In a free season on the Constitution some people have floated the idea of imposing a judicial martial law for holding general elections in the country. Apart from being a contradiction in terms it’s also a totally meaningless concept because a martial law is martial law and a prefix or a suffix doesn’t change its character in any manner. We ...

The brazen manipulations, corruption and intervention by intelligence agencies in the recent Senate elections has exposed the hollowed and farcical nature of the current “ republic “ which doesn’t qualify anymore to  be called even a  mere facade of democracy. On the one hand the creeping coup going on for the last few years has now culminated into a  blatant ...

Traditionally elections for Senate , the house of federation, held every three years to elect 52 senators ( half of the total) would be held without much suspense because of its limited electoral college and predictability of the results due to the already known strength of the political parties in their respective provincial assemblies. In post Zia era the impact of the ...

The civil military row or to be more precise the wrangling between PML (N) led elected civilian government and the military establishment is quite open and public by now. But the dark prophesies about complete derailing of democracy, postponement of the Senate election and general election haven’t come true so far. In fact polling for the Senate election will be ...

More than a week of peaceful protest by thousands of Pashtun activists ( mostly from Waziristan and FATA) in front of Islamabad Press Club may or may not succeed in forcing the government to accept their reasonable demands but it has definitely redefined Pashtun political discourse in Pakistan. The contradiction between ever growing socio political awareness brought by urbanisation and the utter political disempowerment is the ...

GERMANY: Heidelberg Women’ March 2018. Video report by Aurang Zeb Khan Zalmay

The rapid expansion of electronic media followed by the equally impressive growth of social media during the last two decades in Pakistan has opened up immense possibilities for the people to connect and we have witnessed massive rise in connectivity among individuals, social and political groups and communities across the country ( and beyond). The irony, however, is that democratic movement in ...

Since 9/11, Pakistan has provided just enough sporadic assistance to give an impression of helpfulness, while at the same time harboring, training, and assisting violent extremist groups. President Trump, in his tweet about Pakistan, called a spade a spade. Since 9/11, Pakistan has consistently played a double game, providing just enough sporadic assistance in capturing members of Al Qaeda and ...

It is not surprising that the debate about the murder of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto (SMBB), even ten years after its occurrence, is raising such deep emotions. After all, she was one of the most charismatic and popular leaders in Pakistan’s history, who was killed on December 27, 2007, just before a crucial general election in which she was poised ...

The pro establishment tv anchors and the so called defense analysts disparagingly comment on the “oppositional” attitude of PML (n) government . They ridicule it for making demands like a party sitting in opposition . But with the three years plus old creeping coup having entered quite an advanced stage, the PML (n) governmentseems to have lost control over most of the commanding heights in ...