Fallout of India’s surgical strikes, appointment of the new army chief and challenge from a resurgent opposition place new trials in the path of Pakistan’s delicate democracy
At present we are only demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister (Nawaz Sharif), and after it you would lose the government.” With these words, Imran Khan, chief of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party, announced November 2 as the new date of his latest political shenanigan called ‘Occupy Islamabad’ dharna.
Seeking to cash in on the Panama Papers controversy regarding off-shore companies registered in the name of Sharif’s children, Imran’s proposed dharna coincides with another similar protest planned by Difa-e-Pakistan Council at the end of this month. Difa-e-Pakistan is a coalition of 40 religious and political parties, which include leaders of the banned Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Ahl-e-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat (ASWJ), etc.
“Today the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are searching for their elected leader. They are searching for those who promised them a ‘Naya Pakistan’, but they are only found on containers,”Nawaz said while
addressing an election convention of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in Islamabad.
Attacking the PTI, the PM said, “Had you focused on your province, people would be praising you, but the situation now is such that you need months of effort to organise a gathering and to
get people to attend it. PTI will be washed of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by 2018 and PML-N will rule the province after the next general election. Citizens will patronise those who they believe will work for the development of Pakistan.”
Set to appoint his fifth Army chief—a feat no other Pakistani politician has done—Nawaz finds himself cornered again. Coming close on the heels of putting a travel ban on Pakistani journalist Cyril Almeida, Nawaz’s PML-N government came out as the chief villain, and his cup of woes seems to be overflowing.
Nawaz’s rise-exile-rise and his dilemma is actually the dilemma of Pakistan’s politics. History is trying to repeat itself—uniformity that never ceases to amaze—with Imran trying to do to Nawaz what the PM and assassinated PM Benazir Bhutto did all through the 80 and 90s. Only the puppet changes, the puppeteer remains the same.
Since its birth in 1947, Pakistan’s tryst with democracy has been a story of game of puppets, with control resting in the hands of military leaders.
Even Pakistan’s most popular leader, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was a trusted ally and advisor of Field Marshal Ayub Khan during his military rule. “Bhutto was the public face of Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s regime throughout the 1965 conflict, only to ditch it later and walk away without sharing any blame. When he later founded the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), one of its 10 founding documents was on the Kashmir issue,” describes Mohammad Taqi, a Pakistani-American columnist.
Taqi adds, “The fact is that (Zulfiqar Ali) Bhutto was perhaps the most jingoistic civilian leader that Pakistan has ever had; yet he could not save him from the army’s wrath and Zulfiqar was later hanged after a sham trial commissioned by his hand-picked army chief, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.”
Charting Nawaz’s political career is important to understand Pakistani politics in greater detail. He has been a regular with controversies ever since he started his political career with Tehreek-e-Istaqlal of Air Marshal Asghar Khan during the 70s, when Zulfiqar was prime minister. Nawaz’s rise in politics and how he became a pivot of Pakistan politics in the last 36 years is representative of the country’s politics and explains the shallow nature of its democracy. While four military interventions haven’t helped the cause either, the fact remains that every politician who has made his mark has come through the “army’s nursery”.
Nawaz’s political career got a shot in the arm after he was handpicked by Ghulam Jilani Khan, then Punjab governor and ex-Director General (DG) of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to serve as Punjab’s Finance Minister in 1980. It didn’t take much for Nawaz to become the blue-eyed boy of General Zia-ul-Haq, who appointed him as a member of the powerful Punjab Advisory Board.
Nawaz’s dealing with military leadership continued to bear him fruits as he was appointed chief minister of Punjab. Later, he combined his efforts with Hamid Gul, former DG of ISI, and played an important role in forming an alliance of nine conservative parties called Islamic Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) to take on Benazir’s PPP. IJI successfully unseated PPP in 1990, and Nawaz became Pakistan’s PM for the first time.
Much through the two decades beginning with the 80s, Nawaz sold his soul to the devil, till Kargil happened and he was thrown out along with his two-third majority mandate. After 10 years of exile, he returned with a bang in his new image of an ‘anti-establishment’ reformer. However, he couldn’t keep up with his own promises made at the time of his election campaign.
Despite being re-elected as president of the ruling PML-N, his perception of being a prime minister is that of a man who is kept out of the loop by the powers that be. He is seen as a man who is unable to rein in terrorists, including those designated by the US, and someone who cannot handle the trade, let alone the composite dialogue with India or Afghanistan.
“Nawaz Sharif is today a lame duck Prime Minister, incapable of independent decision-making, not just
on issues like terrorism, infiltration and J&K, but even on issues like trade, energy, connectivity and economic cooperation,” says G Parthasarathy, High Commissioner of India to Pakistan from 1998 to 2000.
Nawaz has a history of doomed relationships with his army chiefs. When first elected to office in 1990, he was soon at loggerheads with then army chief General Asif Nawaz, who later died. His successor, General Waheed Kakar, discharged Nawaz government on charges of corruption in 1993.
In his second term, Nawaz was was seen having troubles with then Army chief General Jehangir Karamat, who quit. General Pervez Musharraf succeeded Karamat, and after the Kargil conflict and international isolation that followed, overthrew Nawaz and exiled him to Saudi Arabia for 10 years.
In February this year, Nawaz said in a rally in Muzzafarabad, “(Atal Bihari) Vajpayee told me that he was stabbed in the back because of Pakistan’s misadventure in Kargil, especially during the process of Lahore Declaration. Vajpayee was right. He was certainly backstabbed.”
Myra MacDonald, a South Asia specialist and writer of the upcoming book, Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan Lost the Great South Asian War, says, “Ever since his first premiership, Nawaz Sharif has never been allowed the space to make progress in talks with India. When he greeted Prime Minister Vajpayee in Lahore in 1999, the army was already working on its intrusion across the LoC in Kargil. When he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Lahore in December 2015, the wheels were already turning for the Jaish attack on the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot in Indian Punjab.”
Says Parthasarathy, “After becoming army chief, General Raheel Sharif has seriously undermined Nawaz Sharif’s image, credibility and power, both in domestic affairs and in foreign and security policies. He started by sending a word that the army would not tolerate any arrest, or detention, of its former chief General Pervez Musharraf. This was followed by clear messages to the PM that he should not seek closer trade relations with India or meet Pakistan’s desperate energy needs by getting electricity from India. Raheel Sharif deals with the Afghan President and others, as though he is a parallel head of government.”
Adds Taqi: “The Uri attack came in the ninth year of uninterrupted democracy in Pakistan, and yet the thrice-elected prime minister was not able to utter a word about the shenanigans of his generals. This begs the question of whether the world has a credible civilian partner in Pakistan? Modi and Ghani seem to have concluded that the answer is no.”
MacDonald explains that in Pakistan, “to all intents and purposes, the army is in charge of foreign and security policy. Because of its outsize influence in the economy and its role in preserving the ideology of Pakistan, it is also the political player with the biggest clout. I don’t see any reason why it should feel compelled to oust Nawaz Sharif in a coup and risk the opprobrium of the international community, particularly the United States.”
She reiterates that there will probably be a fair amount of noise until the question of General Raheel’s successor, or his extension, is settled. “Extensions for the army chief go down badly within the army as well, so it is normal at a time like this to see a lot of back-biting surfacing, and it is not always easy to know where it is coming from. I suspect, though it is always hard to know for sure, that what is happening at the moment is just noise that will settle down in a month or so. In any case, none of this will change Pakistan’s overall strategic direction,” adds MacDonald.
On the future of the civilian government or leadership, after all these years of the civilian government trying to find a way forward with India and failing, there is a need to look at the problem differently. There isn’t much depth in civilian thinking about Pakistan’s strategic culture. Civilian politicians say they want peace, but rarely engage in really serious critical thinking about Kashmir, or India or Afghanistan.
“You often see a fair amount of complicity with the military’s worldview. Somehow they are going to have to change that if they want to seriously challenge the power of the military. Perhaps even more importantly, they need to chip away at the ideological stranglehold of the ‘deep state’, which ensures the survival of the security establishment’s worldview regardless of who is the army chief,” says MacDonald.
For Nawaz, the going is as tough as it can get.
Timeline: Highs and lows of Nawaz Sharif''s career
1996
Leads Muslim League to a super majority in general elections. Amends constitution to restrict President’s powers to dismiss governments.
1998
Pakistan conducts first nuclear tests. Sharif replaces Army chief General Jehangir Karamat with General Pervez Musharraf.
1999
Gen Musharraf exiles Sharif, who tried to relieve him of his command while he was in a flight back from Sri Lanka. Sharif lives in Saudi Arabia for 10 years.
2008
Returns to Pakistan and contests elections, forming a provincial government in Punjab under his brother Shehbaz, which remains in office until 2013. Successfully calls for Gen Musharraf’s impeachment and reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Wins elections and becomes prime minister for the third time. Brings macroeconomic stability with loans from IMF, signs multi-billion investment deals to construct CPEC and removes power shortages. Meets US President Barack Obama in Washington in October.
2014
Sharif is invited by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his swearing-in ceremony. Meets Modi at the SAARC summit in Kathmandu.
2014
Meets Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in May amid tensions between the two neighbours following the kidnapping in February 2014 of five Iranian soldiers by extremists who took them across the border into Pakistan.
2015
Launches military offensive to remove extremist groups in northwestern Pakistan, lifts the moratorium on death penalty. Modi flies to Pakistan to meet Sharif in December.
2016
Indian Army conducts surgical strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir following the Uri terror attack, drawing global attention to Pakistan-trained terrorists in J&K. The Panama Papers claim Sharif and his family hold millions of dollars worth of property and companies in the UK and around the world.
CIVILIAN Vs MILITARY
With three successful coups, Pakistan has been under military rule for decades: from 1958 to 1971, 1977 to 1988, and 1999 to 2008
1958 On October 7, Pakistan’s first President, Major General Iskander Mirza, dismisses the Constituent Assembly and the government of Feroz Khan Noon. Appoints army chief General Ayub Khan as chief martial law administrator. Thirteen days later, Mirza is deposed by Khan, who appoints himself president. Khan combines the offices of president and PM, becoming head of state and the government. Creates a Cabinet of technocrats, diplomats and military officers, which include Air Marshal Asghar Khan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
1977 Called Operation Fair Play, the coup d’etat carried out at midnight on July 4 is led by army chief General Zia-ul-Haq against the government of PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Gen Zia orders the arrest of Bhutto, his ministers and other leaders of both the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan National Alliance. In his national address, Gen Zia announces that the National Assembly and all provincial Assemblies are dissolved, and that the Constitution is suspended. He promises “free and fair elections” within 90 days, but these are repeatedly postponed and it is not until 1985 that (party-less) general elections are held. Gen Zia stayed in power for 11 years until his death in a plane crash.
1999 On October 12, military officers loyal to Gen. Musharraf arrest PM Nawaz Sharif and his ministers, pre-empting Sharif’s attempt to dismiss Musharraf, and prevent his plane from landing in Pakistan. Within 17 hours, from the attempt to sack Musharraf, army takes over all key state buildings in the country, place the entire Cabinet, including the PM and his powerful brother, under house arrest, and take over the state broadcaster and the entire critical infrastructure, including communications. A military court sentences Sharif to life-imprisonment, which is later commuted. After staying in jail for 14 months, Sharif and his family are exiled.