How Hina Jilani made a fool of herself
Now that the results of the recent Pakistan elections have been, by and large, accepted by all, it is time to look back at the predictions made by pundits in the run up to the elections. First the experts who claimed there won't be any elections and came up with various theories on how political assassinations and other scenarios would be staged to postpone the polls. We know how much their expert opinion should mean to us in the future.
And then we should look at our other darlings.
It was one thing for opposition to doubt if elections would be fair, and completely another for Hina Jilani to assure the US Congress that sending independent observers to Pakistan was totally unnecessary because the elections had already been rigged.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7143886.stm
We should thank Sheila Jackson Lee for ignoring Jilani's advice. The real question is, who were those fools who made Hina Jilani a UN envoy?
PS.
Question #2: Is Imran Khan regretting his boycott decision?
[Photo courtesy of BBC]
1 comment:
Here is what we are talking about:
That a hitherto respectable member of the Pakistani left is asked to speak to the US Congress, and on the point of independent observers to watch Pakistani Elections, she says, do not bother.
She does not say, "It is highly likely that the Pervez Musharraf government would rig the elections."
She does not say, "We have learned that the government is determined to rig the elections."
She does not say, "Please do monitor elections because it might discourage the government from rigging the elections."
She says, "There is no point in monitoring the elections or watching the poll - the rigging has already happened."
See the determinism, the confidence in that statement?
To all those who were familiar with Hina Jilani's track record and knew her past work, she was very credible. People said, if Hina Jilani is saying "the rigging has already happened" then it must be so, that Jilani must have first hand knowledge of the fraud.
But now the elections results have proved otherwise. And it is only logical to conclude that at times Ms. Jilani has the propensity to be flaky. She is capable of making baseless, untrue, stupid statements. That whatever she says must be taken with a grain of salt, if not with an associated chuckle.
And this episode is hurtful to the liberals because Hina Jilani is one of us. She has hurt OUR credibility. And because of her association with the HRCP she has hurt the reputation of that fine institution. Now when she would report Pakistan's human rights violations to the world, people would say, "Thanks, we know how much to believe you."
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