THIS is with reference to the report ‘Pakistan PAC sees Trump as better choice for Islamabad’ (Oct 19), which reported the endorsement by the Pakistan Political Action Committee (PAC) of the candidacy of former United States president Donald Trump in the forthcoming American presidential elections. The announcement did not surprise me at all. In fact, had the group endorsed Trump’s opponent, Kamala Harris, that would surely have been a matter of surprise.

Back in the 2000 presidential elections, the Republican candidate, George W. Bush, was pitted against his Democratic opponent, Al Gore. Many Pakistani communities and groups in the US resounded with the need to defeat Gore because his running mate was Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Jew. Their arguments were devoid of cogent considerations of either policy matters or party philosophies and cues.

Gore lost by just a few hundred votes. Did the illogical approach of voters of Pakistani or Muslim background make that happen? We do not know, for sure. However, Bush started wars against two Muslim-majority countries, Afghanistan and Iraq. When, in the wake of those wars, some people complained of Bush’s recklessness, I asked them if they had voted for him in the elections. Most of them avoided a direct answer, and one can guess why.

Many years later, another Democratic presidential candidate is a persona non grata in the eyes of some voters of Paki-stani origin because of her parental heritage more than anything else.

The Pakistan PAC’s ‘prediction’ that Trump will help improve Pakistan-US relations is irrational. It is a disgusting window-dressing. The group forgot Trump’s tweet as president on Jan 1, 2018, in which he said: “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies [and] deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools.”

The group’s assertion that the current administration has not supported demo-cracy in Pakistan is ludicrous, too.

Any US administration — Democratic or Republican — knows that Pakistani politicians, everyone included, are no friends of democracy.

When the current opposition was in power, the hand-picked speaker of the National Assembly had arbitrarily rejected the no-confidence resolution against the government in an unconstitutional manner. Then, as part of a premeditated scheme to foil the no-confidence move, the then prime minister advised the president, who acted as the premier’s assistant, to dissolve the assembly. The president quickly obliged without even taking the time to have the no-confidence move and its rejection scrutinised by his constitutional advisers.

The no-confidence resolution itself was the result of questionable conduct. But at least theoretically and technically, the resolution was a no-confidence attempt that deserved due process, something that the Supreme Court had recognised, quashing the speaker’s action.

Unsurprisingly, when undemocratic behaviour is rife in Pakistan, how can the Pakistan PAC ask the US to support one politician’s behaviour over another’s?

Siddique Malik
Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2024