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Pak Poll Diary: In and out of exile
Published on Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 13:52, Updated on Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 23:33 in World section
Tags: Pakistan Election, Poll Diary
ENJOYING THE LIMELIGHT: CNN-IBN's Suhasini Haider with former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif.
Pakistan is a revolving door for its politicians, all of whom have taken regular turns to come in and go out of the country in succession.
What's more amazing, all the years spent away doesn’t impact their parties too much.
At a rally in Attock, Nawaz Sharif, says he is surprised himself.
"Out of sight, out of mind, that’s normally the way," explained the PML-N leader as he basked in the chants of the crowds that came to see him, "Its a miracle my party cadre has stayed intact.
"The elections results of course would only serve to make him and Benazir, were she alive, happier, and still more surprised.
Both the PPP and the PML-N- that have come up trumps have had a leadership that’s lived abroad for the most part of a decade.
Clearly for Pakistan, "Out of sight is definitely NOT out of mind". Exile in a sense is considered a penance, a hardship according to most Pakistanis I meet.
Despite the reality of Nawaz Sharif's Saudi palace, and Benazir's Wentworth estate, they say both leaders spent the most miserable years abroad.
More proof, I think is that despite all the threats she faced from the establishment and from the extremists, Benazir decided to return to Pakistan, and stay on even after that deadly bombing in Karachi.
On a trip to Karachi last week, I saw a glimpse of another leader who has spent several years in exile. Or rather, I heard a glimpse.
For lakhs of his supporters at the MQM, Altaf Hussain is king. And he rules from his home in London where he fled in 1992 after two assassination attempts on him.
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| SUPPORT STAFF: An election rally in Attock. |
My first glimpse of him comes at a press conference to inaugurate the MQM's latest media center. The party may lack a leader in person, but not for funds.
Its media center in "90", the Azizabad area that is known simply by the number of Altaf's house, is a journalist's dream- with wall to wall television screens that show every news channel known to Pakistani man, national and international.
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| TIME TO SPEAK: The MQM holding a rally. |
Surprisingly for the all the hi-tech gizmo around me, Altaf himself communicates with his people through a rather low-tech telephone, whose speaker is hooked up to a microphone.
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