DEMAGOGUES: Sardar Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari, president from November 14, 1993, to December 2, 1997; Benazir Bhutto, prime minister from December 2, 1988 to August 6, 1990, and October 19, 1993, to November 5, 1996; Nawaz Sharif, prime minister from November 6, 1990, to July 18, 1993, and February 17, 1997, to October 12, 1999; Asif Zardari, united in wedlock with Benazir Bhutto since 1987.

Judges: Chief Justice of Pakistan Sajjad Ali Shah, appointed June 5, 1994, forced to proceed on leave December 2, 1997, officially retired February 16, 1998. On the other side of the divide: the Quetta bench of the Supreme Court, November 1997; Justices Irshad Hassan Khan, Nasir Aslam Zahid, Khalilur Rehman Khan; the Peshawar bench of the Supreme Court, November 1997: Justices Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui and Fazal Illahi Khan.

Excerpts from the transcript of a publicly recorded tape at Hameed Maker's 'Helpline' Seminar in Karachi on March 19, 2001: a question-answer session with Sardar Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari who now, when asked whether he considers he might be a 'solution' to our problems, considers that he "could be one", ignoring the fact that certain of the present problems are of his making.

"Our politicians come in through the democratic process, then dig their own graves and that of the democratic system......

"The response of the two political parties [PPP and PML] to the issues of governance are identical. Their main concern has been how to subjugate the judiciary and do away with due process of law and the rule of law. The confessions made by both leaders as to why they were doing so were identical.

"In 1996, whilst waiting for the verdict in the Judges Case, Benazir was sitting with me anticipating the Supreme Court order. When it came she called her legal advisers, Yahya Bakhtiar being one, and asked for advice. She then told me that I must denotify the Chief Justice [Sajjad Ali Shah]. When I said 'no', she then said I must send his case to the Supreme Judicial Council. I said 'no' again...

"She came to the presidency and was very distraught and on the verge of weeping. 'Farooq Bhai, you are throwing me to the wolves. You don9t know these judges of the Supreme Court. They will do to Asif and me what the Indian Supreme Court is doing to Narasimha Rao.' Then there was a lot of weeping and hysterical crying, even while a presidency servant brought tea. I was embarrassed and very sorry that things should have come to such a pass.

"But she cooled down after a while. I reminded her that she was with me when the Indian High Commissioner told us they had a lot of material against Narasimha Rao. I asked her, 'Is there any material against you and Asif?' She got upset and said 'no, there is no material'. 'Then why worry?' I asked. 'Surely the Supreme Court cannot write judgments out of the air'...

"Both Benazir and Nawaz Sharif had the fear that an independent judiciary might hold a prime minister accountable and throw him or her out.

"Exactly one year and three months later [October 16, 1997] there was almost a repeat performance on the same issue. The demand was identical. Denotify the Chief Justice of Pakistan [Sajjad Ali Shah]. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came to see me and brought with him Shahid Hamid, his governor of Punjab and my friend who had been won over and was advocating the case of the prime minister. 'Why don't you denotify the Chief Justice?' he said, 'the time has come to get rid of him'. 'Shahid,' I asked him, 'did you not tell the prime minister what my answer to Benazir was to the same question'? 'Well,' said Shahid, 'times have changed. The judiciary was united then, now it is divided, so we can do it.'

'Yes,' I said, 'we can violate the constitution and do what we like with the political system.'

"This reflects the mind of the ruling elite, their supporters, henchmen, yes-men.

"Their second demand was again the same: 'We have a file on the Chief Justice and can send his case to the Supreme Judicial Council'.

"Both had the desire to bring the judiciary to heel and have it under the sole control of the prime minister.

"When Nawaz Sharif let my Ehtesab laws lapse I asked him why. He said that his 'friends' did not like it. He did not specify which friends. Neither did he realize that he himself came under the mischief of those laws.

"Benazir came to see me two days after Murtaza9s soyem, on September 26, 1996, to apologize for having made remarks about me on TV and having lied. She had imputed that I had a hand in the assassination.

"Aftab Sherpao had rung me telling me she was upset and wished to come to see me and apologize..... I told Sherpao that every PPP leader and he himself knows who killed Murtaza.

"The behaviour pattern of Benazir, Nawaz and Shahbaz and the rest is the same. All political parties have developed extreme fascist tendencies and the root cause for this is their scant regard for the supremacy of the rule of law. Prime ministers want judges of their own, irrespective of merit. They want judges who will do their bidding and not the bidding of the law. They do not want level playing fields lest anyone question the authority of the fascist leaders.

"Karamat [General Jehangir Karamat, COAS] had to follow the Constitution when he acted as he did. But the Constitution is not very clear on what he should have done and what were the limits of his powers. I should have thought that when he was inducted as a go-between [for] the Chief Justice and the prime minister by the prime minister himself, Karamat could have put four men in SSG fatigues to guard the Supreme Court and maybe the attack [storming of the court on November 28, 1997] would not have occurred.

"What must be understood is Nawaz's and his group's consistent and persistent effort to conquer all other centres of power.

"I used Article 58(2)(b) once but when I got a second opportunity to use it I did not. The antics of both Benazir and Nawaz, and the way they have played around with the law and the Constitution, makes it necessary to have Article 58(2)(b) in order to maintain a balance of power.

"When I decided in my mind to leave the whole bunch of politicians, both parties [PPP and PML] had become the same; they had the same political culture.

"On the night of 27/28 November 1997 [the Supreme Court was stormed on the 28th] the prime minister [Nawaz Sharif] came to the presidency bringing with him the army chief [General Jehangir Karamat], the head of the ISI [Lt- General Nasim Rana], the speaker of the National Assembly [Ilahi Bakhsh Soomro] and the law minister [Khalid Anwer]. They pleaded with me until morning. All they wanted me to do in the light of the orders of the Quetta and Peshawar Supreme Court benches was to sign on the advice of the prime minister to appoint Ajmal Mian as Chief Justice of Pakistan. That's all. The advice was binding on me under the Constitution. When I refused and offered to resign to resolve the crisis that had been gripping the country for four months, I narrated to them point by point how the crisis came about, and in the presence of all of them proved that it was of the prime minister's making and not that of the Chief Justice.

"But I told them, 'I have the solution. I will resign', Ilahi Bakhsh Soomro said 'Why should you resign for a half-mad Sindhi judge who is going to retire in three months anyway?' He used that exact term - half-mad. Then the prime minister chipped in and asked me why should I pay such a heavy price for a judge who is retiring in three months.

"'I will resign,' I told them, 'because in my political parlance there is no buying or selling. Your culture and mine are different. I will resign and Mr Waseem Sajjad [chairman of the Senate] will have no moral compunctions [about] signing this document tomorrow. He will be acting president and he will do it.' It was two different political cultures at work."

A couple of weeks ago, a Urdu daily carried a statement reportedly made by Asif Zardari from his Attock prison cell. According to Asif, after he had helped Leghari become president, Leghari asked him, 'Koi hukam karo' (To hear is to obey, master). He claimed that Leghari had told him that he, Asif, was possessed of great qualities. Asif said he had forgiven Nawaz Sharif because he was a political rival, but he could not forgive Leghari because he had betrayed a friendship.

Flotsam and Jetsam have been jettisoned. The entire rotten lot should be disqualified and never again be allowed to reboard.