GOVERNOR

A few days back when a reporter at the Karachi airport asked Mr. Latif Khosa as to why he was there, was told that his party leader (Zardari) had ordered him to be there and there he was.  However, his  ecstatic body language, twinkle in the eye  and under-the-lip  smiles conveyed unmistakably to the viewers  of his gubernatorial selection for the largest province of the country.  Obviously such implicit obedience and reverential submission override all other qualities of head and qualifications for probity to be picked up as the ruler’s representative in a province not so friendly.  Not too far in the past the governor, like the president, used to be a non-partisan  to enjoy the confidence of all political parties for and against. But I suppose it is no more germane. What I really fail to comprehend is how come a governor is  ‘selected’ rather than ‘elected’ by the ones he would govern upon in a syst em  called democracy?  Or, is the colonial legacy of the Lot Sahib left by the British so indispensable that  we are not only continuing with it  but have also incorporated it in our constitution for all times to come?

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)