By IANS
Islamabad : Pakistanis have never been as helpless as they are now in controlling their political destiny, a newspaper editorial Monday said.
Another editorial said President Pervez Musharraf has tied himself into such a legal bind that short of stepping down, he was left with no option but to continue tailoring the 1973 constitution to suit himself.
“The people of Pakistan have never been this helpless in shaping their political destiny,” the widely respected Dawn newspaper said in the editorial titled “Pakistan in its labyrinth”.
“Under the circumstances, poet (Faiz Ahmed) Faiz’s prophetic lines come to mind: ‘Take a vow of fidelity or of separation, do as you please/What do we control? What will you have us endorse?'” it added.
Referring to next month’s general elections, the newspaper said there was “precious little” in Musharraf’s Saturday night speech announcing the lifting of the emergency “to allay the opposition’s fears as to the polls’ transparency”.
This was “even though Mr. Musharraf has invited any number of foreign observers to witness the process. At the same time he made it amply clear that he will not allow any agitation or rejection of election results by anyone”, the editorial noted.
To reinforce its view, Dawn said: “How one searched, in vain, for some poignancy in the president’s speech. The expectation, as it turned out, belonged in the past as a ‘nicety’ practised by dictators who came and went before him.
“There was no need felt for any humility, for the entire nation stood humbled before one man’s conviction of himself as its saviour and his vision for a guardedly democratic Pakistan,” the editorial added.
According to Daily Times, Musharraf “has got himself in such a legal-technical bind that short of bowing out, he is left with no option but to keep tailoring the original 1973 constitution to fit himself”.
Its editorial was headlined “Musharraf can’t afford to be more unpopular”.
“Even as the people of this country continue to agitate, (after Musharraf’s) act of sending the Supreme Court judges home through a Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), imposing Emergency and showing himself beyond the reach of any institutional framework, he has gone ahead and amended the constitution further to try and create ‘legal firewalls’ around him.
“In other words, he is trying to get the support of the law to save himself from what critics consider to be patently unconstitutional, and thereby illegal, actions,” the Daily Times maintained.
Offering “a word of advice”, it said: “No amount of tinkering with the constitution can take away from the fact that President Musharraf’s actions are out of sync with the internal logic of the constitution.
“The assumption here is that he has to take his chances. He must not think that he can generate a locus standi for himself by amending the constitution at will.
“All such actions will make him even more unpopular and we don’t need to tell him that he can’t afford to take such risks any more, extremely tenuous as his position already is,” the Daily Times contended.