When it comes to integrity, ethics
dictate that snow-white and clean as a whistle is the only way to
be. But when it comes to those bastions of integrity, the men and
women in whose hands we entrust the future of nations, an Observer
columnist said it best: "The first requirement of a statesman
is that he be dull." As a nation, however, which takes pride
in doing things differently, we have at the polar end of this spectrum,
a host of homespun, beautiful as Joseph's technicolour coat, Pakistani
politicos - who come in as many shapes and sizes as an iridescent
chameleon, changing their hues to suit the public mood.
If another Observer writer is to believed, "journalists
belong in the gutter because that is where the ruling class throw
away their guilty secrets." So who better to pick 'the most
colourful characters in Pakistan's political history' than the who's
who of the Pakistani media - those who engage in the red-hot blood
sport of making and shaping the leaders of the nation? The following
politicians, known for their marked idiosyncracies, are the personal
pick of 13 of the country's boldest print men. And judging by the
varied responses below, there certainly seems to have been no shortage
of candidates to chose from.
Ardeshir
Cowasjee
Columnist, Dawn
JAM SADIQ ALI:
Blackguard, murderer, grand larcenist (he died before he could be
convicted). He was a likeable rogue, who never denied the fact that
he was a rogue.
Despite all his attributes, he was chosen to be the
chief minister of Sindh by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan to serve
his nefarious purposes. GIK wished to remain in power for eternity.
Jam as CM robbed and plundered again - as he had done during Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto's regime. But this time around he did not kill. Cancer
killed him.
He left a very charming Hindu wife, lots of offspring,
and lots and lots of moolah.
Khalid
Hasan
US correspondent, Daily Times
There is no question about it, Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto was, and remains today, Pakistan's most
charismatic politician. He had a way with crowds and the ability
to reach out to them. He changed the style of politics in Pakistan,
pulling it out of intrigue-infested backrooms, and bringing it
out on the streets of the towns and cities of Pakistan.
He had humour and
his timing was superb. He could read popular mood and respond
to it. No politician before Bhutto had taken the trouble to travel
to the remotest corners of the country. He electrified the people
who admired his daring, his courage, his turn of phrase, his youth,
and, above all, his rakishness. What other politician, before
or after him, could have been cheered for declaring at a jalsa
in Lahore, that although he took a drop or two of "that stuff",
he did not drink the blood of the people!
On his feet, he could invent descriptions of his detractors which
they could never shake off. He called Asghar Khan an "Aloo"
and Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan "Double Barrel Khan". He
once said that the most powerful party in Pakistan was the Army
League. How true, even thirty years after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
said it.
Mushahid
Hussain Freelance Columnist
Name: Sayed Pervez Musharraf Current Status: Pakistan's first Sayed ruler, Shah sahib
heads the country's most formidable political entity which has ruled
Pakistan longer than all other politicians and parties. He wears
6 hats:
Four-star General;
Army Chief;
President;
Head of the Pakistan Establishment;
Kingmaker & Dealmaker Extraordinary;
FOB (Friend Of Bush). Profile:
Greatest Achievement: Demolition Man of the Pakistan establishment's
twin towers: demolishing the myths of a flawed foreign policy and
its bye-product, the mullah-military nexus, thereby burying the
Zia legacy, and destroying the CSP, the kingpin of the bureaucracy. Favourite adjective: 'sincere' Favourite word: 'strategy' Favourite ideology: 'flexibility' Biggest minus: Lacks sense of humour Reasons why he's the country's most colourful politician:
1) Dresses imaginatively, combining western-style sartorial elegance
with native diversity. This makes him Pakistan's best-dressed politician
(witness the 6 changes of dress in one day at the Agra Summit in
July 2001 and the different pugrees during the Referendum campaign
in April 2002).
2) Master of the U-Turn Foreign policy: Ditched the 20-year old doctrine of 'strategic
depth' in Afghanistan and 13-year- old jihadi Kashmir policy.
Accountability: Come election time, allowed poachers to become gatekeepers,
making NAB into Nabeena Accountability Bureau which can 'see no
evil.'
Jihad: Baptised Jaishe Mohammed in January 2000, and 2 years later,
in January 2002, banned it for 'terrorism'.
3) Ability to acquire strange bedfellows as friends.
Current list of buddies is a veritable 'Who's Who' of the Halls
of Fame, as well as Infamy:
Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said in November 2001 that
'I never thought that as a good Jewish boy, I will go to bed praying
for the long life of the President of Pakistan';
An assortment of Third Worlders: Iranian radical clerics, conservative
Gulf monarchs, communists in China, Stalinists in North Korea, aging
revolutionaries in Cuba, military fascists in Burma, Bangladeshi
democrats, Arab Baathists, Turkish secularists, not forgetting the
good ol' Taliban fundos.
The 'gora' crowd includes the usual suspects: rightwing republicans
in the United States, European social democrats, World Bank/IMF
wallahs plus the Japanese of course.
4) Outsmarted Pakistani politicians.
His October 12, 1999, coup was welcomed by a diverse 'fan club'
of Pakistani liberals, democrats, jihadists and fundamentalists
- Benazir Bhutto, Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, Imran Khan, Asghar Khan
and Qazi Hussain Ahmed, all of whom ardently believed he was 'our
man'.
5) The establishment's man with a difference:
Non-establishment tastes include: preference for the poetry of Faiz
Ahmed Faiz, revolutionary songs of Iqbal Bano and dining out at
'khokhas', admiration for establishment bete noires, Ajmal Khattak,
Asfandyar Wali and Rasool Bux Palijo, a Muhajir who is culturally
more a Punjabi albeit an English-medium one, a dictator coexisting
with a critical press, notwithstanding the occasional authorised
thrashing of dissident hacks in the inimitable style of the Punjab
Police 'phhanti'.
6) Good sense of timing
Able to switch and ditch without batting an eyelid, he was the first
to realise that Al Qaeda can also be Al Faida.
