By IANS
Islamabad : Pakistan’s caretaker government that is to oversee the general elections to be held in January is neutral only in name, newspaper editorials Saturday said.
“Contrary to the pledges given repeatedly by the president to the nation and the opposition, the caretaker government that took the oath of office Friday is anything but neutral,” Dawn said in its editorial headlined “All the president’s men”.
According to The News, the appointment of Mohammadmian Soomro, the Senate chairman, as caretaker prime minister “is problematic on many levels and will only serve to further erode any credibility that the forthcoming polls may have had”. Its editorial was headlined “Neutral caretaker?”
Terming the Soomro dispensation a “loyalist, pro-GHQ (General Headquarters) set-up”, Dawn said its composition “has come as a great disappointment to the people.
“We had been told all along by President Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Shaukat Aziz that the caretaker governments in Islamabad and in the four provinces that would oversee the general election would be truly neutral.
“However, as it emerged on Friday, the interim government… consists largely of PML-Q (Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid) men and President Musharraf’s cronies. Soomro himself is a PML man and has been Senate Chairman because of the support of the PML-led coalition,” Dawn maintained.
The News was equally harsh in its criticism of the interim set up.
“To begin with, it is bad enough that President Pervez Musharraf has already announced that, in all probability, the elections may take place under emergency rule.
“Making matters worse, the caretaker prime minister, whose intrinsic role, in this case, is to ensure that elections are conducted in a free and fair manner and that no partiality is practised by authorities, is a man who was elected as a senator on a PML-Q ticket,” the newspaper said.
“One really questions the thinking behind this move, which, on the face of it, is clearly mala fide. How can people, in particular the opposition, be expected to believe that Soomro, who held a seat in the just-dissolved assembly representing the ruling party, will be impartial?” The News wondered.