TORONTO, Nov 23: While several Pakistani Canadians welcomed the revival of democracy in their native country, some of the university students and teachers described the whole exercise as a joke.

“People in the West are laughing at the news that democracy has been revived in Pakistan”, said Irfan Ahmed, a fourth-year student of Toronto University. He said a teacher taunted that the elected Pakistani president was in army uniform.

A Lahore-born student, Irfan, said Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali was perhaps the only elected prime minister in the world who would be working under the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS). “Is it not a joke?”, he asked.

“In a parliamentary system, prime minister is head of the government having all the powers. But in Pakistan, the situation is contrary to this. In our country, the COAS enjoys all the powers”, Akhtar Malik, a teacher in downtown Toronto, said.

“I welcome the new government of Zafarullah Jamali though I know that the Pakistan army is still all powerful”, said Nuzhat Ahmed, an insurance agent in Mississauga, 25 kilometres West of Toronto.

“Let us hope that Gen Pervez Musharraf gives up his post as the army chief”, she said.