Out with a dictator, in with an emperor

Pakistan has laughably simple politics. While there is a lot of skulduggery going on in the background, the governing rule is that the flavor of the day, whether an army dictator or elected emperor, is going to do whatever it takes to maintain his iron clad grip on the peacock throne.

In a democracy, you need a functioning independent judicial system. A functioning judiciary will take action to right wrongs as per the law, and that’s where the problem lies in Pakistan. Whether elected or brought up through the army ranks, the leader of the country is always on the wrong side of the law, and thus a functioning judiciary is impossible.

The judiciary in Pakistan was hanged by Musharraf back in March 2007, and Zardari is exhuming the corpse and sending it before a firing squad to ensure it doesn’t come back to haunt him. In a slight change from the Moguls of old, instead of only killing their entire family to ensure there is no challenger to the throne, these days all and sundry are targeted.

Zardari has made numerous promises over the last year to restore the judges, and recently he was asked on TV why he was not honoring his word to do so. His famous reply: “That was a political promise. It has nothing to do with reality”.

Time will tell how naked the emperor really is, in this case just a measly 4 days till May 12th, when yet another deadline is due to restore the judges illegally deposed by the old dictator.


*Update:* The emperor has no clothes. Zardari has refused to restore the judiciary…

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