Raising more questions & suspicions

Prime Minister Gilanis address to the nation on Sunday only succeeded in raising more questions and suspicions. To begin with, seating the PM AJK alongside three Chief Ministers, Sindh Senior Minister Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq (due to Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shahs illness) and Senior Minister from Punjab, Raja Riaz of PPP, was wrong visuals, which our enemies can pounce on. After all, by equating PM AJK with the provincial CMs can be taken as a move to show acceptance of the division of Kashmir and only AJK as part of Pakistan - and thereby the LoC as a solution to the Kashmir issue. Is this the so-called good news the PM had promised us on Kashmir - the total renunciation of our principled position on the Kashmir dispute? In international diplomacy and politics symbolism is as critical as hardcore agreements and surely our Foreign Office could have advised the PM on the repercussions of having the AJK Premier seated next to him alongside the CMs for his address to the nation. As for content, the PMs argument on the credibility of his statements as Prime Minister was untenable when he tauntingly stated if his announcement for restoration of the judiciary was accepted then his denial of the rumours of unseating the judiciary should also have been accepted. The PM seemed a trifle confused or was seeking to confuse the nation because the judges were not restored simply by a press release on his behalf but a formal signed Executive Order drafted formally as an official document (which has lost its relevancy after the 31 July SC judgement). A press release is neither signed nor is it an executive order, which has a legal bearing. So if he wants to equate his denial of the rumours relating to the senior judiciary with his Executive Order restoring the judiciary, then he should give a signed written order to his effect - which is what the SC has been demanding. Beyond this point, there was little in the PMs address to give the nation a morale boos since it comprised the same old PPP rhetoric about sacrifices and being perpetually misunderstood and so on. His tone became threatening also when he attempted to uphold the status of his office not only as PM but as Leader of the House in the National Assembly also. Finally, on the visuals again, what was the need to be surrounded by CMs and so on to address the nation, especially since the status of the office of the PM was emphasised by PM Gilani? Unless he was seeking to isolate the PML-N? To refer to Punjabs Senior Minister belonging to the PPP, as a representative of the province akin to the CMs position was as inappropriate as it was incorrect. Certainly the Punjab CMs absence was noticeable but it will not translate into withdrawal of support for the PML-N or add to the support for the PPP. All it did was to show the political cleavages existing within Pakistans body politic. Will this speech by the PM solve the standoff with the SC? Not if one goes by the content of the PMs speech which in many ways may aggravate the situation by hardening the political posturing of the Executive. So, at the end of the day, the speech did little to alleviate the prevailing political conflicts. Instead, all it did was to raise more questions and create more suspicions.