Gilani's maiden address

Pity, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani's maiden address to the nation as elected prime minister of Pakistan was not a deep enough furrow. Nor was it expected to be, as he is not the leader about whom one would have said 'cometh the man, cometh the hour'.
Pity also, his maiden address was so grossly mismanaged by his media managers. Why, only time will tell. On Saturday night when a lot of Pakistani television audience was hooked to a popular musical aired from across our eastern border his presentation so eagerly awaited was so much hollow and disappointing to rivet attention.
With no real story to break and no new thesis to expound he just managed to go walking between the raindrops. It was not even half as inspiring as was his inaugural address in the new parliament. Was his speech censored before delivery, as it was unduly delayed? Only in fullness of time we would know as to what went wrong with Prime Minister Gilani's maiden radio-television simulcast.
Prime Minister Gilani had mainly confined himself to the economic issues like high inflation, flight of capital and the deceptive glare of prosperity passed on to him by his predecessor, Shaukat Aziz. He may be right in claiming that this high inflation is the result of running the country by printing money and heavily borrowing from the State Bank.
He gave a short shrift to the high-visibility traffic-choking cars and ubiquitous cell phones. But he offered no plan to escape the mess we are presently stuck in. In fact, most of the things he said were proverbial 'much ado about nothing'. His expositions on political and diplomatic fronts were equally devoid of vision a prime minister in his first-ever address to the nation is expected to unfold.
In fact, except for his disclosure that during his forthcoming visit to Washington he would meet some potential investors in the Thar coal project the rest makes no news. As his address got delayed one thought perhaps Prime Minister Gilani was in consultations with his party leadership on the lawyers' threat made the same evening to re-launch campaign for the restoration of deposed judges.
But that was not to be - his remark in this respect was the same he has made for the umpteenth time that the 'nation would hear a good news soon'. Of course, Prime Minister Gilani repeatedly talked of the sacrifices made by the Bhuttos for restoration of democracy, but it was more in the form of a narrative of a cultic brotherhood.
He skipped over the hundred-plus days of his government, not surprisingly blaming his inability to turn the tide on the previous government. What really matters is not what Prime Minister Gilani said in his maiden address to the nation, but what he did not or could not say.
As elected by the unanimous vote of parliament he should act and speak as the ultimate leader in the ambience of parliamentary democracy, as we think we have in Pakistan now. His words should be the last words as far as matters of governance and decision-making are concerned.
But here was a prime minister whose right and freedom to say what he should have was apparently controlled by somebody else. He walks the corridors of power like a phantom that has no powers and he only smiles. True, it is possible in a democratic dispensation that the prime minister walks the line drawn by the party chief.
But once that line has been drawn it is the prime minister who makes day to day decisions in running the affairs of the government. That transition of power from the party boss to the prime minister does not seem to have taken place in Pakistan, as yet.
Resultantly, a sense of tentativeness spawns the working of the coalition government. And, as present state of affairs would have it is vicariously prompted by the other major coalition partner, PML (N)'s, half-hearted co-operation.
Given the severity of challenges Pakistan faces today this is not on. Now that democracy has been restored after eight years of praetorian rule it should not be allowed to be undermined by lack of commitment and adherence to its pristine form. It would be in the interest of the country that leaderships of both the main coalition partners, PPP and PML (N), desist working through proxies. They should come to the fore and pick up the gauntlet or hand over real power to their proxies.