Capital suggestion
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: Capital suggestion - The Ninth Day of December in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Ten is going to be an important day in the life of our two-time prime minister, Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif. On the Ninth Day of December in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety Nine, Nawaz Sharif had accepted to live in exile and refrain from indulging in Pakistani politics. For Nawaz Sharif, December is an important month even otherwise. He was born sixty-one years ago on the 25th day of December. He went into exile in December and his exile agreement shall expire in December. In exactly 32 days, Nawaz Sharif shall be back inside the ring ropes; a ring surrounded by barbed wire, an elevated steel beam and a plank stage with no padding. It's going to be rough in there. The Games begin December 9 and scoring will be based on pinning the opponent's shoulders to the floor, incapacitating the opponent, forcing the opponent to submit, compelling the opponent to throw in the towel or simply a knockout. Remember; the golden rule here is that there is no golden rule. Nawaz Sharif's agents provocateurs have already begun raising battle cries. On October 28, Nawaz Sharif propounded a "25-year agenda to save Pakistan under which the Pakistan Army is also to join hands to pull the country out of crisis." On October 30, Shahbaz Sharif held a meeting with General Kayani. On November 2, PM Gilani said "no midterm elections" and "army will not take over." The same day, Ch Nisar rebutted "midterm election an option." The same day, Khawaja Asif went a step ahead by actually demanding "midterm elections." What really is Nawaz Sharif's '25-year agenda to save Pakistan under which the Pakistan Army is also to join hands?' Pew Research Center, the Washington-based think-tank, recently conducted a Pakistan-wide poll. The poll concluded that the "Pakistani military is overwhelmingly popular: 84 per cent of Pakistanis say the military is having a good impact on their country (the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus by three percentage points)." Istanbul may be 3,950 kilometres away from Islamabad but Turkey is another country where the military enjoys a "high degree of popular legitimacy, with continuous opinion polls suggesting that the military is the state institution that the Turkish people trust the most." Turkey's Milli Güvenlik Kurulu (MGK) is the National Security Council that comprises the President of the Republic (who is also the Commander-in-Chief), the Chief of Staff and members of the Council of Ministers. MGK, that has been part of the constitution since 1961, essentially institutionalises the role of the army in the development of Turkey's national security policy. In practice, Turkey has a purely civilian Council of Ministers plus a civil-military National Security Council and the two councils coexist. Under the 1982 Constitution, recommendations of the National Security Council were given 'priority consideration' by the Council of Ministers plus the MGK had representation on the High Board for Ratio and TV and the Yüksekögretim Kurulu or the Council of Higher Education. More recently, under the Copenhagen Criteria, MGK has been subjected to reforms including a civilian Secretary General, a civilian-majority format and the dissolution of Toplumla Iliskiler Baskanligi, Turkey's equivalent of our ISPR. In Pakistan, we have swung from one extreme to the other, trying to completely sideline the army or simply giving the army too much authority. We need to find the right balance and find it before it is too late. P.S. The following countries have some variant of the MGK: U.S., U.K., Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Russian Federation, Romania, Philippines, North Korea, Malaysia, Japan, Israel, Iran, Georgia, Croatia and Brazil. . Read Full Post
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