A Wizard told him in these words our fate:

At length Corruption, like a general Flood,

(So long by watchful ministers withstood),

Shall deluge all. — Alexander Pope

In Pakistan nothing has altered the fortunes of so many people so suddenly as political power. Here money and power seek each other. No wonder, the business of politics attracts the scum of the community and a legion of scoundrels. In the name of democracy, unspeakable sins are committed. These practitioners of the art of grand larceny, loot and plunder in broad daylight, with no fear of accountability, reminiscent of the situation in the early 19th century in India when highway robbers, professional dacoits, assassins and the thugs travelled in gangs in the darkness of the night throughout Central India. The country was rid of this evil only when Captain Sleeman hanged over 400 members of this confederacy of robbers. The people of Hindustan heaved a sigh of relief and welcomed the Raj. What is distressing is that mega-corruption has reached the summit of power in this country and is acquiring an aspect of high respectability and great social distinction. And with Zardari in the presidency, one doesn’t have to read the tea leaves for a glimpse of our future.

All presidents fall from their honeymoon highs, but no elected president in history has fallen this far this fast. All presidents are opposed, of course, and many are disliked; but few suffer widespread attacks on their personal integrity or veracity. President Zardari is one of those.

A year after he captured the presidency, Mr Zardari has lost his “mandate of heaven.” His presidency is collapsing all around us; the wolf is at the door. At a time when leadership is desperately needed to cope with matters of vital importance to the very survival of the country, Pakistan is led by a president who lacks both credibility and integrity. If you came up with ten words to describe Zardari, integrity and credibility would not be two of them.

No corrupt authoritarian ruler can afford a free press or an independent judiciary. No wonder, both are under attack in this country. Zardari has openly challenged the Supreme Court, the guardian of the Constitution, the defender of all our liberties. He has betrayed his oath to uphold the Constitution. At a time when his fortunes have sunk to their lowest and his foes picture him as a man consumed by rancour and determined on revenge, his reluctance to implement the landmark Supreme Court judgment, and his plan to pack the superior courts have aroused people’s anger and disgust.

It is hard to exaggerate the baleful impact of Zardari’s rule: the oligarchs who have stolen away every asset of any value, the inflation that has ruined the middle class and the poor, the corruption that has corroded all values and humiliated every decent citizen; and the insecurities that have filled everyone with fear and anxiety. What will become of poor Pakistan? “What the end will be,” Carlyle wrote, “is known to no mortal; that the end is near all mortals may know.”

Henry Adams once wrote that the essence of leadership in the presidency is “a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek.” President Zardari grasped the helm more then a year ago but the country still doesn’t know whether he has an inner compass or a course to steer or a port to seek. It is now abundantly clear that Zardari is not worthy of the trust placed in him by his people. He carries a serious baggage, dogged for years by charges of corruption until they were abruptly dropped under the NRO. No democrat should come to power through such an array of backroom machinations, deals with generals or with Washington. No wonder too many people reject his political legitimacy.

Today, the nation is clearly at a fork in the road. We can follow the line of least resistance, turn a blind eye to all that Zardari is doing and continue to follow the road that has led us to where we are today. Or we can choose the other road. We don’t need pitchforks and guns. If parliament is unable or unwilling to respond to public demands and declines to defend the Constitution and support the Supreme Court, people will, perforce, take the issue to parliament of man and parliament of the streets, as they have done in the past.

If people want change, they will have to vote with their bodies, and keep voting in the streets. A regime like this, which is defying the Supreme Court, can only be brought down or changed if enough people vote in the streets. This is what the regime fears most, because it either has to shoot its people or quit.

In a recent TV interview, President Zardari associated me with the “establishment,” a curious observation that can be explained only by Zardari himself. What seems to have aroused his ire is that in pursuit of my rights as a free citizen of Pakistan, and no longer constrained by government-service rules, I have, from time to time, made public expressions of my concern over the serious charges of corruption that have been levelled against Zardari, at home and abroad. I also had the privilege of moving a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the validity of a deplorable legislation. Not because I had an animus against any particular person, nor did I stand to personally gain anything. I did so because, as a citizen, I felt it my duty to challenge such an iniquity being imposed on millions of my fellow citizens.

I have publicly denounced the policies of Gen Musharraf in the print and electronic media when he was at the peak of his power. I have participated in rallies and demonstrations for the independence of the media and the restoration of the chief justice and other deposed judges. Today I can say with great pride that I was there.

Mr Zardari’s statement associating me with the establishment is, therefore, utterly baseless. I shall continue to exercise my right of free expression and association, as I have done in the past. All I want is that justice be done without fear and favour. Nothing shall deter me from following this course of action. As the chief prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg trials, Robert Jackson, warned: “Law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power.” Fiat justitia ruat coelum. (Let justice be done though the heavens fall). Heaven won’t fall. That is for sure. It will be morning once again in Pakistan.

I end this article with these profound observations of Confucius:

“The ruler must be careful about his own virtue. Possessing the virtue will give him the people. Possessing the people will give him territory. Possessing the territory will give him wealth. Possessing the wealth, he will have resources for his expenditure. Virtue is the root, wealth is its branches. If the ruler makes the root his secondary object and the branches his first, he will only anger the people and teach them dishonesty. Hence, the accumulation of wealth is the way to disintegrate the people, and the distribution of wealth is the way to consolidate the people. Likewise, when his words are not in accord with that which is right, they will come back to him in the same way, and wealth got by improper means will leave him by the same road.”

The writer is a former federal secretary. Email: roedad@comsats.net.pk,www.roedadkhan.com