 4500MW power shortage which needs to be dealt with very soon.
So we see that the President really has his hands full and if he can somehow deliver on most if not all of these issues, i for one, am willing to completely absolve him of all his wrong doings in the past. I am not sure what lies ahead for this country. All i know is, i am here and I'm here to stay, so i hope the future is brighter than the present.
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