Wednesday 2 January 2008

A Tad Hypocritical Here?

Pakistan has started to calm down after a few days of protesting and looting.

The government is thinking that it will have to postpone the elections.

So naturally all the opposition parties are annoyed. And they are claiming that the government is going to lose.

The government has had 10 election offices burnt down by protesters and ballot papers have had their delivery disrupted. Depending on where these offices are, which looks like they are all in Sindh, there might be just enough time to keep the elections at the date.

Now the PPP are claiming that there will be violence if the elections aren't held on the 8th and it is probably because they want a sympathy vote. Their PM won't be Bhutto's widower because of corruption allegations, or her son who is too young, but vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim.

But this post isn't about the PPP or the Pakistani government. It's about the PML-N, Nawaz Sharif's part of the PML.

On Friday the BBC reported this:

"Ms Bhutto's political rival Nawaz Sharif, who was deposed as prime minister in the coup, has announced his party will now boycott the election, saying free elections were impossible under Mr Musharraf."

So if the elections went ahead on the 8th his party wouldn't have been in them.

From the BBC yesterday:

"Mr Sharif said his party would not accept the expected postponement."

So now he says that he won't accept a change of date for elections that he would boycott if the date wasn't changed.

That is one of the most hypocritical things that you could ever say.

Besides if you are going to boycott elections that are held on a certain date, why bother complaining if the date is changed? You can still boycott those elections. There is no need whatsoever to complain that you can't boycott elections because someone decides to change the date.

In reality you shouldn't even have the right to complain. Unless you were only talking big and now the guy who overthrew you managed to out manoeuvre you.

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