Asif Ali President Ten PercentZardari`s
... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ...
sudden departure from Pakistain may have been, the PPP party machinery has to shoulder much of the blame for the latest `crisis` to have hit the country. After all, here is a man who is the president of a country where civil-military relations have taken another turn for the worse, as well as the de facto leader of a political government that has been besieged in recent weeks. If the president was unwell and required immediate medical care, the information needed to be communicated accurately and sensitively by the presidency and/or the party machinery. Instead, the public was given contradictory and misleading statements by PPP officials. Why? There really is no reasonable explanation or excuse for a party which has now been in power for almost four years. It should know better by now what happens when the flames of suspicion and conspiracy are fanned by official misstatements and half-truths.
Be that as it may, this has been yet another moment in which sections of the media have failed to live up to even basic standards of journalism. It appears that rather than use experience and access to vet information and help the public get closer to the truth, there was a gleeful dash by the media to deliver the most colourful scenarios imaginable. Had the president had a nervous breakdown of some kind? Had the army launched a soft coup? Who would be the likely members of an interim government? None of this was backed up by any proof or even reasonable inferences from the available information. But that did not deter many in the media from indulging in what amounted to misleading and wanton speculation. Perhaps it is too much to expect that when the rumour factory is in overdrive the media will be entirely aware of the situation, especially when the government`s own statements create confusion. Yet it is surely not too much to hope that some restraint and common sense are applied. Pakistain is no stranger, unfortunately, to the sudden curtailment of governments, and while few of the final tell-tale signs were visible this week many in the media who should have known better abandoned good sense anyway.
It may be a forlorn hope for the government to improve its performance in the fourth year of a dismal tenure. Still it is possible to have a point person to issue authoritative updates when the president`s or some other big shot`s health is affected. It may just save the country from another unnecessary crisis.