Pakistan's First Twitter Prime Minister

After heated election campaigns, fiery tweets, anxious pleas and rigging complaints the first elections for Pakistan Twitter Parliament concluded. No member got a clear majority to win the elections, a time of 24 hours was awarded to announce coalitions and gain maximum number of votes to form government.

After much making and breaking, confusion, queries and questions the coalitions were announced. Tweeple Scorpioyas was declared the first ever Prime Minister of Pakistan Twitter parliament with coalition partners AbidBeli, NaeemShamim, Omair_Khalid and Rectified_guy with total vote count of 595 votes. The other coalition is now in opposition with BonBonDude as Leader of Opposition and members Kursed and Guppu, a total vote count of 370. This is Pakistan’s first virtual Prime Minister after the more successful Musharraf's Facebook President episode, effectively forming the virtual leadership of the country.

With a Prime Minister in place the process of appointing Ministers began as interested Tweeples were contacted and word was spread to file nominations for ministries. One Tweeple, IrfanQazi2010, was interested in the ministry of Nepotism, Corruption, Misgovernance, Misinformation and Injustice. He was conveniently ignored.

Tweeple AadilPitafi formed Facebook page for Pakistan Twitter Parliament and in short time it was liked by more than 100 people, showing effective Twitter and Facebook marketing and general audience interest in this unique twitter phenomenon. The first issue Parliament faced was the use of non-Parliamentary language which was effectively explained as “too tarakh” language and banning its use during session. It simply means if you are using #PKTP in your tweet, don’t be frank as “chaddi friends” because while parliament is in session, no one wants to be in his “Chaddi”.

Self-proclaimed President abidifactor ended up arguing in every which direction with the opposition leader who questioned everything, from neutrality to presidential voting and finally an offer of vote of confidence in return for a week of neutrality along with general reminder that they’re not friendly opposition; meanwhile Prime Minster kept banging his head in choosing Chief Justice, COAS and ministers and the first appointment came in the form of Deputy Speaker and Tweeple ShaikhRafia was awarded with this position.

Later on rumors spread that Prime Minister has already set out on his first Virtual Foreign tour (to Pakistan it seemed, since he physically resides outside the country), probably wasting much of new Parliament’s virtual money on Swiss accounts, buying castles and hotels, gambling in Casinos and acquiring personal jumbo jets … all virtual (obviously). It is yet to determine the extent of accuracy of these rumors and possible virtual expenditure; meanwhile self-proclaimed President, Bureaucrat, Intelligence Agency, Media and Establishment abidifactor continued to facilitate the curious visitors and agitating opposition.

Twitter Parliament faced its first crisis when member abidbeli threatened to leave coalition and join the opposition. After much hyper tweeting by concerned members and constant poking, it was announced that the coalition is still intact and abidbeli decided to stay with the government. Then Prime Minister showed up and announced that any problem should be directly discussed with him and not left to speculations.

As of yet the ministries are not complete and preparations for Presidential elections are underway which will be held in coming days. The #PKTP daily has some interesting insights that would give general information regarding Twitter Parliament updates every 24 hours.

Twitter Government of Pakistan

An unusual amount of activity on Twitter caught my attention. A constant stream of tweets regarding parliament made me think some new drama unfolding in Pakistan's already disastrous political scenario. A quick check on news channels, blogs and news tab on Google did not reveal anything significant, so I checked the tweets more closely.

There was no news about the current parliament of Pakistan but it was a discussion amongst very active Twitter users of Pakistan on forming a Twitter parliament. Ideas were flying, heated discussions with each other, sharing of concepts and philosophies, method and rules for voting and countless other topics were under debate. Finally a new hastag (#pktp) was used for Pakistan Twitter Parliament which became an active part of Parliament formation. Parties were formed, manifestos written and I believe I saw a tweet that might have included election banner (if that was even possible).

In less than 24 hours, #pktp has thousands of tweets about everything regarding Twitter Parliament election and polling started after a member (@abidifactor) became President to oversee the voting. 11 tweeters stood for Prime Minister election, only one being "Independent Candidate" while remaining associated with virtual parties that seem to have little or no resemblance with real political parties of Pakistan.

The whole affair has generated strong interest as random comments appeared at regular intervals from Pakistani as well as non-Pakistani tweeters. Some considered it as a joke, some applauded, some confused over the whole thing while some asked for party manifestos from the contestants. Some seemed in dilemma to call it a "Brainless Activity to Kill Time" or "Cyber Revolution from Farigh Tareen Pakistanis". All in all there has been great display of vigor by a large number of tweeters and the activity keeps on increasing. A twist in story came when during voting on twtpoll for Prime Minister, the Independent Candidate was accused of "Rigging" as large number of IPs from various different countries were observed voting in a very short span of time. No story of election is ever free of politicians favorite "Rigging" activity that has become symbolic representation of polling in Pakistan (including cyber world it seems).

With Twitter President and soon-to-be-Prime Minister, we would be moving on to forming of Twitter Parliament, write and enforce "Twitter Constitution of (Probably Islamic) Pakistan", design suitable Ministries and then appoint Ministers, Ambassadors, hire Civil Servants, bureaucrats, Policemen, Military, form committees, enforce land reforms, resolve Kashmir issue, end war in Afghanistan, liberate Waziristan, eliminate Taliban, increase water supply in River Indus, give autonomy to all provinces, launch space shuttles, bring scientific revolution ... the list goes on and on and on.

When students all over the world can act as representatives of different countries in Model United Nations then why not die-hard Twitter fans kill time by forming Cyber Government of Pakistan. After all, everyone deserves the chance to lead the country, one way or the other. I wonder what twitter addicted politicians like Salman Taseer and Rahman Malik would have to say as their very power is being hijacked through Twitter revolution.