| Pakistan is fortunate. For the first time in its fifty-seven year history it has a Prime Minister who lives beneath his means. |
| To the vast Pakistani electorate living in the politically arid wasteland between Attock in the north and Tharparkar in the south of the country, Mr Shaukat Aziz’s elevation to the nation’s highest executive office will come as a relief. It has seen far too many prime ministers eager to enrich themselves by dipping into the national exchequer. There is no danger now of a prime minister having to answer allegations by the National Accountability Bureau or to hire lawyers to defend charges in Swiss or British courts. Since his days as the manager of the Citibank branch at Alfalah building in Lahore, over the years his employers have supported and promoted him, providing him with the sort of nest-egg that only geese in fables were said to lay. With property in London and New York, he does not need a mansion in Surrey. |
| If Mr Shaukat Aziz is at all tempted, it shall not be by wealth. If he is corrupted at all during the period of his prime ministership (however long that may be), it may be by what Henry Kissinger described once as the ultimate aphrodisiac – power. At the moment he has everything within his grasp. He enjoys the absolute confidence of the only power in Pakistan – the Army headed by President General Pervez Musharraf, and he enjoys the absolute confidence of the only power that matters in the world – the United States, headed by President George W. Bush. Protected by this dual patronage, he can afford to feel doubly secure. Musharraf is unlikely to shed his uniform at the end of this year (it was this very uniform that he sought to protect when he ousted Nawaz Sharif in October 1999), and President George W. Bush does not intend to lose the re-election, as his father did to Clinton. [EXTRACT] |
Published in DAWN 20 September 2004, titled: Another swing of the magic wand, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006). |
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