Better late than never

It isn’t surprising that Qaim Ali Shah has finally gone. What is surprising is that Zardari should have taken it so long to show him the door. He would certainly go down in the history of Sind as its weakest chief minister in whose time the law and order of the province touched its nadir. The PPP’s high command had to take notice of the rampant corruption amongst its ministers and bureaucrats in Sind Most of them have been removed or are being sidelined. Any further delay in the matter would have been suicidal for the PPP. Zardari was sensible enough not to pick up a quarrel with the Establishment by deciding to give a constitutional cover to the Rangers’ operation in Sind for another 3 months though it would have been far better had a legal cover of another one year been given because given the enormity of dirt in the Augean stables of Karachi the Rangers would need that much minimum period to get the job entrusted to them done. Hopefully, the new chief minister of Sind and the reshuffled provincial cabinet and civil servants would learn from the mistakes of their predecessors and avoid doing things which brought a very bad name to their party and forced the party ‘s high command to make drastic changes in the former administrative set up in Sind.
Qaim Ali Shah has been adequately rewarded for his fealty to Bhuttos by Benazir as well as Zardari but there comes a time in the life of every public leader when age starts telling heavily on him and when it is time for him to slow down. Qaim Ali Shah had taken leave of his senses and he had started forgetting things and names for quite some time. His further retention in office was bound to cause embarrassment to his party.
There are reports of behind the curtains meetings of the leadership of the PPP and Nawaz League and from the latest tone and tenor of public statements of PPP leaders it is quite evident that the PPP would very much like Nawaz League government to complete its stint in office up to 2018 and would not do any thing that could unsettle it before the next elections that are due in that year which gives credence to the general perception that deep down there is a tacit understanding between these two political parties that they will rule this country turn by turn.