The boycott

S Khalid Husain
The PPP has decided to boycott the Jang Group, which includes The News, and Geo. The PPP's information secretary Fauzia Wahab, broke the news at a press conference at the PPP Media Cell.
She said: "No parliamentarian, party office-bearer or activist of the People's Party will participate in any programme of Geo." She did not include in the boycotter's category the co-chairman of the party, who is also president of Pakistan, and the prime minister, or PPP ministers in the federal and Sindh cabinets. Is it because they are in the government? Since when exactly has the PPP, the ruling party, begun to distinguish between the government and the party, or vice versa?
Mrs Wahab did not say if party cadres would also be required to cease watching Geo, and cease reading Jang and The News. This should come as a reprieve. PPP cadres and activists not reading Jang Group publications and not viewing Geo could, with any luck, result in no more threatening messages to reporters and anchors, not even by the likes of the hot-blooded, impulsive, descendant of the PPP information head.
As a party honcho who is not in the government, Fauzia Wahab will, hopefully, not be seen on Geo programmes. Her absence and the absence with her of tactics to create disorder in her piercing style – a quality that probably got her the party job – rather than add to the discussions, will be a relief to viewers. And it could possibly enhance ratings on Geo programmes. This must be a cause for concern for channels which will continue to host the PPP's information secretary.
In a recent programme on TV it was heavy-going listening to her plugging Zardari as a law-abiding president, and as the "symbol of the federation". It was not explained how a president who came to power riding upon the NRO, which has been declared illegal by the Supreme Court, and who is now moving heaven and earth to dodge the sticky situation by any means, except judicial, can be law-abiding.
Also not explained by her was how President Zardari could be the "symbol of the federation" when, far from being a politically neutral individual of an above-reproach reputation, as the constitution stipulates, he is the super-active co-chairman of the ruling party, and with a worldwide reputation for corruption.
Angelina Jolie, who has donated over eight million rupees towards flood relief in Pakistan, not five million, as stated by Fauzia Wahab, is said to have expressed disappointment in her report on her recent visit to Pakistan, at the lavishness she witnessed at the Prime Minister's House. The opulent setting, tables laden with fine food to feed many times the number present, the prime minister's family, including his children, flown in on a chartered plane from Multan to Islamabad to be introduced to Ms Jolie – all this while millions of victims of the flood havoc struggled to survive.
Fauzia Wahab's reaction to Angelina Jolie's report was extraordinarily nonchalant. She wondered why the actress should lament the lavishness when the information secretary's own experience is that plainness is the rule at the Presidency and the Prime Minister's House. This is almost like saying there was intent behind Angelina Jolie making her disappointment public. Fauzia Wahab suggested to the anchor that probably finer food was served by him at home to his guests than at the Prime Minister's House. Denial, denial, denial is the clear PPP-government strategy. It may look as if it is working, but is it really?
There are other PPP ladies who the viewers doubtlessly wish were, like the information secretary, in the party's Jang Group-boycotter's category.
In which case, gone with Fauzia Wahab would have been Sharmila Farooqi. But this may not now be so as she has been made de facto minister in the Sindh cabinet, and will perhaps continue to grace Geo TV programmes. What has been her role in the razzmatazz, or madcap goings-on that pass for governance, besides working hard to get into Faryal Talpur's good books, is hard to tell. The News is the only publication to carry her "comment" now and then, and any programme on TV which features her makes viewers dash for the remote. Sharmila Farooqi has been so consistently proclaiming and writing the standard PPP line of "all is well", and that the media, the Jang Group in particular, is creating national anxiety for no reason, it almost makes one wonder if the PPP line was not adopted from the hit song titled "All is well", in the Bollywood flick Three Idiots.
Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, the PPP's federal minister for population, will remain a regular on Geo TV programmes. With an astounding presence, and even more astounding voice, she is more a heckler on TV shows than a participant. She is best known for the choicest of words she used for Kashmala Tariq of the PML-Q on a TV programme (not Geo's). The prime minister was forced to apologise to Kashmala Tariq and promise action. There was none, vetoed by the Presidency, perhaps.

The writer is a former corporate executive. Email: husainskcyber.net.pk