The story goes that one day last year Mian Nawaz Sharif assembled some PML legal eagles to suggest a package of constitutional and legal “reforms” for implementation when he next became prime minister. When someone asked Mian Sahib for his thoughts on the subject, he shrugged his shoulders and remarked: “I don’t care what sort of system you devise. I only want a clear run for at least ten years so that I can get everything done”.
Mian Sahib is a simple man with a simple philosophy: if you want to make an omelette, you have to break an egg. No ifs and buts about it. Orders are given to be obeyed. Things must get done, and to hell with rules and regulations, forms and procedures. If the law behaves like an ass, give it a good kick up its backside.
This philosophy is all too evident today because Mian Sahib has the “mandate” to practise it. Those who don’t like it can lump it. The Presidency, which once loomed larger than life, has been chopped to size. The overbearing IMF has been told to go fly a kite. The mighty bureaucracy is being kicked about like a football. The powerful army has been stunned into silence. The shrieking opposition has been brushed aside. Even PML MNAs have been ordered to button up or else. And it is only a matter of time before the dreaded judiciary and the anarchist press are rapped by the prime minister and ordered to fall in line. The best part of this is that all the secretly disgruntled and frightened people are hypocritically tripping over themselves to welcome Mian Sahib’s “bold” and “imaginative” initiatives.
But if Mian Sahib is a simple man, it is fatal to mistake him for a simpleton. In fact, all his actions prove that he is unusually crafty where his self-interest is concerned. For example, when he met President Leghari for the first time in the Presidency in September 1996, Mian Sahib was as meek as a mouse. He readily agreed that the prime minister’s advice to the President on the appointment of judges was not binding. Later, he was lavish in praising the President for using his 8th amendment powers to get rid of Ms Bhutto. Indeed, when one hapless journalist asked Mian Sahib why he hadn’t listed the repeal of the 8th amendment in the new PML manifesto, he was visibly annoyed. “Why are you so bothered about it?”, he asked. Subsequently, when everyone was loudly disclaiming the CDNS, Mian Sahib thought personal discretion the better part of valour even as he nudged his minions to accord it a sham welcome. He did much the same thing to the IMF. When Ms Bhutto was screaming conspiracy against the Fund, Mian Sahib issued a strong statement backing President Leghari’s assurances that the next government would stay on track with the IMF programme.
Since his electoral victory, Mian Sahib has become definitely foxy. He was, of course, quick to thank President Leghari for paving his way to the PM’s house. But he was quicker still to ask the President whether there was, per chance, some small gesture of goodwill (like a Senate seat for a troublesome cousin, or a Governorship for an ambitious friend) that he, as prime minister, might have the honour to make for the President’s kindness towards him. When the President made the fatal error of nodding, Mian Sahib wasted no time in doing the needful even as he winked at his minions to kick up a storm over the President’s “overbearing behaviour” in giving “dictation” to a heavily mandated prime minister. The stage was now set for his coup de grace. Generous to the last, Mian Sahib is said to have offered Mr Leghari a second term as President of Pakistan while he was hastily stripping the Emperor of all his new clothes.
It is said that Mr Shahid Hamid’s turn is next. This, despite the fact that Mian Sahib owes Mr Hamid for valuable services rendered before and during the caretaker period. So a bit of creative disinformation in the press, followed by extremely insulting disorder in the bar-room, has now become necessary in order to relieve Mr Hamid of his onerous duties as Governor of Punjab. Mr Hamid could therefore wake up one fine morning to find Mian Sahib at his doorsteps, humbly requesting whether Mr Hamid might be “gracious” enough to make way for Mian Azhar some time in the near future?
It is now rumoured that Mian Sahib was greatly displeased when a couple of bureaucrats arrested on his orders were freed on the orders of the Chief Justice of Pakistan. Tsk. Tsk. This is simply not on. Is it time for Mr Khalid Anwar to get busy again so that the writ of the prime minister is not undermined by the writ of the courts?
Mian Nawaz Sharif wants a clear run for at least ten years so that he can get everything done. Surely, that is not asking for too much, is it?