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Posts Tagged PML(N)

WHITE HAT TALIBANIZED CROOKS: Loan default: NAB shares data on Sharif graft references

Loan default: NAB shares data on Sharif graft references

Published: April 5, 2013
 

The two brothers were found accused of loan default in the Hudaibiya Paper Mills scandal by the NAB during the scrutiny of their nomination papers. PHOTO: TMN/FILE

LAHORE: 

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has passed on information to election authorities about three graft references against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s leadership, an official said. The references are pending in the Accountability Court, Rawalpindi.

Unknown-4The move drew an angry response from the party, whose spokesman counselled the corruption watchdog not to do “politics”. The party intends to give a detailed response at a press conference on Friday.

NAB’s reply to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is part of the scrutiny process of candidates and it has not spared PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and ex-provincial chief minister Shahbaz Sharif.

The two brothers were found accused of loan default in the Hudaibiya Paper Mills scandal by the NAB during the scrutiny of their nomination papers, sources told The Express Tribune.

The record was sent to the returning officers (ROs) through the ECP. The NAB found that the Sharif brothers were accused in the case of loan default of Rs3,486 million rupees in the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case.

NAB records show that the Sharif brothers had filed a petition for quashing the First Information Report (FIR) against them in the Lahore High Court (LHC) and the case was still pending. “In that respect, they [Sharifs] were still accused in the default case,” said an official.

The case was filed in March 2000 with the Attock NAB Court where the Sharif brothers were accused of misusing their authority and accumulating wealth beyond their means. The other accused included their third brother Abbas Sharif, Nawaz Sharif’s son Hussain Nawaz and his daughter Maryam Nawaz, Hamza Shahbaz, and Senator Ishaq Dar.

“The competent authority to decide the candidature of the Sharif brothers were the respective returning officers and not the NAB,” said a NAB spokesperson while reacting to television reports that the NAB had objected to the candidacy of the two PML-N leaders.

The NAB spokesperson said that the bureau has neither raised objections on any candidate during the scrutiny of the nomination papers nor has it returned the name of any candidate with objection to election commission.

NAB has received more than 18,000 nomination forms and it has only provided the information that was to be provided to the special cell of the poll body.

But the PML-N directed its wrath at the anti-corruption authority. A party spokesman said NAB’s objections against Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif were based on mala fide intentions.

“NAB should not do politics but rather it should refrain from becoming a party in this regard”. The NAB’s report against the Sharif brothers is part of a well-calculated conspiracy.

He said the PML-N will disclose facts at a news press conference on Friday (today).

In a separate statement, PML-N’s spokesperson Senator Pervez Rasheed said there is no discrepancy in the assets declared on the nomination papers of the PML-N president.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 5th, 2013. 

 
 

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Voter fraud: 65% of votes in Balochistan were bogus in 2008 General Election

 

By Irfan Ghauri
Published: September 22, 2011

 


ECP and NADRA reveal staggering figures for 2008 general election.

ISLAMABAD: Balochistan had the highest rate of fake voters during the 2008 general election, according to findings from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).

Unknown-3A glance at statistics from the province do not reflect well on the electoral process. In Killa Abdullah there were total of 387,823 registered voters and only 70,820 could be verified. In Kech, of the 218,953 registered voters only 84,500 were legitimate. In Loralai there were 226,658 registered voters, of which a meagre 52,657 could be verified. Of Jaffarbabad’s 391,608 registered voters, only 98,919 were not bogus.

The legitimacy of our current government has been severely questioned by recent findings that almost half of the entries in voter lists at the last election were fake.

The startling facts emerged as the ECP and NADRA were preparing new voter lists based on computerised national identity cards (CNICs). Discrepancies emerged between the electoral rolls used for last general election and succeeding by-polls held so far.

(Read: Democratic process – Balochistan seeks quick completion of voters’ list)

The official documents, copies of which are available with The Express Tribune, reveal serious flaws in the electoral system used in the 2008 general election. Among the 81.2 million voters registered, 37 million were either ghost voters, multiple entries or the voter was registered without any authentic proof of identity. The figures for dubious entries were as follows: 65 per cent in Balochistan, 62 per cent in FATA, 54 per cent in Sindh, 43 per cent in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and 41 per cent in Punjab.

The 2007 electoral rolls were an updated version of lists compiled by the ECP for elections held in the 90s and 2002.

Statistics from around the country are alarming. Larkana, the hometown of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, had 484,727 fake entries against 240,762 genuine registered voters who could be verified. The town had a total of 725,489 registered voters.

images-1The district of Multan, from where Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s stalwart Makhdoom Javed Hashmi were elected to the National Assembly, had 1.16 million bogus entries out of a total 2.2 million registered voters.

Karachi had more seats than any other city in the national and provincial legislatures, and a total of 6.6 million registered voters. Only 3.9 million could be verified. A glaring 2.7 million entries had been fake.

Similarly, Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city and capital of most populous province Punjab, had a total of 3.7 million registered voters. Among them 2.1 million have been declared genuine and the remaining 1.6 million could not be verified.

Islamabad, the capital and considered the most developed city in the country, was not free of electoral fraud. Out of the total 482,548 registered voters, 153,965 were bogus entries. Peshawar had a total of 1.2 million registered voters. Of these, 610,197, just over half, were fake. Quetta had a total of 652,799 registered voters. Among these, 323,837 could not be verified as genuine registered voters.

Unknown-20The findings make uneasy reading for the incumbent national and provincial legislatures. The electoral system has been uncovered as falling well short of fair democratic standards.

Ref

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HANG THE PPP & PML(N), ANP DAKOOS :ZARDARI, BILAWAL, REHMAN MALIK, & NAWAZ SHARIFF!(VIDEO ADDED) Sharjeel Memon and Pir Mazhar attacked & beaten by protestors out side Bilawal House in Karachi

 HOW SWEET IT IS SHARJEEL MEMON GETS HIS DUE: WHAT YOU SOW, SO SHALL YOU REAP

Protestors assault Memon, Pir Mazhar January 14, 2013 – Updated 110 PKT From Web Edition images-52 KARACHI: Angry protestors assaulted provincial ministers Sharjeel Memon and Pir Mazharul Haq outside Bilawal House here late on Sunday night. According to details, the incident took place when PPP leaders arrived at the site of the sit-in for holding dialogue. The protestors besieged the ministers and hurled stones and sticks towards them. The security guards managed to rescue both the leaders.

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HUMAYUN GAUHAR’S COMMENTARY: Pakistan: Return of the ‘Padri’

 

TAhirul-Padri 

Time to descend to earth. Time to pause from delving into heaven after death to hell before death. Things had become stagnant. Now there is a new kerfuffle – the Return of the ‘Padri’ and another long march that threatens to bring Islamabad to a standstill yet again.

I had been predicting it for months: a visitation by the latest pretender to the messiah mantle, to wit one Tahir ul Qadri, doctor of philosophy and a scholar of theocracy who speaks many languages and whom the wags have taken to calling Tahir ul ‘Padri’ – as in ‘Padre’. He claims to having been visited by the holy Prophet (pbuh) who was so unhappy with Pakistan that he threatened to leave and never return. Qadri begged and pleaded with him but I don’t remember whether the Prophet (pbuh) relented. People cry when they hear this story and regard Qadri as the anointed one. So once again the illusion of change in the air is upon us. Once again there is no gainsaying that it too won’t turn out to be another mirage.

People flocked to Qadri’s rallies in droves. Not all could have been hired or rounded up. No surprise with a people who have dynasts and messiahs in their bones, for that is all they know, perpetually in search of a monarch and at the same time a messiah to deliver them from the dynast’s tyranny.

We first knew Qadri as head of – wait for it – PAT, acronym for Pakistan Awami Tehreek. Then he went to Canada and got citizenship. For years he honed his political philosophy. Now he’s back with a new set of demands: change the constitution, change the system, end feudalism, reform before elections, blah, blah and more blah, things we have heard many times before but never seen come to fruition.

On the face of it none could disagree with Qadri. We all want reforms towards a truly democratic and egalitarian society. But talk comes cheap; action is difficult. Qadri hasn’t told us how he is going do it: we know his strategy – what to do – but not his tactics – how to do it – except for the inevitable ‘long march’ (Poor Mao. When O’ when will they have an original thought?).

What could Qadri’s real objective be? If you cut through the jungle of his rhetoric it becomes obvious: to delay elections that are nigh – ‘reforms before elections’ gives it away. Elections can be delayed for a year constitutionally, but how reforms can take place constitutionally defeats me. Why should the disease willingly provide the cure and kill itself? Why would our parliamentarians bring reforms that end their over lordship?

Conventional wisdom has it that Qadri has America’s backing. Proof? Where is Qadri’s money coming from? Fair question. It’s more than his supporters could muster or the ISI provide.

Why would America want the present government to continue a while longer? Because they have been brought to the realization that without Pakistan it would be impossible to exit Afghanistan safely and honourably. Pakistan’s support is vital to getting hundreds of thousands of troops and some $35 billion worth of heavy armaments, equipment and materials out, which can only be done via Pakistan’s land route through Port Karachi. They might never find more pliant and obedient satraps as they have now. They can’t risk what new elections might bring. Even the return of the same satraps won’t guarantee continued compliance for their power might be limited. There is no guarantee that an interim pre-election government with a long extension will be able to deliver without electoral ‘legitimacy’ and a mandate. They certainly don’t want Nawaz Sharif whom they regard as unreliable and unpredictable. So the best option is to continue with the present set up.

Indian writer Bhadrakumar agrees in ‘India’s Afghan Moment’: America’s ‘dalliance’ with India is over and Pakistan is back in the ‘core group’ of three with America and Afghanistan and an ‘outer ring’ of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. An end to America’s Afghan War is not only good for Pakistan, America and Afghanistan but also for the rest of the world. We should help them for our own sake.

The People’s Party’s and the Nawaz Sharif’s opposition’s minds are preoccupied by Qadri’s impending long march to Islamabad on January 14. If it materializes it will bring the capital and thus the state to a standstill. It could eventually also bring Pakistan to flashpoint. If there is violence there will be chaos and eventually anarchy. The army will have to step in. Some people think this is precisely Qadri’s purpose: to create justification for a coup, overt or covert. MQM supporting him lends credence to this theory for its leader Altaf Hussain has repeatedly asked the army to join the people for once to bring reform and end feudalism. I don’t think so.

The army knows that Pakistan is already in so much turmoil that they will not be able to control it. The army statement that now internal security is its main concern fortifies the coup theorists but they forget that the war within is worse than the danger without.

However, things could go so out of control that a coup becomes inevitable. The earlier ones couldn’t deliver because while it is relatively easy to do a coup it is very difficult to know what to do the day after. Without a plan of precisely what to do, another coup would be a disaster. Remember an uncontrollable Pakistan suits no one. Its falling apart suits them even less, especially India, whose own centrifugal forces would accelerate and the Taliban come to its borders and soon inside it. Who wants such a powerful country with a huge armed forces laced with a nuclear arsenal in chaos? Old countries like Egypt can withstand the turmoil that it is going through and still remain intact. What about a new, fragile state brimming with contradictions and problems?

How to counter Qadri? I had predicted Zardari and Sharif ganging up again, this time in an electoral alliance of convenience driven by self-survival. That has nearly come to pass. The alliance will be so huge that it will take the wind out of Qadri’s sails. It might even suit America and our establishment: Zardari the senior partner, Sharif the junior, PPP prime minister, PML-N deputy prime minister. Let’s see. As President Lyndon Johnson said, America might think of Sharif that it is better to “have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.” With the MQM, ANP, JUI, FATA and PML-Q – perhaps Qadri too – rushing into the tent as well, it is the closest thing we will have to a National Government. No bad thing at this juncture.

I say what I have been saying for years: let our evolutionary process continue to its natural conclusion. If that conclusion is self-correction, good, but if it is demise all the better. Best it dies naturally than becomes a martyr to rise again as a zombie as it has done. Something better will emerge from its ashes. The people will have learned and will not make the same mistakes again – hopefully. Some people never learn and remain mired in the past, stuck forever in decadence, degradation and poverty. There is no system that can correct them. This is how nations die.

You might think that I am being perverse, but I am happy because things are going in the right direction. I thought it would take longer, but it has taken only one full term of elected governments to expose the system as unworkable. An increasing number of people are seeing that this system isn’t for working. Best to let it go to its natural death and hope that a brave new world emerges naturally from its ashes.

Once again Pakistan stands at a crossroads. Take the path less trodden upon and go to fortune. Or take the path most trodden upon and go to more misfortune. Let us see what lies in store but never underestimate the collective stupidity of our ruling classes.

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AMB.ZAFAR HILALY’S OPINION: No time for mutiny

 
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The symbol of an Anglican bishop is a crook (a hooked staff); and that of an archbishop is a double cross. Coincidentally, that’s what many of the English used to feel about their clergy. “I never saw, heard nor read that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country”, said Swift. And he should have known – Swift was a high born Anglican priest (& writer).
 
Our feelings about the clergy are not very different. We too prefer to steer clear of them, except on unavoidable occasions namely, births, marriages and deaths. Even at Friday prayers some prefer to wait outside the mosque till the mullah has finished his sermon and only then rejoin the congregation.
 
That’s because we know our ‘priests’. We’ve had varieties of maulanas – ‘whisky’ and ‘diesel’ and ‘sandwich’ are just three examples. There have been others, like those who opposed the creation of Pakistan but on which, when it became a fait accompli, they scrambled aboard in search of lucre and office. Of course, there are those who were/are genuinely respected for their contribution to national life. Nevertheless, a straw poll suggests the public far prefers the mullah’s role be confined to leading prayers and performing religious rituals than governing, which is why religious political parties have never obtained more than a small share – 12 percent – of votes in elections and that only happened once.
 
But times are a changing. So overwhelming are the common man’s difficulties today, so dire his plight and so desperate his desire to find a way out that increasingly he is turning to religion, not only for protection against pain and suffering but also in the efficacy of the unforeseen, the miraculous and the extraordinary. Only God, he feels, can now rescue him. Hence, the mullah finds himself acting as an intercessor between man and God. And, as things go from bad to worse, it is not our politics that is becoming Islamised but Islam which is being politicised – and that’s a bane.
Qadri seeks to benefit from the public’s despair and their craving for a messiah. He avoided reference to religion in his Lahore speech on December 23, because he did not need to; consider he is a Shaikul Islam. Nevertheless, lest anyone forget, he dressed like a cleric even though his peculiar headgear was as foreign to our milieu as his English accent must have been to an Englishman. It looked like the Ottoman relic the Turkish clergy sported till Ataturk arrived on the scene and banished it.
 
Usually affectation in dress is an indication of a flaw in understanding and taken to the extreme it may be revealing of character and temperament. An aspect that was highlighted in the video shown on TV which revealed Qadri boasting that he had a major role to play in drafting the blasphemy law and persuading Ziaul Haq to accept it. If, indeed, he was proud of being the initiator of that law, as he said on video, why then deny it? Was it a concession to the feelings of his fellow Canadians who would have put him on an ‘extremist watch list’ if it were true? Besides, ‘if you cannot tell the people the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.’
 
Qadri is hardly the paragon of virtue and rectitude that he is being made out to be. A high court judge of yore, Justice Akhtar Hussain, heading an enquiry commission investigating Qadri’s (false) accusations in 1990 that the Jamaat-e-Islami and IJI had tried to kill him had some damning words for Qadri. Justice Akthar Hussain said Qadri was fond of dreaming and then exploiting such dreams. The judge characterised his mental condition as “ailing”, adding “anything can be expected from such a person” (The News Dec 25, 2012). Considering that in his book Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings, Qadri describes himself as, and I quote: “Shaikhul Islam Dr Muhammed Tahirul Qadri is a scholar and intellectual leader of extraordinary proportions. He is a living model of profound classical knowledge, intellectual enlightenment, practical wisdom, pure spirituality, love, harmony and humanism…”
 
It might be said of self praise, just as it is said of slander, that something always sticks if we praise ourselves fearlessly, provided the praise is not entirely shameful and ridiculous. But even then, there is no excuse for such lavish self praise. Blowing your own trumpet incessantly is a sickness and left untreated it stinks.
 
And frankly, phoniness suffused Qadri’s visit. The pre-arrival publicity, the VIP reception at the airport, the multitudes assembled to hear him speak, the military precision of his security guards, and his dress and demeanour seemed wholly contrived. Here was a controversial former politician being accorded a welcome befitting a national hero and with no expense spared.
The multitudes that had gathered to hear Qadri were a strange potpourri of people; among whom were rustic peasants struggling to open Nestle water bottles. One of them was attacking the wrong end of the bottle till someone produced what looked like a sickle and chopped the cap off.
 
We know our peasants. They are simple God fearing men, and true sons of the soil. Hence, I cannot imagine anything persuading them to come and listen to a lecture by a cleric on the intricacies of the constitution. Or, on second thoughts, I can – a handsome reward, the prodding of the local chaudhry and, who knows, a nod and a wink from the powers that be.
All sorts of theories are being bandied about for the stupefying, nay, miraculously large turnout. The trouble is that nobody readily believes in miracles, hence speculation was rife as to where the money came from and the kind of organisation that was able to paste handbills of his Lahore meeting even on a remote bridge in Karachi.
 
Those who are fastidious about knowing how money moves ridiculed Qadri’s boast that some of his followers were willing to sell their homes for the privilege of traipsing the world merely to hear him speak. And that Pakistanis even in relatively lowly positions abroad, “like drivers”, were contributing a thousand dollars each towards his cause. Having lived and travelled abroad for the greater part of my working life, I found no ‘drivers’ so well endowed or so willing to part with their hard earned money. Of course, the well off among Pakistanis living abroad do, but obviously not the poor.
We will learn all about that soon enough. And if the Qadri visit turns out to be a ploy to postpone elections then those who have been deceiving others, by denying there is a hidden hand behind it all, will really have only deceived themselves because the consequences could be grave and even fatal for the country’s future stability.
 
If Qadri is genuinely interested in bringing change in Pakistan and is indeed in favour of the constitutional path, as he claims, not withstanding his talk of revolution, he should renounce his Canadian citizenship, form his own party and get elected.
 
To stir the political pot at this sensitive juncture of our political calendar, and just when people were wondering whether the government had the strength left to somehow crawl past the finish line and hold peaceful elections, is unwise. To allow a controversial cleric the freedom democracy confers to hurt democracy, notwithstanding his dubious claims to the contrary, is foolish. However, to help and support him in his endeavour is folly. The need of the hour is unity not mutiny.
 

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