A long time ago, a saviour turned dictator derailed himself off the tracks when he “put on the emperor’s democratic new suit”:http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/2003/08/musharraf_self.html. Things went sour from there on, ranging from gigolo “lackeys”:http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/20061229.htm “hitting on”:http://www.dawn.com/2007/05/21/nat6.htm important women, and a parliament with nothing to do let loose to hit on everything else.
Adil “notes”:http://pakistaniat.com/2007/10/04/musharraf-elections/ that “Events unfold as if they were totally disconnected with public sentiment”. Sentiments aside, as all the politicians crawling after the crumbs falling from the dictator’s robe mate with the media on their nocturnal forays a truly disgusting mediachild emerges to keep a country spellbound with it’s hideous din.
The godfather of it all, smiles happily though his robes, shimmering with different hues, all painted by transparency international. In the land of the blind, the peacock grows ever more glamorous, even after shedding all its multicolored feathers and coats of democracy.
The soundtrack is deafening, but it’s playing only to the peanut gallery.
h4. How Pakistan elects a president
According to “BBC news”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7030597.stm, an oddly sanitized version:
bq. The president of Pakistan is elected in a secret ballot by the two chambers of the national parliament (the National Assembly and Senate) and the four provincial assemblies.
!(big)http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44160000/gif/_44160409_pakistan_vote_416.gif!
It is interesting to note that nowhere on the BBC’s extensive coverage of Pakistan news is the real electoral process mentioned, the one which involves large proportions of bribery and coercion. It makes you wonder how much of the real news is missed out in the news.
“Losers, all of them”:http://pakistaniat.com/2007/10/06/musharraf-gets-votes-but-loses-big-time/.