democratically-elected — President Zardari has just appointed an acquaintance as the country’s ambassador to Syria.

As his first order of business, the gentleman, Mr. Aminullah Raisani, destroyed one of the finest English-language schools running in Damascus, owned by the Government of Pakistan. He fired the entire staff of the school, and ‘imported’ his family members from Pakistan, including brothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, etc., and appointed them for a collective MONTHLY salary of US $ 38,000, which translates into PKR 3.2 million.

Today’s The News International published a report on this heist, with stunning details about how sisters and brothers-in-law of the Ambassador have been appointed against salaries reaching up to US $ 3,500 per month.

The school attracts children of the elite in the Syrian capital. Foreign diplomats also prefer the school because of its English and Arabic corriculum.

This kind of grand theft is not unual in Pakistan but it says a lot about why the governing structure in this country is collapsing and why the country is headed for a disaster in the coming years, leading to internal chaos along social fault lines.

Pakistan’s ruling system is a British import. It is not suited to the country. Pakistan needs a tailored demcoratic system that would preserve media and social freedoms but also minimize instability and make use of the creativity of the Pakistani people.

Above all, Pakistan needs a system that would replace feudal and career politicians with creative decision makers.

What we have is a system monopolized by a feudal elite, which has grown stronger because the Pakistani military, the country’s strongest institution, has been inadvertently strenghtening that elite and using it for decades.  In today’s Pakistan, Pakistanis from the middle and the lower middle classes have no opportunities to progress and achieve. Opportunities are reserved for the likes of Ambassador Raisani.

http://aq-lounge.blogspot.com/2010/02/pakistans-wrong-type-of-democracy.html