Zardari holds power through Core Committee
The News by Tariq Butt: Zardari holds power through Core Committee
The new political forum created by President Asif Ali Zardari, called the Core Committee (CC), has quietly become a supra-constitutional state within a state and even the now powerful prime minister instantly follows all its dictates, the PPP leaders and the PM House sources admit.
The Core Committee is the new power centre and has been formed to handle the post-18th Amendment power equation in which the president has legally lost many powers but practically it is the Presidency running the country, as usual, these sources say.
This forum has emerged as the dominant political arm of the president, which frequently meets at the Aiwan-e-Sadr.
“President Zardari relies on the wisdom of the members of the core group, which holds frank discussions on crucial matters,” PPP spokesperson Fauzia Wahab said.
Besides the president and the prime minister, members of this Core Committee unofficially are Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Nazar Muhammad Gondal, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Senator Rehman Malik, Syed Khurshid Ahmad Shah, Syed Naveed Qamar, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Senator Faisal Raza Abidi, Ms Fauzia Wahab, Ms Rukhsana Bangash, Ms Fauzia Habib and Presidential Spokesperson Farhatullah Babar.
The transfer of all important constitutional powers from the president to Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has made no dent in the unique decisive political role of Asif Ali Zardari in the present dispensation.
Key leaders of the two major political parties — the PML-N and the PPP – agree that even a constitutionally all-powerful prime minister is completely dependent on the sweet will and whims of the president, simply because Zardari has a firm grip on the party and is thus in a dictating position.
However, the PPP endorses this role of Zardari while the PML-N disapproves it, saying it amounts to ridiculing the Constitution.
PPP Information Secretary Fauzia Wahab told The News that the high-profile political role the president was playing was absolutely correct.
She conceded that Zardari possessed the political authority while the prime minister had constitutional powers.
A prominent PML-N leader, who is the voice of the Sharif brothers, said on condition of anonymity that there was no doubt that the exercise of political power by the president was not only unfair and odd but also impermissible under the Constitution. He said it was nothing but a joke that the president of Pakistan, who represents the unity of the Federation, was going around addressing political rallies and holding party meetings at the Presidency.
However, Fauzia Wahab said nowhere in the Constitution has the president been barred from conducting political activities. She said his recent visits to Bahawalpur and Peshawar were intended to mobilise the PPP and he would continue such activities in future as well.
Insiders say that the Core Committee has rendered the PPP’s Central Executive Committee redundant because this highest decision-making PPP body does not meet for months. “It is not possible to maintain secrecy of the deliberations that take place in the proceedings of the CEC,” one of them said, adding that this was a large body.
Moments after a meeting of the core group in the wake of the release of the report of the UN Commission of Inquiry into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the prime minister sidelined six police and administration officials, who were posted in Rawalpindi on Dec 27, 2007.
Again, it was after another Core Committee session that the prime minister constituted a three-member fact-finding committee, headed by Cabinet Secretary Rauf Chaudhry, to question Maj-Gen Nadeem Ijaz and others about the hosing down of the crime scene.
Fauzia Wahab said in both cases, the Core Committee requested the prime minister to act in the light of the UN report. There was nothing wrong in it, she said.
“We have a political government and consultations like those of the core group should not be considered unusual,” she added.
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King is dead. Long live the king
The News: Judicial commission not to be set up: Farhatullah Babar
By Ansar Abbasi
President Asif Ali Zardari has decided not to include Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Law Minister Babar Awan in the list of those being probed by the authorities in the Benazir Bhutto’s murder case and Presidency spokesman Farhatullah Babar says there is no need for any judicial commission at this time.
Talking to The News here on Sunday evening, Babar explained that President Zardari, who is also the PPP Co-chairperson, decided not to include the two ministers after consultations and recommendations of party leaders. According to Babar, it could be termed as the party’s decision.
The Presidency spokesman said after being satisfied with the conclusions of the UN Commission Report on Benazir’s assassination, the co-chairperson and the party decided to probe those security officials and government servants whose culpability had been highlighted in the UN Commission’s conclusion.
Babar, however, did not agree that any serious question was raised about the odd role of PPP leaders, particularly Rehman Malik, in the commission report. Babar insisted that the co-chairperson and the party decided to exclude Rehman Malik and Babar Awan from any probe.
But there are many even within the PPP who have been demanding an independent inquiry into this high profile murder case and seek questioning of Rehman Malik and Babar Awan also. One of the PPP leaders even publicly alleged Malik and Awan, the two most influential ministers and the confidantes of President Zardari, to have been involved in the murder case and seek their trial. Many among the senior PPP leaders also want all those travelling with Benazir Bhutto, either in her vehicle or in the one apparent back-up car, to be questioned by the authorities. However, it has not been done as yet.
Though the Presidency does not find anything doubtful against its top aides in the UN report, the UN Commission was surprised to find the back-up bulletproof car missing from the scene of the crime. What was really strange was the fleeing of back-up car, carrying Benazir Bhutto’s chief security officer Rehman Malik, Babar Awan, Farhatullah Babar and Lt-Gen (retd) Tauqir Zia.
The commission undoubtedly held the Musharraf government responsible for not providing the required security to Benazir Bhutto but it also found the PPP lacking the professionalism to protect its leader.
Besides what the UN Commission report said, these were the conflicting statements of Malik and Awan, which made them look dubious. Within half-an-hour of the attack on Benazir Bhutto and after fleeing the crime scene, Malik first appeared on the Geo, saying that he was in the front vehicle and had heard the blast. He also announced for the satisfaction of the people of Pakistan that Benazir Bhutto was fine.
Later, Malik appeared on another TV channel and said that he was at a four feet distance from Benazir’s vehicle when the blast occurred. He added when he looked back, Benazir’s vehicle was moving at a snail’s pace and that they led the car to the hospital. He added that he was present at the hospital at that time.
Within minutes of change of his first statement, he issued yet another statement on another television channel, saying: “I immediately called my brother Khalid Malik, who told me that Benazir had gone down in the vehicle and we took a U-turn to the hospital but then Benazir’s vehicle had already reached the hospital.”
A year later, Malik gave another statement that he rushed to the Zardari House and then checked the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the Federal Government Services Hospital and the Civil Hospital but could not find Benazir and later he was told that Benazir had been taken to the General Hospital.
Babar Awan told the media that after the blast he looked back and saw Benazir being hit in her neck. “After being hit, she tilted a bit and then went straight in,” Awan was heard as saying. His statement was in total contradiction to what Malik had stated and the catch was that both were sitting in the same back up car, which according to the UN Commission’s report reached Zardari House in 20 minutes of the blast.
However, no matter what others say, the Presidency seems completely satisfied with the way things are proceeding in Benazir’s murder case. While generally it is said not much is expected either from the three-member committee, constituted under the secretary Cabinet Division, to ascertain as to who had ordered the hosing down of the crime scene or from the FIA’s Joint Investigation Team that is working directly under the Interior Minister, Farhatullah Babar said in the light of the UN Commission what was required necessary was being done accordingly.
When asked if there were many who demanded for the constitution of an independent judicial commission to probe and then fix the responsibility in Benazir’s murder in order to ensure that everyone was satisfied and had trust in the outcome of the probe, Babar said there was no need for any such judicial commission at this stage. He, however, did not rule out the constitution of the judicial commission in future.
Who could blame Zardari for Kochwan Malik and Gobar Hewan appearing in front of a judicial enquiry! Who knows what beans they might spill.