Hope springs eternal, even if it is reluctantly nudged by army chief Gen Abdul Waheed. On 31st May, the COAS urged the President and the PM to resolve the deadlock which is splitting the nation apart.
Subsequently, much ink was spilt by the press lauding Mr Sharif’s “reconciliation” speech on May 31st. Ms Bhutto’s spontaneous response was also widely appreciated. Both went on to exchange “Eid Greetings”.
Alas, life is back to normal. Mr Sharif’s cabinet colleagues, some of whom are pathological PPP haters, have announced there cannot be any negotiation on the opposition’s central demand for early general elections under an independent Election Commission. The other side has accused the government of trying to divide the opposition by establishing ten reconciliation committees rather than one. Nawabzada Nasrullah has called on President Ishaq to dissolve the national assembly afresh and order new elections. On June 6th, the PM and his cabinet formally retracted and once again put the impeachment of the President on their agenda. The same evening, a bevy of opposition leaders, including Ms Bhutto’s high command, laid into Mr Sharif at a public rally in Lahore. On June 7th, Mr Shahbaz Sharif confirmed that Ms Bhutto’s demand for fresh elections was not negotiable. So we are back to Square One.
Mr Sharif’s refusal to enter into meaningful negotiations with the opposition is based on a simple game-plan to become all-powerful. He is hoping that the LHC judges view Mr Pervez Elahi’s petition with the same sympathy with which the judges of the Supreme Court discerned Mr Sharif’s plea last month. If the Punjab assembly is restored, Mr Sharif will have the dominant province of Punjab in his grasp. Then he will concentrate on consolidating his majority in the national assembly. By mid-July, after the by-elections to 13 NA seats have been held in Sindh, Mr Sharif’s alliance with Mr Altaf Hussain’s MQM will enlarge his base in the National Assembly. He can then bide time till October when Mr Ishaq Khan will be ousted and a pliant Sharif-man elected as President. Thereafter, the PM will also have the power to control key appointments in the armed forces and the judiciary. If the opposition objects to all this, he can tell it to go to hell.
President Ishaq, Ms Bhutto and the other opposition leaders believe that if Mr Sharif has his way they can forget about free and fair elections for a long, long time. That’s why, even though he may not be a Presidential candidate any more next October, President Ishaq is determined to redeem his role in the rigged 1990 elections and give the country a genuinely fresh start.
So we may expect things to get worse before they get any better. If the Punjab assembly is restored, the President could impose Governor’s rule in the province, dissolve local bodies and persuade the CM’s of Sindh and Balochistan to follow suit. The opposition could also give Mr Sharif a hard time over the budget next week. From there, it is a short step to imposing an Emergency in the country and/or dissolving the national assembly afresh. All said and done, a most disagreeable scenario.
Some people hold President Ishaq responsible for the current state of affairs. This is wrong. He is certainly the villain of the piece for allowing Mr Sharif and Gen Aslam Beg to destabilize Ms Bhutto and oust her in 1990. He also bears responsibility for the rigged elections of 1990. And he was the driving force in hoisting Jam Sadiq on Sindh and hounding her party to distraction. But, by all accounts, despite Mr Sharif’s provocations after the demise of Gen Asif Nawaz Nawaz last January, the President was in no mood to send parliament packing last April. That is, until Mr Sharif created a deadlock by attacking him on television.
Mr Sharif’s desperate hurry to capture Punjab by hook or by crook merely two days after the Supreme Court’s decision sent this message to the President and the opposition: “I will not stop at anything to oust the President, amend the constitution, cripple the opposition and become all-powerful”. By so doing, Mr Sharif has openly spurned the SC’s assumption in restoring him to power that there is no deadlock between the PM and the President and that the two of them can, indeed should, work together. This is borne out by the fact that Mr Sharif has not made any effort to meet the President and bury the hatchet. Indeed, despite the urgings of the COAS, the PM is still talking about impeaching the President. Under the circumstances, Mr Sharif is clearly responsible for the political polarisation afflicting the country.
Mr Sharif should hold free and fair elections as soon as possible. Failing that, we fear that Gen Abdul Waheed’s “neutrality” may be severely strained in the weeks to come and Mr Nawaz Sharif could end up as the biggest loser in the pack. That’s why he should put his popularity to the test and bury the ghost of 1990 for all times to come.