Defeat of PML man talk of town

THE third and final phase of the local elections is over, and the elected nazims have taken oath of their offices, but the defeat of the ruling party nominee, MNA Ghulam Rasool Sahi, at the hands of ARD-supported candidate ex-MNA Rana Zahid Tauseef is still talk of the town.

Faisalabad is a stronghold of the mainstream opposition parties, the PML-N and the PPP, which can be judged from the fact that all its 10 provincial assembly seats of urban areas were captured by the opposition candidates during the 2002 general elections. However, in the rural areas, the ruling party had succeeded in manoeuvring the support of political heavyweights which resulted in the defeat of opposition nominees. Likewise, in the local elections 2001, the TMA city top slot was captured by PPP-backed Mumtaz Ali Cheema, who later changed his loyalties and joined the ruling PML.

In this backdrop, the masterminds of the local bodies and the politicians in power in the provincial capital declared Faisalabad city district for the local polls 2005. Tehsil city and Sadar were converted into four towns — Lyallpur, Madina, Jinnah and Iqbal— while the remaining four tehsils were given the status of towns just a week before the local elections schedule. The motive behind giving the status of city district to Faisalabad was nothing else but to reduce the strength of the PML-N and the PPP in urban areas, and to achieve this task at least 14 union councils were attached to four urban towns.

The rural-based Chak Jhumra tehsil, hometown of Punjab Assembly Speaker Afzal Sahi, was declared a town with only 15 union councils. Jaranwala tehsil, to which federal law minister Wasi Zafar belonged, was also given the status of a town with 57 union councils, which clearly reflected that the rural areas were not disturbed by the hold of the ruling PML. Out of 28 union councils of Lyallpur Town, 16 were included from the Sadar areas having a village population of 310,617. In Madina Town, eight union councils were included in its 41 union councils with a rural population of 164,207. Likewise, out of a total of 43 union councils of Iqbal Town, 15 were included from the defunct Sadar tehsil which has a rural population of 268,297. In Jinnah Town, nine union councils were made part of this town out of a total of 29, including a rural population of 180,989.

Former district nazim Zahid Nazir, who belonged to the Arain family, was ousted by the chief minister from candidature, but he continued his efforts and ultimately succeeded in uniting all PML leaders, including Punjab PML secretary-general and communication and works minister Chaudhry Zaheeruddin. The local PML leadership staged a power show at the residence of federal textile minister Mushtaq Cheema, which was attended by provincial ministers Chaudhry Zaheeruddin and Dr Mohammad Shafiq, federal ministers Mushtaq Cheema and Wasi Zafar and members of the national and provincial assemblies. Zahid Nazir was declared their candidate for the city district nazim by all leaders unanimously. However, the silence and absence of Speaker Afzal Sahi and his brother, MNA Ghulam Rasool Sahi, opened the nomination of Zahid Nazir to question.

Thereafter, the situation took a new turn when Pervaiz Elahi as provincial PML president picked up MNA Asim Nazir for the top slot of the district instead of his elder brother, Zahid Nazir. This decision stunned the citizens, but the political pundits declared it a drama and predicted change of nomination which proved true as Asim Nazir was all of a sudden replaced by MNA Ghulam Rasool Sahi.

This move totally changed the election scenario as the local leadership of the ruling PML was ignored and just one man was favoured by the chief minister. Similarly, the Arain voters felt that it was an insult to their biradari and started a systematic campaign to take a revenge for replacement of Asim Nazir.

Chaudhry Zaheeruddin took the decision as a challenge, and held a series of election meetings with councillors of all eight towns of the district in favour of MNA Ghulam Rasool Sahi and other candidates for town nazims. The ruling PML in the final stage of the Oct 6 elections succeeded in capturing six town nazim slots out of eight, which was attributed to the efforts of Zaheeruddin. However, the top slot of the district was captured by ARD-nominated Rana Zahid Tauseef, the brother of PML-N MNA Rana Asif Tauseef.

A brief study of defeat of ruling party nominee and a member of the Sahi family indicated that Ghulam Rasool Sahi depended upon the government machinery instead of making direct contacts with councillors and nazims. The Sahi brothers addressed only those meetings which were called or arranged by administrative officials owing to which they failed to muster support of the party as well as other individuals. In many enlightened circles of the city, the defeat of Ghulam Rasool is being considered a good omen for the city. Disregard of Zahid Nazir and later Asim Nazir proved fatal for the ruling party as it annoyed the councillors of the majority Arain biradari and influential political figures.

Likewise, the citizens felt shocked when they saw large-sized publicity boards installed at major intersections of the city bearing the pictures of MNA Ghulam Rasool with support of a particular group of Chak Jhumra which had a negative impact in the local trade circles. No doubt, Afzal Sahi and his family have a clean record, but a group of people who surrounded them during the elections and launched their campaign are not liked by any segment of society. This was a wake-up call for the local traders and industrialists, and they started abhorring the Jhumra culture.

It was this aversion that drove the traders and industrialists to oppose the government candidate as a consequence of which they collected Rs50 million and offered to Rana Zahid Tauseef for launching his election campaign, said a merchant of the local yarn market. Another important feature of the defeat of the Sahis was that they depended on the police and the administration for their success and established their camp-cum-election offices in the Circuit House as well as in the Mayor House. An open secret was the use of wealth and distribution of costly gifts among the voters during the nazim’s election. Zahid Tauseef has the knack to tackle the councillors for both local and general elections. He adopted the new trend of convincing them and reportedly paid huge amounts to the voters.

An interesting scene was witnessed a few days back in the local Circuit House when Governor Khalid Maqbool visited Faisalabad in connection with the collection of funds for the quake victims. An officeholder of a renowned industrialist body gave the hand of Rana Zahid Tauseef in the hands of the governor, saying that he was their true representative to whom all-out support had been accorded by them. The bold and eloquent way in which solidarity with Zahid Tauseef was expressed by traders and industrialists in the presence of the governor gave an idea of how much annoyed they were with the government candidate.

UAE’s response to the earthquake

IT IS an accepted phenomenon in this day of international communication that disasters are world news for only a short time. In the past few years there have been so many large-scale human tragedies that their headline appeal soon dwindles and international attention moves on to the next tragedy — I was struck by this reality on a visit, a couple of weeks ago, to some areas of Sri Lanka that were badly affected in the tsunami that hit ten months ago. For a few weeks the global media spotlight was on the countries that were so devastated by nature’s tidal wave, but there have since been so many other catastrophes that the tsunami victims are in danger of being forgotten by the outside world.

However, on the ground in Sri Lanka, massive efforts are still taking place to assist the surviving victims, both by the government and by international and local aid agencies. In fact — and Pakistan should be prepared for this — foreign aid agencies have become a significant contributing factor to some local economies. The projects in which they become involved mean employing both local and foreign staff, renting property, buying vehicles and so on, and they give the impression that they will be there for some time.

The Pakistan earthquake and its aftermath is still recent enough to continue making headlines around the world, and nowhere more so than here in the UAE where the daily newspapers are still devoting many pages to the latest news, highlighting the relief efforts in the quake-stricken areas and the response from many sectors of UAE society. The close ties between the UAE and Pakistan, together with the large Pakistani community, will of course ensure that this tragedy does not get forgotten here but it is heartening to note that even at this stage — while short-term relief efforts continue apace — that plans are already being made for long-term assistance.

The UAE President, Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has sent a message to President Musharraf assuring the general that his government will continue to provide assistance ‘till the last quake victim is rehabilitated’ and a top-level UAE delegation is due to arrive in Pakistan any time now to discuss details. The UAE government has already finalized a plan to construct a $16-million hospital in the Muzaffarabad area and the UAE Ambassador to Pakistan, Dr Ali Mohammed Al Shamsi, has visited the area to help select a site. Designs are being finalized in Abu Dhabi and construction work on the four-storey building could start on a 16,000-sq m. site just after Eid.

A tent village is being established at Balakot, near a UAE military field hospital on the outskirts of the city. The UAE Red Crescent Society team is providing 100 tents to shelter about 500 homeless victims, who are being provided with daily supplies. Meanwhile, the UAE air force has continued its shuttle flights bringing quake victims to a military hospital in Abu Dhabi for treatment and these will continue until the field hospital is completed. Huge amounts of relief goods have also been transported by the air force. Community organizations in the Emirates continue with their relief efforts. The United Forum and the Pukhtun Welfare Organization have said they will build 1,000 houses in the remote quake-hit areas. The efforts of these organizations, the Pakistan Association in Dubai, and numerous other groups and individuals will take many pages to describe. Tents, blankets, medicines, clothing, sleeping bags and food, as well as large cash donations, have all been sent to the affected areas.

Understandably in such a massive effort, there have been some glitches in sending the relief, with supplies being stocked up at airports here because there have not been enough flights with cargo space. The situation is being made worse by the number of people travelling to be with their families during Eid, which again cuts down on the cargo space available on planes. PIA has been transporting relief goods free of charge from the UAE for the President’s Relief Fund but other airlines which have direct links from Dubai, such as Emirates, Gulf Air, Air Blue and Aero Asia, have also been used. However Tanveer Khwaja, chairman of the joint relief committee of the Pakistan Association, has said that only the most urgently needed relief items will be sent until the backlog is cleared.

One worrying factor, reported by both the association and the consulate-general in Dubai, was that donations of both goods and services appeared to be slowing down after the initial rush. Despite the transport problems, both were emphasizing that relief supplies will be needed for a long time to come. The consulate itself came under fire from one local newspaper here for organizing the traditional annual ‘Black Day’ protest on October 27. Under a front page headline of ‘Waste of time’, the 7Days tabloid said the Pakistani embassy in the UAE was ‘under fire for not focusing on the aid effort’. Around 100 Kashmiris gathered at the consulate ‘to listen to anti-Indian speeches’. The newspaper quoted some Pakistanis as saying that full concentration should be on helping the quake victims.

An unnamed senior official at the consulate was quoted as saying that while it was not the right time to be talking about conflict, Black Day was an annual event that they did not wish to discontinue because of the earthquake.