WHEN President Pervez Musharraf came here to attend the UN General Assembly session , the topics which dominated the corridors of Roosevelt Hotel — where he was staying — were politics and elections in Pakistan.

While he was subjected to intense questioning by the Western news media and the world leaders about his plans to return Pakistan to civilian rule, the Pakistanis wanted the inside scoop as to who will be the next prime minister.

When news reporters speculated that it could be either Mian Azhar, leader of the PML (QA), or former president and now leader of the Millat Party Farooq Leghari, everybody seemed to suggest that neither stood any chance. “It will be a surprise,” several officials kept on repeating.

The results in the so-called new atmosphere of politics could be surprising enough that the legislators in a projected hung parliament would be constrained to make alliances to create a majority, and the women could ultimately be the winners, said one official.

Gen Musharraf, who has been saying at various forums that he would take a back seat once the elected leaders took over, also did not let his guard down to suggest his preference, one way or the other. He just said that the National Security Council created by him would be empowered to invoke Article 58 (b) of the Constitution which earlier authorized the president to dismiss the government if it falters or is found to be corrupt or mismanaging the day-to-day affairs of the government.

Many also speculated that the parties might even consider having post of a deputy prime minister if a coalition became necessary in case of a hung parliament. Others said the PPP, which is expected to win a major chunk of seats, also could sit in opposition with the likes of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf if the latter is able to secure at least 10 seats.

Speculations that the PML (QA), considered to be the king’s party, could end up winning a major chunk of seats in the National Assembly — 112, more or less — but not enough to secure a leadership spot. Hence it will make compromises.

But, through all the conversations, it emerged that the Chaudhrys of Gujrat, who reportedly have “influence” in the president’s house with Gen Musharraf’s personal assistant, Tariq Aziz, could benefit the most with the emergence of the PML (QA) as the majority party.

However, notwithstanding the election prospects, one thing became clear that the president wants continuity in his economics and reforms agenda and he is expected to demand that Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, Commerce Minister Razzak Dawood and Railways Minister Lt-Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi be retained if he is able to get them elected as senators in the new setup.

Mr Aziz, who was asked about these speculations, kept a tight lip, saying: “I don’t know what the future holds for me. It’s all up to Allah.” This is enough to suggest that a role for him in the future setup cannot be precluded.

But then there were those who see the elections in Pakistan being postponed at the last minute citing Indian threat at the borders. However, most officials travelling with the president insisted that elections would take place.

STOCK EXCHANGE: Pakistan’s stock market, specifically the Karachi Stock Exchange, has confounded the international investors and stock analysts as it continues to perform better than any other in the world.

The USA Today in an article recently noted that Karachi Stock Exchange index is up 56 per cent since the Sept 11 terror attacks, even as the Standard and Poor’s 500 has fallen 19 per cent and the Bloomberg European 500 declined about 27 per cent.

Pakistani traders were quoted as saying that one American hedge fund manager invested $30 million immediately after Sept 11 and pocketed a 30 per cent profit — $9 million — three weeks later.

The paper noted that despite the daily threats of terrorist attacks in the port city of Karachi the market keeps chugging along. It has helped the investment bankers and brokers to benefit from reforms in the country’s capital markets.

One big reason for such a turnaround is attributed to President Musharraf’s turnabout in joining the US coalition in the war against terrorism following Sept 11 attacks. Gen Musharraf’s pledged support has brought renewed global attention to a country that investors previously shunned because of corrupt markets and unstable politics.

Since then the international market investors upgraded Pakistan’s profile and gave it favourable ratings which boosted the stock market.

How long will this resurgence of stock market last? No one knows. Suffice to say that the threat of war is enough to spook the market.

ISRAELI N-THREAT: As US steps up war talk against Iraq and Israel continued occupation and attacks against Palestinians, a candidate for the Democratic party’s nomination for the president in 2004, Lyndon LaRouche, has warned that the Israeli prime minister may end up incinerating the Middle East with the nuclear weapons it owns.

In a statement, he said: “I am warning President George W. Bush and European leaders: if weapons inspectors return to Iraq and an otherwise- certain Iraq-centered new Middle East war by the US is thus averted, the governments of the United States and Western Europe must be prepared to forcefully intervene to prevent an increasingly more desperate and psychotic Ariel Sharon’s nuclear-armed regime in Israel, the world’s third-ranking strategic nuclear-weapons power, from blowing up the entire Middle East region, and beyond, with those weapons!”

LaRouche adds: “At an international webcast, before a live audience in Washington on Sept 11, 2002, I identified three hurdles that had to be overcome to avert an Iraq war that would trigger a perpetual ‘Clash of Civilizations’ religious conflict and a New Dark Age: First, the United Nations Security Council had to become the venue for dealing with the Iraq situation, and a reasonable resolution had to be drafted that would be agreed to by President Bush, overriding the Sharon-influenced ‘war party’ within his own Administration’s senior ranks. Second, the resolution had to be accepted by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, as well as by President Bush.

“With those two conditions met,” LaRouche warned, “the gravest remaining danger to overcome would be a berserk move by Sharon in Israel to sabotage the peaceful resolution and blow up the region.

“It was the threat of an Israeli nuclear attack on Iraq in 1991 that blackmailed the first Bush Administration into launching Operation Desert Storm. Today’s Israel, under the insane Sharon regime, is the only nation on Earth that genuinely fits the profile of a ‘rogue state’ armed to the teeth with ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ Israel has the third largest nuclear weapons arsenal on Earth, and a triad of submarine, missile and bomber delivery systems, capable of obliterating the entire Persian Gulf. Israeli scientists have recently threatened that they now have the capability of launching an intercontinental ballistic missile, meaning that no place on Earth — including the United States — is exempt from an Israeli preemptive nuclear attack. LaRouche asks you: Do you dare dismiss this threat from Sharon?”

CITY Nazim Naimatullah Khan is reported to have said that this city needs another 10,000 magnum-size buses. It is indeed very difficult to believe that anyone in his right mind would entertain such utterly untenable and downright impractical thoughts. If he does not know, it was about time the City Nazim knew the obvious: that Karachi’s roads cannot take another straw, not to speak of 10,000 more buses.

Already, buses in Karachi move bumper-to bumper. The speed at which buses move on busier roads is slower than the snail’s proverbial pace. As it is, recognizable bus stops are few and far between. Even so, the few available are ignored by transporters. This class enjoys complete immunity from road rules and regulations, courtesy a well-obliged traffic police. If there is eternal chaos on the roads, so what? Who cares, anyway?

Most of the roads in the city were built three decades ago. Since then, Karachi’s population has multiplied several hundred fold. Most of the roads are in bad shape. Many have just about faded away. There is no counting the streets overflowing with gutter water, bubbling from choked sewers underneath.

Not very many streets have proper sidewalks or footpaths. As a result, the number of pedestrians dying in traffic accidents is mounting. According to the city police chief, road accident claimed 633 lives last year. This year, 468 persons have been killed in the streets so far. A full quarter of the year remains. At the present rate, the loss of life in traffic accident will equal, if not outnumber last year’s tally.

We have it on the authority of our traffic police chief that the worst offenders are public transport drivers. Last Friday saw three pedestrians killed in road accidents in Karachi. Up in the northern mountain region one bus accident killed 20 passengers. Many more were injured, some critically.

Hardly a day passes without some grim road accident resulting in dozens of deaths. What does it all really add up to? The answer is: “A shameful national scandal.” When accidents occur with precise regularity, and most of them in the same way, they are not accidents. They are predictable — and as such also — preventable killings.

This heavy reliance on road transport is a systematically plotted conspiracy that is no longer any secret, if a secret it ever really was. Road transport is big money. As compared with the paltry investment, the profit is enormous money. Every public bus carries twice its permitted passenger load. This doubles the earnings. No transport ever issues a ticket or receipt. One can only wonder how the income tax people assess their income and the tax payable. You can safely take it as a family affair.

For a moment, let us leave the Road Mafia to do as it pleases and think of the public administrators who have anything to do with public transport. From their performance to date, it would appear that their capacity to think does not exceed that of the frog in the village well. Either they have no eyes to see the obvious. Or, they pretend that they cannot see how the world is dealing with surface urban transport.

Once again, let us pose this question to the governor and his brigades of bureaucrats:

Which other city in the world, the size of Karachi, is without urban railway system and totally dependent upon road transport. Please name one city.

Another wholly relevant question that needs an answer.

How, and by whom the existing KCR was dismantled?

The typically perverse and patently incorrect bureaucratic answer is that the KCR was running in loss. Why should the KCR be running in loss when similar urban railway systems all over the world are flourishing famously?

Does the bureaucracy itself return profit on the investment the public makes in maintaining it in such grandiose style? If a business is making losses, those managing it should be cashiered and replaced with those who can make a good job of it. Those who saw the KCR running in loss and didn’t do the needful were either inefficient or dishonest. In this case it is probable that both lethal factors were in full play.

It is only fair to demand that the government set up an inquiry commission with adequate representation of those who know what urban rail transport is all about. Any inquiry entrusted to the bureaucrats would be handing over the investigation of a killing to the proven assassins. In the minds of the public in Karachi, the KCR affair is reeking with pests, leeches and crawling worms. The Pakistan Railway has nearly been done to death by the bribes of the road transport Mafia. The KCR died of the same poison. Our governor must be the only one who does not know this much.

Now stop playing with those fancy ideas that are put across every now and then only to fool the people. Even now, the infrastructure of at least a fairly large part of the ‘late’ KCR is in place. Given some honesty and a bit of dedicated effort, the KCR should be on the rails and moving within weeks. Imagine the number of flyovers built at formidable expense in the name of the KCR. But when the money that was to be made was duly made, they throttled the KCR. It has been done to death to leave the money-minting exclusively to the Road Mafia. This money is shared among the ‘KCR-killers club.’

If this sounds too bizarre and weird for the sophisticated palate of our bureaucracy, let us forget all about it. But some questions would continue to shriek for answers. These are:

1. Which other city in the world, comparable to Karachi, is without an organized urban railway system?

2. Why the KCR was not able to pay its way when comparable systems throughout the world are making money?

3. If the KCR was losing money, who was making the millions on the side?

If and when answers are made available, effort will certainly be made to present the same to the public.