Welcome to “New” Pakistan!
Before the elections, every political party (except PTI), every foreign newspaper and every independent journalist had concluded that The Aliens, Khalai Makhluk, Agriculture Department, Miltablishment, Whatever, had conclusively pre-rigged the elections in an unprecedented manner. A day after the elections, every political party (except PTI), every foreign newspaper and every independent journalist has confirmed the finding. Before the elections, the Miltablishment, Supreme Court and Media were on trial. After the elections, the Election Commission of Pakistan has joined them in the dock.
The ECP claims that “the Remote Transmission System (RTS) broke down, hence the announcement of results was delayed by a few hours.” Was the RTS deliberately glitched because the Agriculture Department panicked when the opposition began to weigh in and something had to be done to get things back on track? Even if it was an unforeseen breakdown, this does not explain why the polling agents were kicked out while the votes were being tabulated or why such lengthy delays ensued.
In the next year or so, we should expect scores of petitions to be filed wherever the margin of PTI’s victory is less than 10,000 or thereabouts. Thousands of bags will be opened and hundreds of thousands of ballots recounted and thumbprints matched. Thousands of Form 45 will be scrutinized. But none of this huffing and puffing will bring Imran Khan’s house down because he is protected and propped up by the Miltablishment.
Imran Khan will be Prime Minister, he will choose the next President of Pakistan and the PTI will rule in Islamabad, KP and possibly even in Punjab while mounting stiff opposition to the PPP in Sindh. Why was such a sweeping victory required of it? What should we expect in the new Pakistan?
To be fair, Imran Khan cannot be denied his fair share of the voter, especially among the new youth, urbanising white-collar middle-class and rich. His prospects became brighter after he started to enroll “electables” regardless of the colour of their money or character. Equally, the PMLN, whatever its self-righteous claims or principles, was well and truly on a suicidal path. But electoral engineering on such a large scale was still necessary to provide legitimacy for a constitutional and political overhaul. What’s on the cards?
A State of Emergency could be imposed under the garb of financial necessity pinned to the alleged misdeeds of the previous regimes. The numbers in parliament will not be too difficult to get. Such an Emergency would restrict fundamental rights and pave the way for a witch hunt of political and media opponents in order to satisfy the bloodlust of the winners (IK has said he won’t do that), protect them from any potential buffeting by a disgruntled opposition and detract criticism from unpopular policy decisions or incompetent and corrupt mismanagement. If that happens, we should expect NAB, FIA, FBR and IB to get hyper active after all state institutions are brought on the same page.
The constitution may also be targeted for amendment. The 18th Amendment, for starters, has become irksome because it shaves the federal pool — which is required to pay for increasing defense expenditures and pensions— by devolving financial resources to the provinces. A need may also be felt to reduce the size and strength of Punjab in the scheme of things, especially since the development of a critical fissure in the historical pro-Miltablishment character of the province. Plans remain on the anvil to carve it up into three or more “units” that are politically more “manageable”.
But the “new dream team” that is lining up to run the “new Pakistan” will not find it easy going. The economy needs more than a shot in the arm. Hard times are upon us and the very middle-classes and rich that have catapulted Imran Khan to office will have to pay the price of their convictions. The value of their rupee is going to fall, so their everyday needs will become expensive; they will have to pay more indirect taxes and duties; and IMF structural reforms will dampen infrastructural growth and employment. This will give grist to the opposition, media and judiciary to stand up and create hurdles in his path.
Admittedly, the Miltablishment has stitched up an extraordinary political dispensation in difficult times. But, unlike Nawaz, the person they have chosen to lead it is strong-willed and unpredictable. In fact, Nawaz was eminently pliant. Yet, after a while, he felt compelled, given the nature of power, to try and be his own man. But this was unacceptable and he had to pay the price for even thinking such rash thoughts. Imran Khan, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. He may have embraced the Miltablishment as a tactical move but sooner rather than later he will begin to challenge the conventional wisdom of the national security state handed down to him. That’s when all bets will be off.
Meanwhile, let us not spoil their honeymoon with grudging digs and pin pricks.
Good luck, Imran!
August 3, 2018
The Miltablishment, Judiciary, ECP and Media – “pillars of the state” – are entitled to pat one another on the back for successfully putting Imran Khan in office. Their task became doubly difficult after Nawaz Sharif defied expectations to return to the country and court arrest, triggering sympathy votes in Punjab that threatened to derail their carefully laid plans.
The opposition parties are rightly crying foul. They have demanded the resignation of the CEC and his associates for facilitating the theft of the general elections. The ECP’s explanation about the mysterious breakdown of the RTS system – denied by NADRA which put the system in place and monitored it — and the extraordinary delays in announcing the results hasn’t washed. Nor is it easy to stomach the fact that in many constituencies the lead of the winner is less than the number of rejected votes. The sharp rebuke from the ECP confirms a decidedly partisan sentiment in its ranks.
Clearly, those who thought that unprecedented pre-poll rigging would suffice to get “suitable results” were wrong. A last-minute intervention was necessitated in the dead of night on Election Day when the numbers seemed to be going awry. But that’s not the end of the story.
The “Independents” are now being corralled and branded. Small fry like the GDA, PMLQ, MQM, BAP, TLYRA, etc are being offered “sweetners” while the PPP is being whipped into submission. Asif Zardari, Feryal Talpur,Owais Tappi, Yousaf Raza Gillani, and a clutch of other Zardari cronies and PPP leaders have been read out the Riot Act by NAB and FIA: Cooperate or Else.
Still, it’s going to be a long haul for Imran Khan and Associates. The bare victories in Islamabad and Lahore will be buffeted every day for the next five years. Indeed, the project of putting Imran Khan in office will have to be updated by a project to keep him in office. Amidst this, the core objective of “Tabdeeli” will be very difficult to achieve.
For starters, Imran Khan will need help in assembling his teams in KPK, Punjab and Islamabad so that the core objective is kept firmly in mind. The refusal to appoint Pervez Khattak as CM of KPK suggests that the Miltablishment will retain veto power over critical appointments. The buzzwords in these quarters are “Neat, Clean and Obedient”. But a contradiction between means and ends is already palpable. The PTI has been stuffed with dirty “lotas” and traditional, status quo “electables” to bring Imran into office and keep him there by a carrot-and-stick policy. But “Tabdeeli” requires motivated ideologues to sacrifice self-interest and support hard decisions. The current intraparty spat over the CMships of KPK and Balochistan, or the resistance faced by Not-so-Neat-And-Clean Aleem Khan, or the visible power struggle between Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Jehangir Tareen for the coveted CMship of Punjab, is just the tip of the iceberg. The notion of public service or duty – central to the requirement of “Tabdeeli” — is alien to these folks.
The celebratory fireworks on the day Imran Khan is sworn in as Prime Minister will be followed by a different display of fire power. The Miltablishment, which has been tarred in the public imagination by its blunt political intrusions of late, may withdraw behind the curtain and let the “elected” government take responsibility for its actions. That would give the media and judiciary scope to redress their failing credibility by taking the government to task. Indeed, neither pillar of the state can afford to be pro-government for its own sake – the media for its commercial interests and the judiciary for its independence from the executive. This is bound to put several spanners in the works.
As if this isn’t enough, the job of putting the economy on track will provoke howls of protest from the very classes that have voted for Imran Khan. Currency depreciation will fuel inflation. Reduction in budgetary deficits will curtail public expenditures, consumer demand and employment. Plugging the balance of payments gap by curtailing imports and capital transfers will restrict commercial activity (SBP has already banned imports on open account save for essential raw materials). Increasing tax rates will be unpopular. Provincial bureaucracies and politicians will fight tooth and nail over any attempt to reverse the last NFC Award that flushed them with money, no less than any attempt to devolve power and funds to local governments, which are the preferred nurseries of the Miltablishment for nurturing “neat and clean and obedient” politicians.
The Miltablishment will also expect Imran Khan to exploit his “star” status to manage foreign policy productively. But it would be naïve to expect the two key players that impinge on us, India and the US, to overnight repose trust in him so long as he remains a proxy. The problem is that if Khan tries to cut loose from his key benefactor in pursuit of his own vision, he will feel the heat just like Nawaz Sharif did.
Good luck to Imran Khan!
First 100 Days
August 10, 2018
In yet another controversial judgment, the Supreme Court bench headed by CJP Saqib Nisar has suspended an order by the Lahore High Court for a vote recount in NA-131 Lahore where Imran Khan, the prime ministerial hopeful, has claimed victory over PMLN stalwart Khawaja Saad Rafique by a margin of 608 votes. The judgment is extraordinary because of the circumstances relating to the election in this constituency.
Punjab is the bastion of the PMLN and Lahore is the jewel in the crown. A loss for Imran Khan in Lahore after seeming to win the Punjab would have been grist for the mills of naysayers alluding to massive rigging in the province.
Saad Rafique had earlier justified his demand for a recount of rejected votes when Imran Khan’s lead was whittled down from 680 to 608. But his subsequent demand for a full vote recount – given the narrow margin of victory — was inexplicably turned down by the Returning Officer despite the law allowing for a full recount where the margin of victory is less than 5% (total votes cast were about 170,000). Saad Rafique’s appeal against the RO’s decision was upheld by the LHC which ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan to withhold the result until the recount. Now the SC has stayed the LHC order (which means that Imran stands elected) until it hears both sides at its convenience. In effect this means that Imran will be well and truly ensconced as prime minister of Pakistan without the negativity attached to a possible loss in NA-131. Indeed, the likelihood is that he will shortly ditch NA-131 in favour of a constituency where his winning lead is unchallengeable, thus making the SC writ infructuous after the ECP calls for a fresh election in this constituency. So we will never know whether he was a true winner or a sore loser in the first place, a neat solution that protects him from being tarred by a loss while enabling Saad Rafique to have another go at testing his fortunes in the more difficult environment of a post-PTI government in Punjab.
This is just the latest example of the charmed fortunes of the “ladla” of this generation. Imran has emerged unscathed from a battery of perfectly reasonable cases challenging his morality, his declaration of assets, his contemptuous remarks about the ECP, and other “careless” omissions and commissions, etc, while lesser mortals like Nawaz Sharif and Mariam Sharif have been shunted to prison and disqualified from parliament for failing to declare petty “unreceived” incomes (construed as assets!) or using type fonts not generally in the free public domain in certain property trust deeds.
If Imran leads a “favoured” life, why is he looking so deadbeat and forlorn these days? One would have thought his life’s ambition to be prime minister and change Pakistan for good would have brought colour to his face and a glint in his eye as he nears his objective. But the challenges ahead are truly formidable and these seem to be dampening his spirit as they dawn on him.
Imran’s victory is due to many compromises for which he must now atone. For starters, the “electables” and independents who have cleaved to the PTI’s bosom are already clamouring for a slice of the ministerial action even before they have given him their formal vote of confidence in parliament. Most of them are corrupt and disreputable to their Peshawari chappals, which makes it difficult for Imran to scratch their backs. If the power grab over the KPK CMship is any indication of what lies in store, he is in for a lot of soul searching in Punjab and Islamabad for “neat and clean” candidates to fit the bill. The Miltablishment, which has invested heavily in him, is also breathing down his neck (albeit discreetly) for its own pound of flesh. Say this, don’t do that, select her, drop him, seems to be the whisper of the day. On top of it, Mrs Peerni Khan’s invocations can only be ignored at peril. The constant jostling between Jahangir Tareen and Shah Mahmood Qureshi must take a toll too as must the shrill reprimands of the PTI ideologues who are swamped by turncoats and opportunists. No wonder Imran has kept his “lists” of favoured sons of the soil close to his chest. Any premature revelations may spark revolts that could breach the narrow voting on D-Day. What follows that hallowed point for the first 100 days in which unpopular decisions about the economy have to be taken is too painful a prospect to contemplate.
Imran means well. There is no doubt about it. That is the sole reason why many have voted for him despite misgivings about his “end justifies means” approach and controversial personal life choices and standards. Even if he succeeds in half-fulfilling his mission, it will have been worth the price we have paid in mocking democracy and constitutionalism. But if he should fail, the tab will be greater because there is no back up except takeover by The Aliens.
All Hail the Chief!
August 17, 2018
NAB, FIA and the Courts are making headlines every day. What’s the message?
On the eve of the election of the PM in the National Assembly, Asif Zardari’s business partner Anwar Majeed et al were arrested by the FIA in a case of money laundering via dozens of fake bank accounts after the Supreme Court denied them pre-arrest bail. This spells trouble for the PPP. Earlier, Mr Zardari and his sister Feryal Talpur’s lawyer had to submit to some harsh questioning in the same case by the SC, suggesting that both are living on borrowed time.
The PMLN is also on the spot. Fawad Hasan Fawad, the civil servant who has served both brothers Shahbaz Sharif and Nawas Sharif by turns, is already in NAB custody. So, too, is another civil servant, Ahad Cheema, who was close to ex-CM Shahbaz Sharif and lorded it over the Lahore Development Authority which is the hot spot under scrutiny for corrupt land grabs. Now comes the news that Ali Siddiqui, the PMLN-appointed Pakistan Ambassador to Washington, has been summoned again to appear before NAB in a case for investigation initiated by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. Not to be forgotten is PMLN stalwart and ex-Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique whose hand is perceived in dubious land deals under investigation. A far more sinister move centers on the outcome of the Model Town police massacre in June 2014 in which another civil servant, Dr Tauqeer Shah, who was close to ex-CM Shahbaz Sharif, is being grilled with the aim of implicating the Sharifs.
Meanwhile, the shoddy treatment being meted out to ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif should not be missed. The courts from top to bottom have treated him harshly by denying him a fair hearing in due process. To add insult to injury, the spectacle of dragging a popular ex-Prime Minister to court in an SUV used for transporting high value terrorists is meant to reinforce the same message.
The message to both PPP and PMLN is: Behave or else.
Dutifully, the PPP has refused to cooperate with the PMLN in Punjab and Islamabad. In Punjab, the two could have jointly wooed the Independents and cobbled a coalition government led by the PMLN but the PTI was handed the coveted prize when the PPP announced its decision not to join hands with the PMLN. Indeed, the PPP went so far as to even deny support to the PMLN nominee for the Speaker of the Punjab Assembly. Much the same sort of non-cooperative stance has prevailed in Islamabad. The PPP has refused to stand with Shahbaz Sharif on fielding him as their joint candidate for prime ministership despite the fact that the PMLN supported the PPP in fielding its Syed Khurshid Shah as their joint candidate for Speakership. Indeed, the PPP was conspicuous by its silence when the PMLN protested in parliament after the election of the PTI Speaker. It is significant that the PPP has changed its stance of joining hands with the PMLN to make a strong opposition in Punjab and Islamabad following the overnight trials and tribulations of Mr Zardari, Feryal Talpur and Anwar Majeed.
No less significant is the stance adopted by Shahbaz Sharif which is at odds with that of Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz wanted his party to make a determined bid to form a government in Punjab and a strong, united and vociferous opposition in Islamabad. Yet Shahbaz made no serious attempt to woo the Independents or the PPP in Punjab and opted for Islamabad rather than Punjab as his home for the next five years. Nor did he whip up crowds to protest the shoddy treatment meted out to Nawaz Sharif during his comings and goings to NAB courts in police custody. Clearly, he too has got the message to behave or else.
The media is also in the same boat. As the fate of GEO demonstrates, those channels which don’t behave and toe the line will be sorted out. The few independent journalists left have been gagged by their employers or threatened and browbeaten into submission. After successful censorship on Facebook and YouTube, the last frontier on the internet of freedom for citizens and political parties — Twitter — is about to fall too. Pak Telecom Authority has informed a Senate Standing Committee that Twitter has refused to oblige the government’s request to block “objectionable commentary targeting the state and its institutions”. Not unsurprisingly, the PTA told the Committee that “the Islamabad High Court is determined to teach Twitter a lesson”.
The PTI is also being “managed” behind the scenes. This much is obvious from the nominations approved by Imran Khan for key posts in government and parliament despite popular disgruntlement in the party. Indeed, Imran sheepishly shook hands with Mr Zardari and Bilawal but not with Shahbaz Sharif.
So we now have a loyal government, a loyal opposition, a loyal media and a loyal court. All Hail the Chief!
Hope and despair
August 24, 2018
Imran Khan’s first few days in office have triggered both hope and despair. Desperate hope that he means what he says and will prove it by definite actions. Despair because the dubious means he has chosen are at serious odds with the noble ends he has pledged.
His first formal “address to the nation” was not formal at all. He spoke from handwritten notes and reached out directly to the people. This is the method of all populist leaders. It denotes sincerity of purpose and righteousness. He also touched on a to-do list of relevant issues.
The naysayers can rightly point to some embarrassing omissions: missing persons, minority and women’s rights, religious extremism, etc. We must also admit that repeating manifesto pledges isn’t terribly inspiring because he didn’t explain how he intends to go about doing business.
Khan’s supporters say that for now he should be assessed only on the team he has assembled to deliver his reform agenda. They admit to an astounding number of cabinet members and advisors who have “served” the country before, many during the regime of the military dictator General Pervez Musharraf. What’s the fuss about, they ask, if these men and women are all educated, good, competent, qualified and honest? So what if these same people didn’t amount to much in their previous official incarnations? General Musharraf’s reform agenda, they say, was dogged by questions of legitimacy. Imran Khan’s isn’t, they claim. Then there’s the question of the political compromises General Musharraf made when he opted for the political “lotas” of his time to stick to power. But that didn’t undermine reform, they argue, because these people didn’t really wield power. So who did?
The unaccountable bureaucracy, or babus, at every tier of government, we are advised, are the root of all evil. They are wedded to the privileged status quo. They will have to be uprooted if any reform agenda is to be pursued. How to do this is the million-dollar question. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. Not many answers are blowing in the wind. If the educated, good, honest, competent ministers of past eras failed to uproot the evil bureaucracies that served them faithfully, how is the same lot going to fare now? Didn’t General Musharraf inspire the same sort of hope when he kicked off, among the same sort of people that Imran Khan now does? Didn’t General Musharraf have the support of the other institutions of the state like the judiciary and media that Imran Khan has today?
Alas. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, sometimes we may legitimately question these as well. How on earth is someone like Sheikh Rashid expected to reform the Railways? How is Asad Umar going to fix the white elephants in the economy if not by enduring the pain of privatization? How is the “corrupt” FBR going to reform the tax system? Who is going to reform the FBR? And how? And so on. So many questions. Such few answers.
To be sure, Dr Ishrat Hussain’s wealth of knowledge about necessary administrative reforms is welcome. But where is the hard-nosed, dedicated, informed team that is going to wade into this cesspool of compromise and cleanse it?
The question of legitimacy is also not to be scoffed at. If the wild allegations of rigging in 2013 were subsequently dismissed by a judicial commission of Imran Khan’s approval, we should not expect the same results this time round. The crude unfairness of the political engineering that has brought Imran Khan to power has come to be deeply embedded in the popular imagination because of several unprecedented but now well established factors. Indeed, it is the political frailty of the end-result – whether in the quality of the elected leaders (more appropriately “puppets”) or the parliamentary numbers in Lahore and Islamabad – that is likely to stall radical reform. By its very nature, this dispensation is built on a historic “compromise” between governments and oppositions, between the military and civilians, and between the different organs of the state like the judiciary and media. The problem with these multiple compromises is their lack of stability. They are all held at gunpoint rather than any willing social-contract consensus. This will work in the short term but cannot endure, like we learnt from our previous experiences under three gunpoint regimes.
For many folks, Imran Khan is genuinely inspirational. For others, if only by contrast with the abysmal lots that have come and gone. But that’s just the beginning of the story. A lot of showy accountability will doubtless assuage the thirst of the masses for some time, as it did in the gunpoint regimes of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 2000s. But all Pied Piper regimes eventually fall into the abyss.
While blind optimism can be dangerously misplaced, it’s only fair to give a new regime time to settle down before taking stock of its performance.
Deeds not words
August 31, 2018
An overwhelming section of the media voted for Imran Khan with its feet. Now it is getting restive as it measures the man by his deeds in comparison with his words.
Imran Khan constantly harangued us on the philosophy of “the right man for the right job, on merit”. But, generally, he has done quite the opposite in office. To take just the most prominent appointments: the Sindh Governor is a college dropout. What are the Punjab Chief Minister’s qualifications for the job? The Presidential candidate is a prominent, hard core PTI activist, for a constitutional post that requires someone relatively neutral or apolitical who can represent the whole country non-controversially rather than the ruling party exclusively. Much the same may be said of cabinet appointments (with some honourable exceptions) where a policy of the “right man for the right job, on merit” hasn’t been followed.
To be fair to Imran Khan, though, he didn’t have much choice, given the low quality of the elected representatives of the people of Pakistan from which he is compelled to pick his teams in our parliamentary system. It is also true that he is severely constrained by his slim majority in parliament which compels him to make unsavoury choices to keep his herd in line.
But then that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it, when one is guided by the philosophy of the end determining the means? When he was stuffing his party with opportunist lotas and self-serving “electables” at the expense of his ideological, educated, merited youthful supporters, the end-result was already in sight.
Regardless, there are other consequential matters where such considerations don’t weigh in. The gaffe with India and the US cannot be condoned, especially in the presence of Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the Foreign Office. Clearly, it will take time for oppositionist rhetoric on foreign policy to be replaced with the office’s hard-nosed realities.
It’s also not surprising that the treason case against General (retd) Pervez Musharraf is being willed to wither on the vine. The prosecution lawyer appointed by the PMLN government, Akram Sheikh, has pulled out of the case following the appointment of General Musharraf’s lead lawyers, Farogh Naseem and Anwar Mansoor Khan, as the Law Minister and Attorney General of Pakistan respectively. Indeed, a significant majority of the federal cabinet comprises men and women who indifferently served the Musharraf regime earlier.
The latest embarrassment for Imran Khan originates in the household of the First Lady. Her ex-husband, Khawar Maneka, arrogantly flouted the law and landed in a brawl with the police. He used the First Lady’s clout with the Prime Minister to try and extricate himself from the mess by having the District Police Officer fired for doing his duty. The backlash from the public, media and bureaucracy has enveloped the Prime Minister, Punjab Chief Minister and IGP Punjab and tarred the regime’s tall claims of building a “Naya Pakistan” in which power and privilege will not be misused.
Imran Khan’s unprecedented use of a government helicopter to ferry him daily from Banigala to the PM Secretariat and back has also been roundly criticized. This, too, must be viewed in the context of his words on the need for austerity and expenditure cuts in government administration. He proclaimed he would shun the palatial PM House in Islamabad, sell its fleet of expensive vehicles and get rid of its teeming staff to cut costs. Now the federal information minister has added insult to injury by claiming it’s no big deal because it only costs Rs 55 per km to transport the PM daily by helicopter!
Imran Khan has repeatedly criticized the previous government for nominating the Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board because “such practices are the cause of the decline in Pakistan cricket”. Yet barely fifteen minutes after the harassed Chairman resigned his post following a revival of cricket fortunes, Imran Khan tweeted his nominee for the same post without batting an eyelid.
A big test will come when Imran Khan tries to fulfil his pledge to abolish the various discretionary funds at the disposal of the government for development projects of favoured ruling party parliamentarians, a major source of corruption and wasteful expenditures. The previous government had “abolished” such discretionary practices by siphoning off such funds through other “institutional” means, which meant that the problem of waste and corruption remained in the bowels of the system. Imran Khan can either follow the same cynical route or he can risk mass anger and alienation among his parliamentarians that could provoke a revolt and cut short his tenure. After all, how can a member of parliament whose pocket is lighter by several crores in an election hope to recoup his investment with an appropriate rate of profit if not through hefty commissions in development projects in his constituency?
In the next weeks and months, the media will be counting Imran Khan’s various “betrayals”. He should get his act together and deliver deeds to match his words.
Doomed Reset?
September 7, 2018
Imran Khan’s team had a bad start, tripping from one error to another. This necessitated a quick rescue operation by the mighty Brass. Why ever not, one might ask, after all, the Brass heaved him into office in the first place and must shoulder responsibility for his actions. Indeed, the Brass has invested so heavily in him – without any credible backup in case he doesn’t deliver – that it really has no option but to prop him up whenever he falters.
The optics were certainly unprecedented. Salutes galore by a line-up of starred generals. Even a photo-op of the PM in the Army Chief’s very own chair. And a guard of honour to boot. The message rang out loud and clear: Watch it! This is our man. He will speak for us. And we will defend him.
But there was another part of the message that was solely aimed at Imran Khan and deliberately kept vague. “He was briefed on national security issues”, we are advised. And why ever not? Isn’t “national security” the overriding concern of the Brass? This includes its budgets for weapons systems, internal security, salaries and pensions. Austerity and accountability are all very well for corrupt civilians but the valiant armed forces are already stretched thin, what with US economic and military assistance having dried up even as the internal and regional environment has become immeasurably more challenging, even hostile. It also implies an unequivocal buy-in by Imran Khan of the Brass’ national security doctrines. The briefing was necessary so that the civil-military leadership could stand united on core issues (Nawaz Sharif paid the price for challenging it). And it was timed to keep the invading American delegation led by the US Secretary of State and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff at bay.
The US-Pak relationship has been stuck in no-man’s land for many years. But President Trump is getting impatient. He wants a “solution” in Afghanistan in line with US interests in the larger Asia-Pacific region. Therefore a “reset” in US-Pak relations is deemed necessary so that “agreements” at the table can be “implemented” on the ground. This is a last-ditch effort to salvage the relationship. But no one is under any illusions, despite the positive gloss presented to its public by Pakistan’s leaders. The US Secretary of State was clear in his own mind: “We still have a long way to go, lots more discussions to be had”.
Washington’s strategic objective in the Asia-Pacific region is to “contain” China. India fits snugly into this objective but Pakistan sticks out like a sore thumb. CPEC is critical to both China and Pakistan. The former wants an alternative trade route to the Middle East and Europe following American attempts to control the Asia-Pacific sea lanes with India’s help. The latter is desperate for Chinese investment in infrastructure to keep its economy afloat. By the same token, the US-India axis is hostile to CPEC. The nature of the state and regime in Afghanistan therefore becomes critical for both Pakistan and China. If Kabul is pro-US-India, it will threaten CPEC and become a platform to destabilize Pakistan’s western borders just as India has done on its eastern borders. The problem for Pakistan is that a pro-Pakistan or even “friendly” Afghanistan is inconceivable in the present circumstances. For a variety of historical reasons, the Tajiks, Uzbeks and most other Afghans, including non-Taliban Pakhtuns, hate Pakistan. Even the Taliban, who are not anti-Pakistan, have strong “ideological” ambitions in the region inimical to Pakistan. So what should Pakistan do?
If, in the quest for a peace settlement in Afghanistan, Pakistan helps the US significantly degrade the Taliban – the one stakeholder which is not anti-Pakistan – and thereby strengthen and consolidate the disparate anti-Pakistan forces in Afghanistan, it will be undermining its own national security in the long term by making one more enemy in the region. If it doesn’t, it risks being destabilized itself by the US-India axis. Thus Pakistan is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t.
The original Pakistan strategy was to help the Taliban capture Kabul. But 9/11 put paid to Taliban rule. Since then the US-India axis has fought to keep them out of Kabul and Pakistan has hedged its bets by giving them strategic succor. The stalemate has taken a heavy toll of American lives and extracted a huge financial cost. Now it is crunch time. President Trump is desperate to show “positive” results in Afghanistan. But the US-puppet Ghani regime in Kabul is riven with internal fissures and crumbling on the eve of parliamentary and presidential elections while the Taliban are rampant and disinterested in talks that don’t serve their interests.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is extremely vulnerable on two fronts. Its economy is tanking and needs an urgent IMF injection administered by the US. And the new political dispensation engineered by the Brass and led by Imran Khan is too brittle to inspire confidence and hope.
Under these conflicted circumstances, the US-Pak outlook for “resetting” Kabul and Islamabad is not bright.
Chronicle of a death foretold
September 14, 2018
The passing of Begum Kulsoom Nawaz Sharif in a faraway clinic in London without her husband and daughter in attendance has revealed a particularly ugly dimension of politics and justice in Pakistan.
A year ago Begum Kulsoom was diagnosed with throat cancer. When Maryam and Nawaz Sharif sought permission from court hearings to attend to her terminal illness in London, they were denied it except on one occasion. Later, when they sought bail pending an appeal against their conviction in one case so that they could be by her side in her last moments, this too was denied. It may be recalled that, on the sole occasion when they were permitted to travel to London to meet her, both duly returned to Pakistan to face a predictable verdict of guilty and imprisonment on the eve of the general elections.
Maryam and Nawaz Sharif’s trials and tribulations must rank as one of the most unjust episodes in Pakistan’s judicial history. As a thrice elected prime minister, he was hounded for two years before being hung out to dry as a local Don Corleone by a judicial verdict pegged to an insignificant “undeclared but unreceived” income accrued during the term of his exile abroad on the orders of a military dictator. Later, he was denied exemption from over 100 personal appearances in the courts, even though the record showed that two ex-prime ministers, Yousaf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf, facing far more serious corruption charges, had been granted permanent exemption from such appearance. On several occasions – September 2017, February 2018, March 2018 and June 2018 – both Maryam and Nawaz Sharif cited Kulsoom’s deteriorating condition in a London clinic as a reason for seeking relief so that they could see her but on all save one occasion, in November 2017, this was denied.
The response of certain leading politicians and media persons to the Sharifs’ predicament has been disgusting. A clutch of leading lights of the PPP, some renowned for their services to the cause of justice and human rights, publicly mocked the Sharifs for drumming up the “stunt” of Kulsoom’s terminal illness to evoke public sympathy and evade imprisonment. Conspiracy theories were also advanced to argue that the Harley Street clinic in which she was being treated in London was not a proper hospital for cancer treatment and was only issuing false reports of her illness because it was partly owned by the Sharifs. In the same ugly vein, over a dozen pro-establishment TV “analysts” constantly peddled such lies day and night. We refrain from naming names because a few have had the decency to apologise for their behavior.
During this time, we have perceived how pressure has been exerted on judges high and low to give “suitable” judgments against the Sharifs. Some good judges have recused themselves from the trials rather than become handmaidens to injustice while other similarly non-complaint ones have been shunted from one bench to another, and so on. It is one long tale of inhumanity and injustice.
For Nawaz Sharif, this is another painful stake in his heart. One state-actor did not allow him to bury his father in Lahore. Another has not allowed him to attend to his wife’s illness and only paroled him for five days so that he can bury her in Lahore. The scars of the first have not healed even as new emotional wounds are being inflicted upon him.
Tragically, there is a history of such injustice and inhumanity of state-actors against Pakistan’s politicians. The people’s prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was convicted for murder on the bare confession of an approver, kept in solitary confinement and executed in a prison yard. Dr Nasim Hasan Shah, one of the honourable judges who sent him to the gallows, later wrote a mea culpa admitting how he and his fellow judges were pressured to hold him guilty. Mr Bhutto’s brave daughter, Benazir, was imprisoned and exiled, kicked out of office twice and finally assassinated. She was buried in the family graveyard along with her two murdered brothers and father.
The assassination of reigning or aspiring Emperors, Kings, Queens, Princes, Nobles and Courtiers was common in medieval times. Where and when necessary, executions of political opponents were legitimized by the religio-judicial clergy. But modern democracies have evolved to sanction a separation of powers between the executive and legislature, install an independent judiciary with due process and place the military firmly under the control and command of elected civilians. By these yardsticks, as unfolding events continue to confirm, Pakistan is a pock-marked, stricken “democracy”.
The political environment in which Begum Kulsum died in faraway London while her spouse and daughter were languishing in prison at home has created a sympathy wave amongst friends and foes alike. The injustice and inhumanity of it is palpable. Another bad memory is now firmly etched into the collective psyche of this nation. The chronicle of a death foretold will add to conflict in this bitterly divided nation.
Never mind
September 21, 2018
The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Saqib Nisar, is an honourable man who feels passionately about righting Pakistan. He has been making headlines since the day he ascended the throne — inspecting hospitals, reprimanding profiteering capitalists, lecturing teachers, ticking off policemen, convicting politicians, censoring media persons, and so on. In the interest of the downtrodden and speechless, he has elevated the court’s suo motu powers to unprecedented heights. To crown it all, he has now taken suo motu notice of the court’s suo motu powers so that these may not be misused in the future. Never mind that he is transgressing into the domain of the legislature and executive because it is all for a good cause.
The good judge has now set up a Fund seeking donations from all and sundry to build multi-billion dollar Dams to secure Pakistan from the looming threat of water scarcity. “The survival of the country and its economy depends on it”, he says, while threatening to slap Article 6 (treason) on anyone who criticizes his grand scheme on one count or another. Never mind that Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces are bitterly opposed to the Kalabagh Dam project that he favours unabashedly. Never mind too that the Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, immediately stood up in parliament to reassure the three provinces that the PTI government respected their strong aversion to the Kalabagh dam and frowned on the “unnecessary controversy” that had cropped up!
But if truth be told, it’s not as if the chief justice is unaware of the economics of dam building or its ecological consequences. Nor does he really believe that public donations alone can finance such expenditures. He is simply trying to draw urgent attention to a potential crisis of water scarcity facing the nation that is bigger than the population explosion and bigger than the fiscal deficit or national debt. And never mind if cynics don’t understand his real motive in trying to “instill citizens with a sense of ownership and belonging and inculcate the executive with a sense of responsibility, accountability and obligation.”
But if we are to disregard the chief justice’s commissions because they are all for noble causes, how should we deal with the mundane ones of our new prime minister Imran Khan?
“With the appointment of Zulfikar Bukhari as Minister of State, the federal cabinet has swelled to 32”, reports Dawn. Mr Bukhari, it may be recalled, is the gent who was stopped from boarding a private flight with Imran Khan out of the country a month ago because he was on ECL to facilitate an ongoing investigation by NAB. But he claimed exemption for being a British national and duly boarded the flight. Now he has highlighted his Pakistani nationality to ensure a berth in the federal cabinet. Never mind the dubious benefits of dual nationality status in Naya Pakistan in which a dual national cannot be a member of parliament but can be a member of the cabinet!
Imran Ismail has been appointed the 30th Governor of Sindh. Never mind that he isn’t even a graduate. But one of the top economists of modern times, Atif Mian, was forced to quit an advisory commission after his Ahmedi status was revealed. Never mind that Pakistan’s first foreign minister, and several top civil servants and generals, were Ahmedis who proudly served the country in the past. Never mind too that, shortly after he was ousted from the commission, Atif Mian was welcomed as an eminent speaker at a conference on Islamic Finance in the holiest of the holy cities of Saudi Arabia!
Never mind that the federal cabinet is choc a bloc with ex-Musharraf appointees. The able Farogh Naseem and Anwar Mansoor are the Law Minister and Attorney General respectively. Never mind that both were the leading lawyers defending the runaway General (retd) Pervez Musharraf from facing up to his crimes. Never mind too that the fate of the treason case against their former client is now sealed. For good measure, Mr Naseem intends to revise the accountability laws so that our sacred judges and generals are immune from accountability.
The Punjab cabinet boasts some wonderful stalwarts too. For starters, there is Usman Buzdar who was picked out of the Book, as it were, by none other than the saintly First Lady. Never mind that the wags are calling him the “Temp CM” who is keeping the seat warm for Jehangir Tareen or Aleem Khan. Then there is Fayyaz Chohan, the minister for culture and information. Never mind that he is uncouth, uninformed and uncultured. And so on.
Last but not the least, never mind the nail in the coffin of the budget prepared by the PMLN’s finance minister Miftah Ismail that reduced the tax rates for those who file their tax returns as honest citizens of the state and penalized those who buy expensive cars and properties without showing any income or paying any tax. The PTI’s economic Tsar, Asad Umer, has just reversed the just order of things!
Owing to Muharram holidays, this Editorial was written before the IHC decision in Nawaz Sharif’s case. Hence it is not on that subject.
No peace prospects
September 28, 2018
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s offer last week of peace talks with India on all issues, including Kashmir and terrorism, came as a bolt from the blue. Pakistan has long argued for a discussion of the core issue of Kashmir while rejecting India’s bid to insert the core issue of terrorism into the equation. And vice versa. Indeed, when ex-PM Nawaz Sharif sought to open a similar dialogue with India in 2013-14, he was accused of being unpatriotic by Imran Khan and all his attempts to make headway through open and back channel diplomacy were constantly thwarted by the Miltablishment. So – first question — what prompted Imran Khan to take a U-Turn on this issue shortly after becoming PM?
No less surprising was India’s quick agreement for a chat – albeit not a dialogue — between the two countries’ foreign ministers on the sidelines of UNGA. This was a marked departure from India’s anti-Pakistan policy under PM Narendra Modi which has been visibly hostile in the last two years or so. Indeed, even people to people contacts have been discouraged by an Indian visa regime that has all but blocked Pakistanis high and low from visiting India for business, family or leisure, and preferential trade proposals hugely beneficial to India have been gathering dust since 2013. So – second question — what prompted the Modi government to immediately and positively respond to Pakistan’s gesture of peace talks?
The most stunning part of these “diplomatic” moves came when India suddenly reversed its position by cancelling the proposed “chat” at UNGA and, in a particularly nasty statement aimed at the person of the Pakistani prime minister, accused Pakistan of “evil” designs by referring to a Pakistani postage stamp of the Kashmiri martyr Burhan Wani published two months earlier, while suddenly discovering the “butchered” bodies of a couple of Indian soldiers in a theatre of conflict along the LoC. So – third question – what prompted this sudden Indian volte face that, in turn, provoked a personal rebuke of the Indian PM by the Pakistani PM and has trashed the prospects of a peace dialogue in the foreseeable future?
A background analysis may help answer these questions.
It has now been revealed that, just before the general elections, the Pakistani Miltablishment made a discreet offer of dialogue with India to cool down the running conflict along the LoC that was daily taking a toll of lives and making headlines. Its motive was obvious enough: the Miltablishment didn’t want any external destabilization to adversely impact its critical focus on a massive and unprecedented exercise to engineer “positive results” in the general elections. This political strategy was very much akin to the opposite one adopted when the Miltablishment was conspiring with Imran Khan to dethrone Nawaz Sharif in which one thrust was aimed at wounding him as “Modi’s Yar”. But if the Indian’s didn’t bite at that time, why did the Miltablishment offer an olive branch again so soon after the Pakistani elections? Indeed, why did the Modi government respond a little positively to begin with?
Enter US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As part of the mutual effort to “reset” the US-Pak relationship and break the impasse in Afghanistan, it was agreed in Islamabad that it was critical to reset the Pak-India relationship too so that Pakistan’s fears of India’s hegemonic designs in the region, especially its influence in Kabul, could be minimized, thereby making it possible to find some sort of workable solution in Afghanistan. Mr Pompeo seemingly took up the issue in New Delhi, but the Indo-US joint statement highlighted mutual concern about “Pakistani-inspired” terrorism across both its western and eastern borders. Desperate for an IMF bailout and afraid of provoking severe sanctions relating to FATF, the Pakistani Miltablishment prompted Imran Khan to offer talks to India on all subjects, including terrorism, after making quite a song and dance of being on the “same page” as the new civilian leadership. On its part, New Delhi didn’t want to be seen in Washington as spurning an offer conceding a long-standing demand. Hence its swift response to start chatting on the sidelines of UNGA even though there was no immediate reduction of the trust deficit on both sides.
The volte face of the Modi regime was triggered by breaking news of the $8.7 billion Rafale deal in which the Indian PM faces his most serious challenge to date. Under the circumstances, a quick political diversion of public interest was the need of the hour and Pakistan was at hand as the favourite whipping boy of the media. Hence the MEA was handed a politically charged statement by the PMO, backed by some shrill war mongering by the Indian army chief, whose main purpose was to provoke a similar response from the Pakistani civil-military side and drown out the uproar over Rafale.
Clearly, both India and Pakistan are playing tactical games based on internal political necessities while their strategic objectives vis a vis each other remain unchanged. There is no prospect of regional peace in the foreseeable future.
Truth will out
The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has announced a Protest Day on October 9 to agitate against unprecedented censorship of the print and electronic media in Pakistan under a “democratic” government. Various owner-editor media bodies like the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE), All Pakistan Newspaper Society (APNS) and Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA) have weighed in with complaints and concerns. Reports by concerned international media watchdogs like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters San Frontiers (RSF), etc., and respected international print media like The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, etc., testify to the fact of the Pakistani press under siege. Social media in the country is ever ready to report “disappeared” dissidents, lists of “anti-national” journalists under attack and even of “treason” cases against some. Now a new weapon in the war against outspoken speech has been brandished: it’s called “contempt of court”.
Where’s the attack on the media coming from? What’s the nature of the media’s crime? And how come the media has become so susceptible to such pressure tactics by meekly hunkering down and shutting up?
In the old days, the print media could be cautioned and even silenced by a combination of bribes (government advertising) and coercion (Press and Publications Ordinance). But the stranglehold of the press laws ended in the 1990s following the revival of “electoral democracy” led by the two mainstream political parties (PPP and PMLN). A period of “enlightened moderation” by the civilianized military regime of General Pervez Musharraf – that had outlawed both the parties and needed media support for its own legitimacy – followed in the 2000s when permissions were freely granted to businessmen to set up TV channels and radio stations across the country. Before long, there was an explosion of “freedom”, with no-holds barred political talk shows, commentaries and sit-coms becoming the norm for popular entertainment.
The downside to this media revolution is more significant. Fat cats from the industrial and commercial sector seized the commanding heights of the electronic media and marginalized the old band of print editor-owners who had risen by the bootstraps and not ventured forth into other businesses.
These new entrants from the manufacturing, construction and service sectors were primarily motivated by one ruthless objective: to protect and enhance their business interests by leveraging their new media power with the civil-military establishment. Some saw their new venture as a trade-off between tax write offs and celebrity status. Correspondingly, the demand for anchors, hosts and “experts” shot up overnight, the main requirement being good looks, glib tongues and audacity rather than any formal media education emphasizing established journalistic norms and standards. With commercial advertising shifting rapidly from the print media to the electronic, the new media “stars” were now also inclined to leverage integrity for fat pay cheques. Increasingly, “freedom” in the new media dispensation became another word for irresponsible, blackmailing, leveraging or anarchist broadcasting.
Enter Social Media in the last decade or so. Instead of being the main vehicle for breaking factual news, this has degenerated rapidly into a big Anti-Social Media platform trolled by organized political interests. The PTI’s youth brigades were organized by slick IT professionals who were paid to milk this platform by setting up hundreds of fake Twitter accounts that could generate furious “made to order trends” to browbeat and drown out critical voices. Before long, the Miltablishment got into the act too and terms of endearment like “traitors”, “Raw/CIA Agents” began to compete with the shrill abuse of the PTI trolls.
So we now have an old media and a new media. The old media is represented by a dying breed of owner editors who still cling to traditional notions of editorial independence, and a pack of journalists who continue speaking truth to power. The new media is represented by a rising galaxy of channel owners, anchors, hosts and reporters with political and economic interests to leverage unconscionably. In other words, “press freedom” means two opposite things to each group of stakeholders.
The PFUJ, CPNE, APNS, CPJ, RF, etc. all belong to the old media school that continues to protest about censoring the truth, about disappearing critical voices, about organized trolling, about pressure on cable operators to shun errant channels and hawkers who distribute newspapers which challenge failed national narratives. Unfortunately, this group is weak in the face of the relentless onslaught by the new media. Therefore, we may expect Oct 9 Protest Day to be unremarkable, with no more than the usually small suspect-groups of rights protestors with black arm bands and shrieking banners at scattered Press Clubs across the country.
But the situation is bound to change for the better. No private media can survive the brutal reality of ratings by being acquiescent and plaint. The current supporters of holy cows and governments are bound to become their critics. The self-righteous “patriots” of today will surely be exposed as the unholy conspirators of yesterday. Technology is geared to breaking media barriers. No country is an island. And the truth will out.
Institutional decay
February 8, 2019
Politics and justice in Pakistan are taking inexplicable twists and turns that hurt the credibility of core state institutions. The resultant sense of anger, coupled with fearful loss of jobs and inflation, could provoke an angry backlash from citizens, with unforeseen consequences. Consider.
NAB is accused of one-sided accountability of PPP and PMLN, a charge that rings true. An overwhelming number of cases pertain to opposition stalwarts. NAB’s “performance” is also questionable. Over 90 per cent of cases are concluded“successfully” on the basis of confessions extracted under duress. The Supreme Court has advised the government to make suitable amendments in the NAB law so that some degree of fair play and due process is available to the accused. But the PTI regime is unmoved.
Now a key PTI leader in the Punjab assembly, AleemKhan, has been arrested by NAB in a case of “assets beyond known means of income”. The timing is intriguing. Mr Khan has made no secret of his desire to become CM Punjab, ostensibly with the support of the Miltablishment that is unhappy with Mr Usman Buzdar’s lack of performance.
This has stirred a grand conspiracy theory: NAB is aiming to kill several birds with one stone. First, it wants to show that by scooping such a big fish out of the PTI pond, it is not biased in Imran Khan’s favour. Second, it may be preparing to “redress the balance” by arresting the PMLN ex PM, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, in a case lodged four years ago relating to the purchase of LNG. Mr Abbasi is the leading contender for Miltablishment favour in the event of any change in the parliamentary status quo. Third, Aleem Khan’s arrest is simply a device to eventually declare him innocent so that his path to CMship of Punjab is cleared.
This line of conspiracy thinking has some basis in facts. The Supreme Court under CJP Saqib Nisar one day suddenly dusted off the Air Marshall (r) Asghar Khan case, raising hope that action would be taken against Generals Asad Durrani and Mirza Aslam Beg who had admitted corrupting the 1990 elections. But the opposite happened in fact. When the FIA meekly replied that it couldn’t track down some other officials to corroborate the confessions of these two gents, the good CJP closed the file on the case. Much the same sort of thunder was heard from Judge Nisar pertaining to a suo motu notice of Aleema Khan’s sources of wealth, only for the quest for the money trail to be quickly abandoned by the imposition of a simple fine for mis-declaration.
The Election Commission of Pakistan is also infected by the same conspiracy theory. For many years, it has been “hearing” a case of PTI party funds misappropriation and mis-declaration by PTI leader Imran Khan that would render him ineligible for election to the National Assembly if proven true. But the almighty Respondent continues to obtain delaying adjournments, even though the petition is firmly grounded in facts.
Worst of all, the courts are not immune from this charge. There are several defamation petitions languishing against Imran Khan. The law says that libel cases must be wrapped up in six months at the most. Yet no judge is inclined to act accordingly. Indeed, Mr Khan refuses to attend hearings or file statements in defense. In a recent case pertaining to a child of his allegedly born out of wedlock, the good judge dismissed the petition, arguing that the law has no business judging anyone on the basis of personal morality! Never mind that the law explicitly criminalizes a host of “immoral” acts like adultery, pornography, drug-taking, alcohol drinking, etc., and prescribes definite punishments for them. Readers may recall the case of a well-known TV actress who was relentlessly pursued by ex-CJP Iftikhar Chaudhry after a bottle of wine was discovered in her luggage before she boarded a domestic flight. But embarrassing “soft-glove” treatment is reserved for Imran Khan. His sprawling Bani Gala residence has been allowed to be “regularized”, as also the elite residential Tower at #1 Constitution Avenue in Islamabad in which he and his friends own expensive apartments, despite gross violation of the Islamabad Master Plan. Hundreds of lay citizens across the country have lost home and hearth after their “encroachments” were razed on the orders of the same apex court. The mother of all ironies is that PMLN petitioner Hanif Abbasi, who dared to challenge various alleged misdemeanours by Imran Khan, is cooling his heels in the clink by orders of the apex court.
Now we read Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s judgment censuring various state institutions for blithely disregarding the law regarding violent non-state actors, disappearances, curbs on media rights, fatwas, etc. Coupled with CJP Asif Khosa’searlier advice to reform NAB, the PTI government has its job cut out for it. But as a major beneficiary of these state transgressions, it doesn’t require rocket science to predict what it will and will not do.
New era?
February 15, 2019
Pakistan is the first stop on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s journey to Malaysia, Indonesia and India. A handout by the PTI government claims that, in addition to the US$6 B deposit and deferred oil facility earlier granted to Islamabad, MBS will now commit tens of billions of Saudi dollars to investments in “finance, power, petro-chemicals, renewable energy, internal security, media, culture and sports”. The government is suggesting that this Saudi largesse is a reward for PM Imran Khan’s attendance of the Global Future Investment Conference in Riyadh – “Davos in the Desert” – hosted by MBS last October that was boycotted by leading Western countries critical of the “Khashoggi affair”. While local media glare is focused on the planeloads of security personnel and equipment accompanying MBS, the grand purpose of his strategic mission is largely absent from discussions of his whirlwind tour.
FM Shah Mahmud Qureshi is crowing about a “new era” in Saudi-Pak relations. This is precious coming from him. It may be recalled that Saudi-Pak relations – which have historically always been good – plunged following a refusal by Pakistan’s parliament to commit warships, aircraft and troops in April 2015 to the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. The shrill opposition was led by Imran Khan’s PTI. It was averse to any Saudi attempt to prop up Nawaz Sharif as a quid pro quo for helping it at a time when the PTI was trying to topple him. We may also recall the bitterly angry response from a senior UAE minister acting as a proxy for Riyadh, the same UAE that has now coughed up a hefty deposit and oil facility for Pakistan. No wonder Mr Qureshi has been equally quick to stress that the PTI government is not committing any military assistance to the Saudis in Yemen. So what’s the new glue that is going to bind Riyadh and Islamabad together?
MBS’s political and economic reform agenda for Saudi Arabia was on track until it was buffeted by an attempted assassination scare at home, followed by the Khashoggi affair that left him bruised and isolated in much of the Western world. Talk of Western sanctions and US Congressional hostility prompted him to hit back with “a laundry list of potential Saudi responses” via media proxies. President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the conflict in Syria, in which Riyadh is heavily invested, reinforced the realization that security dependency on the West and further investment in its economies, should end. The “shift” has manifested itself with several trips to Moscow, including negotiations to buy Russia’s advanced S-400 anti-aircraft missile defense system and acquisition of 16 Russian nuclear reactors worth $80B with minimal safeguards for Uranium enrichment and reprocessing of spent fuel. Russia’s Direct Investment Fund is also negotiating deals in oil refining, petrochemicals, gas chemicals and oilfield services with Riyadh. In turn Saudi companies are signing up to invest up to $15b in Russian infrastructure, agriculture, high-tech, energy, mining and LNG. At the end of the “Davos in the Desert” conference attended by a 40-strong Russian delegation and boycotted by leading CEOs of Western companies, a bitter MBS is said to have remarked: “Now we know who our best friends are and who are best enemies are!”
The ball is now in the court of political parties, the parliament, media organisations and civil society organisations. For far too long, political governments have bent over backwards to woo anti-democratic forces for elusive political stability
Prince Mohammad is now seeking to spread Saudi economic and military interests in diverse non-Western sources where prospects are good – hence this “valedictory” trip to Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and India. Interestingly, the Saudi list of investment projects in Russia reads much like the proposed list for Pakistan. The Saudis and Pakistanis are both keen to scuttle the Chahbahar Port project in Iran, the former to undermine Iran’s oil exporting capacity and the latter to deny India any direct access to Afghanistan. The proposed Saudi Oil refinery in Gwadar along with investments in supply pipelines are aimed at locking Pakistan into Saudi oil supplies and weaning it away from Iranian oil and Qatar gas. Pakistan’s military is also likely to get more deeply involved in Riyadh’s internal security in general and MBS’s personal protection in particular. It is lining up to export missiles and aircraft, enhancing technology transfers and training Saudis in state-of-the-art weapons usage. MBS’s presence in Islamabad could also iron out snags in a proposed political deal between the Miltablishment and Nawaz Sharif aimed at securing the PTI government’s stability.
The list of proposed Saudi Investment projects in Pakistan include the subjects of “media and culture”. We note that present and past Saudi Ambassadors to Islamabad have started to articulate their opinion in the local press. Western media reports that MBS’s media ambitions are assuming global proportions in line with his drive for new sources of security and legitimacy. Is it any wonder then that Information Minister Chaudhry Fawad is threatening new laws to curb social media as if regular “disappearances”, police cases against critics, constant press “advice” on dos and don’ts for TV Channels, discriminatory advertisement policies and continuous pressure on cable distributors to block offenders, are not enough restrictions on free speech already?
Pulwama – Whodunnit?
February 22, 2019
When Pulwama hit headlines, the first thoughts that flashed through every Pakistani’s mind were: India will blame Pakistan; the Indian media will inflame passions and demand revenge many notches above the “strategic strikes” that followed an earlier such attack. In fact, it seemed that India had sealed its case when it was further revealed that the suicide bomber had left an incriminating video, the Jaish-e-Mohammad in Kashmir had claimed responsibility and there was no denial from firebrand JeM leader Masood Azhar based in Pakistan. Indeed, second thoughts focused on the probable Indian military reaction – what, when, where – and Pakistan’s response to it.
As if Pakistan didn’t seem to be in the dog house already, the Jaish-e-Adl, an Iranian Baloch separatist group operating in the borderlands of Iran and Pakistan, claimed responsibility for an attack (on the heels of Pulwama) that killed 27 Revolutionary Guards, provoking an angry statement from the Iranian government against the US and its proxies and puppets (no prizes for guessing at whom the finger is pointed).
But as the war of words escalated, serious questions began to crop up.
Both the attacks came on the eve of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s “historic” visit to Islamabad aimed at cementing a strategic economic and military pact that is being billed as a paradigm change in regional dynamics. The Saudis are acting as proxies for the US, nudging Pakistan to help give the US a face saving exit from Afghanistan (thereby making Pakistan a key player in the end game in Afghanistan, to the chagrin of India). In return, Pakistan is expected to join the US’s anti-Iran camp in the greater Middle East region, in exchange for a financial bailout. Both India and Iran are upset that their grand plan for the Chahbahar Port and road/rail link to Afghanistan will be jeopardized by the new Pak-Saudi nexus aimed at undermining Iran’s attempt to break out of the oil export sanctions imposed by the US and erode India’s attempt to protect its strategic goals and investments in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Both incidents have the potential to destabilize such carefully laid plans in which Pakistan is a key player and ostensible beneficiary.
It stands to reason, therefore, that the Pakistanis could not have contemplated such a situation, let alone actively connived with the JeM and/or encouraged the JiA. Islamabad is already languishing in FATF’s grey zone while fighting to uphold its legal rights in the international case of the Indian spy Kulbhushan Yadav who was caught on the Iran-Pakistan border aiding Pakistani Baloch separatists. Pakistan’s cause would be greatly hurt if it is established that it was a sponsor of both incidents. Indeed, if armed conflict were to break out between India and Pakistan, Pakistan’s flagging economy would take a severe hit, regardless of who “wins” the military battles, something that the country can ill afford at this juncture. The PTI government would be gravely weakened and the Miltablishment’s careful engineering of the political system would be threatened.
On the other hand, quite apart from strengthening its drive to isolate and condemn Pakistan internationally as a “state sponsor of terrorism”, Narendra Modi’s government is certainly getting a fillip from Pulwama on the eve of the Indian general elections. The anti-Pakistan, anti-Muslim war hysteria that has swamped India plays into Modi’s traditional electoral strategy in certain states while distracting attention from his lack lustre economic performance that has generated some wind in the tails of the opposition parties led by the Congress. Is it conceivable that India’s intel agencies had a hand in Pulwama?
However cynical, the truth is that Intel agencies and non-state actors all over the world are not averse to extracting such ruthless sacrifices from their own people for their cause. The Samjhota Express bombing is a case in point. So too is the train carnage that cast Gujerat in flames, elevating Mr Modi as a communal leader of choice. There is also considerable evidence that Indian security forces have infiltrated indigenous jihadi outfits in Kashmir to inform, provoke and justify counter-terrorism repression – check out the case of Afzal Guru. Equally, the question of how over 700kg of explosive material meant for blasting roads ended up in the hand of the suicide bomber is going a-begging. And so on.
That said, the fact that Pakistan continues to host the JeM and Masood Azhar and allows Hafiz Saeed and the LeT to fuel the uprising in Kashmir in one way or another and uses China to block UN censure of these organisations, weakens its case in the eyes of the international community and puts it on the block.
Whoever carried out Pulwama – and many non-state actors have autonomous politico/military strategies beyond their Masters’ puppeteering – has succeeded in heating up the sub-continent to a point where the governments of both India and Pakistan risk destabilization and political failure if their responses are guided by short term populism rather than long term rationality. There are no winners in armed conflict between nuclear nations.
What a war!
March 1, 2019
Pakistan and India are, legally speaking, at war. This war broke out when Indian airplanes crossed the international border into Pakistan and dropped some bombs deep into Pakistani territory on an alleged “terrorist” camp. Strangely enough, this camp stopped existing after 2005, so the bombs didn’t kill anyone in 2019. In response, Pakistani jets dropped some bombs across the Line of Control (LoC) in Occupied Kashmir, which is legally disputed territory. But Pakistan isn’t saying who or what was targeted. So, naturally, the bombs didn’t kill anyone. Indeed, in the one week that India and Pakistan have been at war, no one has been killed. But nationalist passions are running high on both sides. Curiously enough, though, these are largely being expressed in newsrooms and social media platforms while both “warring” governments are conspicuous by their relative restraint. What a war! Is this a war?
India has crossed two red lines. It has resorted to “pre-emptive strikes” against Pakistani targets. And it has deliberately violated the international border. This is unprecedented. Pakistan has not allowed this to pass without reinforcing the red lines. As a measure of deterrence, it has shot down two Indian aircraft and captured one pilot in a retaliatory raid across the LoC.
Unfortunately, this may appear to India as an escalation in the scale of hostilities. If the Indian aircraft had been downed over Pakistani territory during their first aggressive sortie, it might have been par for the course. Each side could have claimed some success and then cooled off. But since the Indians lost two aircraft and a pilot in a premeditated retaliatory Pakistani strike, India is now compelled to try and even the score in a potentially spiraling conflict. It is ominous that both sides are moving troops to the borders. Many airports are closed to civilian traffic. What next?
It is true that the weight of international opinion is sympathetic to India’s position that non-state actors based in Pakistan continue to sponsor “terrorism” across Pakistan’s borders with India, Afghanistan and Iran. Pakistan is also struggling to acquit itself before the FATF. Its economy is weak and cannot take the strain of any serious military conflict. It is therefore understandable that PM Imran Khan should sue for “peace” while appearing to be strong after showing-off a burning aircraft wreckage and captured Indian pilot. On the other side, however, PM Narendra Modi is in a bit of a fix. After the first air raid across Pakistan’s border, with tall claims of “300 terrorists killed” and all aircraft returning unscarred to base, he was riding high. But after the “victory” was exposed as being hollow, followed by the loss of two aircraft and a pilot in captivity, his ratings are falling and pressure is mounting to “do something” to redress the balance.
Unfortunately, there is no back channel between the two countries to sort out this mess away from the flashing eyes of the jingoistic media on both sides. But hope of some sort of “resolution” has come from President Donald Trump who is predicting “good news” soon. Mr Trump’s “intervention” is not unexpected. Apart from the two countries directly involved in the conflict, it is the US that has the most to lose if this conflict gets out of hand and is prolonged. The US is seriously involved in fashioning a quick and “honourable” exit from Afghanistan in the next few months with Pakistan’s “critical” assistance. Should Pakistan’s facilitation to the US on its western border waver at this juncture because of its focus on the conflict with India on its eastern border, the US would be a big loser because its exit strategy is time-barred by the next US elections.
There are no winning or losing sides in wars between nuclearized countries. But a hard war between India and Pakistan can certainly lead to regime change in either or both depending on its perceived outcome.
PM Imran Khan is steering a shaky ship in a rough sea. His parliamentary majority is wafer thin. He is surviving only because the Miltablishment is propping him up. Should the Miltablishment’s support waver or slacken because it needs the help of the Opposition to protect itself from any unintended adverse consequences of conflict with India, he will be the big loser in Pakistan.
On the other side, PM Modi must know that a hard war with Pakistan which he cannot win may provoke the same consequences for him in the next elections. The Opposition understands this and could bait him to blunder in the next few days or weeks.
Might this conflict be managed to square the equation by enabling both sides to crow victory? Can de-escalation on the international border be swapped with escalation along the LoC in which both sides take prisoners and claim knocking out posts and camps of the other before agreeing to a ceasefire and talks?
There is no option. This soft war must translate into a hard peace for both countries and their political leaderships for their own good.
What next?
March 8, 2019
Pakistani PM Imran Khan has informed the media that India and Israel had ganged up to attack targets inside Pakistan, including possibly in Karachi and Bahawalpur. They were dissuaded, he said, only after Pakistan warned that its response would be three times as forceful, thereby raising the spectre of a nuclear showdown. Does this mean that “war” between India and Pakistan is over? Consider.
Indian PM Narendra Modi recently told a charged rally that “we will go into Pakistan and sort them out”. The Indian Air Force chief says that the Balakot strike was just the beginning of the Indian action against Pakistan. With the world acknowledging that Pakistan is “one up” in the recent conflict (the downing of two Indian war planes and capture of one pilot showing military superiority and the release of the pilot demonstrating diplomatic finesse) and the Indian media reluctantly having to wake up to the cruel facts and ask some embarrassing questions, Mr Modi is in trouble. The opposition parties see this as an opportunity to drive the knife in and twist it. The nature of the virulent anti-Pakistan nationalism that Modi has spawned is such that if he doesn’t square the military equation soon, he will lose the next election for sure. Therefore, we may expect him to do “something”. The problem is that if he does too little he won’t get off the hook at home and if he does too much he won’t be able to handle the consequences. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.
Pakistan, on the other hand, is desperate to de-escalate. Continuing a state of war readiness is prohibitively expensive, especially in a crisis-ridden economy, begging bowl in hand. It is also a fact that Pakistan’s international isolation “as a state sponsor of terrorism” is unprecedented and its economic bailout is dependent upon its ability to shut down non-state actors which carry out terrorist actions across borders. The FATF Report that will determine whether Pakistan is shoved into the “black list” and face sanctions from international finance institutions, as the Finance Ministry has pointed out, is due in May. How can Pakistan get out of this black hole?
The government has issued a four-page order detailing terms and conditions for proscribing militant/terrorist organisations. It has followed up by issuing a list of 68 organisations, including the JeM and LeT, that stand “proscribed”. Pre-emptive detentions have been carried out of prominent militants. Is this action sufficient for the international community that wants to appease India and avert an escalation of the conflict?
Inevitably, it will be asked what progress, if any, has been made vis a vis eliminating these “banned” organisations since the list of 68 pertains to those who have been progressively banned since 2001. It will also be pointed out that the two most “wanted” persons, Maulana Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed, are still scot free. It will be noted that two offshoots of the LeT, namely Falah-e-Insaniat and Jamaat ul Dawa (both led by Hafiz Saeed) were omitted from this list earlier and have only now been put on the Interior Ministry’s “Watch-List”. In other words, the world will want to determine if Pakistan’s Miltablishment has genuinely decided as a matter of strategic policy to disband the India/Kashmir oriented NSAs or whether these measures are just tactical moves to relieve the current pressure. On that score, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating of it. What if, as is likely, Indian repression in Kashmir continues unabated and provokes Uri or Pulwama-type resistance for which “credit” is taken by Pakistan-based NSAs or their affiliates in Kashmir?
It isn’t only the international community that is asking such questions. An increasing number of influential and concerned voices in Pakistan are also nagged by such doubts. Nawaz Sharif’s peace initiative with Narendra Modi in 2014 was derailed by certain NSAs. But when he proposed action against them, he was accused of being an “Indian agent” and Dharnas and Dawnleaks were drummed up to try and overthrow him. Now the same people are desperately trying to flog an old vice under Nawaz Sharif as a new virtue under Imran Khan. By way of explanation, if not justification, it is being argued that mutual trust between the Miltablishment and Imran Khan is responsible for this policy turnabout as opposed to a lack of it during Nawaz Sharif’s time. But no one is asking why there was such a trust deficit between an elected government and the Miltablishment at that time and why they are on the “same page” now, which would lead directly to the core issue of whether a strategic change of policy is possible today.
Pakistan’s defense policies, which include a significant role for certain NSAs, are inextricably tied to conflict with India over Kashmir. Therefore, one should not expect dramatic and unilateral strategic change until India sincerely attempts to resolve the problem of Kashmir to the satisfaction of the people of Kashmir.
Thus spake Bilawal!
March 15, 2019
Bilawal Bhutto has sprung into action. He kicked off with a hard-hitting speech in the National Assembly, blasting the Miltablishment for nurturing non-state actors who have become Frankensteins, endangering internal stability by attracting severe international censure. Then he called on Nawaz Sharif in prison and supported the demand for his freedom on medical grounds, prompting Maryam Nawaz to tweet a “thank you”. But he also chipped in with the interesting observation that the time had come to revive the cooperative spirit of the Charter of Democracy, signed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in 2006 when they were both in exile. Now he has come out all guns blazing. Bilawal has “warned” the “powers-that-be” that if the hounding of the PPP, in particular Asif Zardari/Feryal Talpur, by NAB and FIA doesn’t stop, the PPP will launch a protest movement. Is this a credible threat? Are we about to see a united front of the PPP, PMLN, and their allies, like the JUI’s Maulana Fazal ur Rahman, that will spell the end of the “unholy alliance-regime” of the PTI-Miltablishment?
It is perfectly understandable why the Bhutto-Zardaris are up in arms.
The Miltablishment had given them a free hand to contest and win the 2018 provincial elections in Sindh, and go on to make the provincial government, even as it had pulled out all the stops to make sure that the PMLN lost in Punjab and therefore in Pakistan. By way of cementing the “deal”, Mr Zardari had made an “advance payment” before the elections by manipulating a revolt in the Balochistan Assembly to overthrow the PMLN government and then making “balance payment” by ensuring the election of the Miltablishment candidate from Balochistan as Speaker of the Senate. After the elections, he resolutely refused to make a power-sharing alliance with the PMLN, thereby enabling the PTI to woo a crucial clutch of winning Independents and form governments in Islamabad and Lahore.
But the “deal” with the Miltablishment is now unravelling because Imran Khan is no longer “buying in”. Indeed, he is pressing NAB, FIA and other state agencies to go after both the leaders of the PMLN and PPP as part of his post-election strategy to strengthen himself and decimate the two mainstream parties, both as insurance for political survival and as a guarantee for winning the next elections. Indeed, it is an article of political faith for him that the focus of the people and media should remain concentrated on the “corruption” of the two parties and their leaders to divert attention from his party’s infirmity and his government’s incompetence.
The swords of NAB and FIA are now within striking distance of Mr Zardari, Feryal Talpur et al. The JITs are done collecting damning evidence of corruption and money laundering. The Supreme Court is itching to bang the hammer and wreck the “deal”. The PPP is in desperate straits. It must decide immediately whether to change course, and aggressively join hands with the PMLN against both the PTI and Miltablishment, or to hang on to the coattails of the Miltablishment in the hope that it can halt Imran Khan’s push against the PPP. The credibility of an alliance with the PMLN aimed at overthrowing the PTI would be called into question if it follows rather than precedes any hard action against Mr Zardari and Co. Imran Khan and his front-line strikers like Asad Umar and Fawad Chaudhry have already begun to issue dire warnings that, under the garb of protecting free speech and democratic rights, “the corrupt Sharifs and Zardaris are joining hands to protect their ill-gotten gains”.
It is probably true that if the PPP and PMLN were to cement an aggressive anti-Miltablishment and anti-PTI alliance, they would create serious problems for the ruling junta. But it is truer still that the opposite side would not sit idly by and allow them to get away with their plans. At the very least a lot of top PPP/PMLN people would face arrest and those already in detention could not hope for any relief from the courts or the Miltablishment, whether on legal or humanitarian grounds. Since both parties are already fatigued and demoralized, the prospects of launching a successful joint movement without their top leaders in attendance are dim. It is also true that the PMLN is riven by internal disagreements between a section lead by Hamza and Shahbaz Sharif that advocates an unabashed surrender to the Miltablishment, and another led by Maryam and Nawaz Sharif that refuses to throw in the towel. On the other hand, the Miltablishment might prefer to nip Bilawal’s threat in the bud by managing to exile Nawaz Sharif on medical grounds, and thereby buy his silence, and diminish Imran Khan’s ire by putting Mr Zardari in prison.
Whose stones will kill which birds should be clear soon enough.
Changing course
March 22, 2019
The leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Shahbaz Sharif, insists that an in-camera briefing by the Miltablishment on the way forward on the National Action Plan against terrorism scheduled for 28th March should be in front of the full House so that a lively discussion can take place in the national interest. This briefing will aim to lay the basis of the government’s report to the FATF next month. Maulana Fazal ur Rahman, whose stakes as leader of the most important religious party in the country are directly affected by actions proposed in the NAP, has echoed the same view. But the significant development is in Bilawal Bhutto’s stance. Until recently, the PPP was hand-in-glove with the Miltablishment in many of its machinations in domestic politics. But since the NAB axe began to loom ominously over Asif Zardari and Feryal Talpur, young Bilawal has come out all guns blazing. The problem is that he is focusing his gunsights on a matter of national interest rather than sole Miltablishment interest. Consider.
Bilawal wants NAB laws reviewed and amended. That’s fine. There is a national consensus that NAB needs to be reined in because it has become arbitrary and discriminatory. He wants at least three PTI cabinet members with avowed links to banned organisations to come clean and be shunted out. That’s political point scoring. Which party hasn’t, at one time or another, played footsie with organisations that are today blacklisted? He is questioning the impartiality of the judiciary. So are we all. But his position on two points is provoking the ire of the Miltablishment. He says “come what may, the PPP will not allow military courts to return to the fold”. And he is questioning the sincerity of the Miltablishment in putting down certain non-state actors as demanded by the international community via FATF. In one angry retort, he has asked why Ehsanullah Ehsan, the notorious TTP spokesman in the Miltablishment’s protective custody, who used to brazenly announce thousands of civilian casualties in TTP acts of terrorism, has not been investigated by a JIT and charged accordingly. Now this is wading into dangerous waters.
It is in Pakistan’s national interest not to be shoved into the black list by FATF. This is the time for all to unite and present a policy of action that is not merely aimed at appeasing FATF but is genuinely concerned with eliminating the adverse consequences of non-state actors for domestic stability and regional peace. If some of these were once dubious state “assets” in the conflict with India over Kashmir, then they have clearly become dangerous state “liabilities” now. The Pulwama attack was laid squarely on Pakistan by the international community and almost provoked a full-scale war between two nuclear armed neighbours after breaching several red lines. This is an unacceptable situation, especially since Pakistan is currently grappling with several other political and economic crises that have sapped national unity and cohesiveness and triggered alienation and anger across large swathes of people and territories.
But it is not just the opposition parties and their leaders who should be aware of their national responsibilities over and above parochial party or mundane personal interests. It takes two hands to clap. The ruling PTI and the institutions of the state which are persecuting the opposition must step back and allow them to play their role as Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, loyal to the state, not governments. The judiciary and NAB need to redress the impression of acute bias. The ruling party needs to show it can govern instead of constantly trying to divert attention from its incompetence by screaming about the opposition’s “corruption”. And the Miltablishment must verifiably change course on non-state actors that have plunged Pakistan into international isolation.
Some good news may be expected if every stakeholder can lend a shoulder to the task of dismantling these unacceptable non-state actors. China has blocked the banning of Jaish-e-Mohammad’s leader, Masood Azhar, at the UN. But, it has assured India and the international community that this is a temporary measure. Clearly, some modus operandi is being fashioned behind the scenes between China and Pakistan to resolve this issue. A ban on Masood Azhar would imply the freezing of his assets, including madrassahs that are also training camps or indoctrination centers, a ban on travel and a zipping of his mouth. This is easily done without fear of provoking a backlash as happened during General Musharraf’s time. Similarly, the mainstreaming of some other extremists can proceed apace within prescribed limits.
Even if all this is done inside Pakistan, however, one serious problem will remain and endanger peace and stability. That is India’s repressive policies in Kashmir that continue to produce indigenous freedom fighters who use terrorism as a weapon of resistance. What if, despite Pakistan’s credible anti-non-state actor measures, there is another Pulwama and mischief is made by pointing the finger at Pakistan again? Clearly, the world must impress upon India too to put its house in order if regional peace is to be assured.
Waiting for Godot!
March 29, 2019
In an unprecedented decision, the Supreme Court (SC) has given bail on medical grounds to Mian Nawaz Sharif, subject to the condition that it is only for six-weeks and he cannot leave the country. Mr Sharif can use this precedence to approach the Islamabad High Court and SC for bail at any time during his captivity if his medical condition so warrants. But there is no guarantee of success. In other words, he is a “free” man only so long as relevant state institutions are agreeable. Six months of political silence have bought him six weeks of conditional relief. If he gets up to any mischief by word or deed, he will be back in the clink. He stands convicted in two cases of corruption and more are being filed against him. His Appeals are pending and he is not going to be acquitted in a hurry. He is 70. Is it the end of the line for him?
This is the third time that Mr Sharif has been ousted from elected office for refusing to take “dictation” from the Miltablishment. After the first sacking in 1993, he was able to contest the elections in 1997. After his second ouster in 1999, he was jailed and exiled to Saudi Arabia. But he returned to politics in 2008 and won the 2013 elections. Now he is a full-fledged convict banned from ever contesting elections
There are two curious facts in the developing situation. First, the more he has defied the Miltablishment, the more popular he has become. Second, the more he has defied the Miltablishment, the more acute his immediate personal and political predicament. This time, however, his ailing health has added to his troubles.
His options are clear. He can either admit to his political miscalculations and throw in the towel; or he can continue on the path of defiance and suffer imprisonment and stress. The first route would mean relinquishing control of the PMLN to Shahbaz Sharif and enabling him to serve the Miltablishment with due diligence. The second would imply sacrificing self so that his popular legacy can pass to his daughter Maryam in time to come. But it seems that Mr Sharif is considering a third path.
His experience tells him that nothing is permanent in the unstable world of Pakistani politics, that political crises can erupt at any time, that external factors can have a significant bearing on domestic affairs, that economic necessities can finesse political certainties. So long as he remains popular with the electorate, so long as his opponents are floundering, so long as the crises of political economy confronting Pakistan continue to expand or deepen, he always has a chance of staging a comeback. Why not zip up and hunker down and let Shahbaz steer the PMLN ship in these tumultuous times? In other words, why not live to fight another day?
But Mr Sharif isn’t the only one whose political miscalculations have landed him in the soup with the Miltablishment. Mr Asif Ali Zardari is also comprehending some hard truths about it. The Miltablishment has no permanent friends, only permanent interests. He thought he would help the Miltablishment nail Nawaz Sharif and elevate Imran Khan in exchange for being let off the hook. Now he finds himself at the receiving end from Imran Khan while the Miltablishment stands by and clucks in sympathy.
The fact is that Mr Zardari was played by the Miltablishment to get Mr Sharif. Now Nawaz has been stitched up and it is time to get Zardari. The likelihood is that he too will be hounded from one court and cell to another in exchange for abject cooperation from his son and Party Chairman Bilawal in core areas of concern.
Meanwhile, the Miltablishment will have increasing cause to reconsider its strategic policy of putting all its eggs in Imran Khan’s basket. If he has proved anything in his first eight months in office, it is this: his decisions are not always informed by rationality and common sense (Buzdar as CM Punjab); He is prone to rewarding cronies despite lack of merit (the list is too long); he is arrogant and stand-offish (contempt of Parliament); he disdains constitutional practices (refusal to accord due recognition and respect to the role of the Leader of the Opposition); his failure to learn the art of diplomacy in negotiations (a string of faux pas with the US, India, Afghanistan); worst of all, a stubborn refusal to learn the basics of economic management of the state, especially when its finances are in dire straits.
Imran Khan is lucky that the conflict with India didn’t escalate because the Miltablishment would have thrown him overboard if the outcome had been adverse. Now he must shoulder responsibility for getting Pakistan off the FATF hook, roping in the IMF and compelling Pakistanis to tighten belts all round for a few years more. The Miltablishment is anxious. Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif are praying. Shahbaz Sharif is hoping. Pakistanis are stressed. Everyone is waiting for Godot!
A single spark
April 5, 2019
Prime Minister Imran Khan has formally applied to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to act against TV Channel24HD which hosts the “Najam Sethi Show” for airing a statement that allegedly defames him. PEMRA has promptly fired off a notice to Channel24HD to immediately appear before its Complaints Committee and defend itself, failing which it threatens to take an “ex parte” decision against the channel and host of the show. Simultaneously, mysterious phone calls from “unknown” numbers have been made to cable operators across the country to block Channel24HD. PTCL Broadband, the semi-official carrier, has dutifully complied. Indeed, as things stand, Channel24HD is off-air in over 90 percent of Pakistan.
To be sure, the channel’s management is expected to put up a robust defense of its rights. Certainly, no public figure, least of all a prime minister, can claim that his or her “private affairs” are out of the scope of public scrutiny and accountability, especially if they impinge on questions of ethics, morality, integrity, character or matters of government and state as covered by Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution of Pakistan. Indeed, scores of politicians, public figures and celebrities across the world are everyday investigated by the global media for “private” transgressions of the public interest and many have lost their jobs in the bargain.
The PTI government is becoming increasingly authoritarian in its quest to stifle dissent. This is in direct proportion to a rising tide of popular angst at its dismal performance in the last eight months in office. Unfortunately, some “pillars” of the state and society, including many sections of the media, are so in awe of the cult of Imran Khan that they cannot bring themselves to chastise some of his unacceptable behavioral traits. Some have a vested interest in propping him up for one reason or another.
Nine months ago, we were apprehensive, for a host of reasons, that the coming PTI government would make a mess of things. [https://www.thefridaytimes.com/welcome-to-new-pakistan/]. This is what we said.
The PTI would restrict fundamental rights and pave the way for a witch hunt of political and media opponents in order to satisfy the bloodlust of the winners, protect them from any potential buffeting by a disgruntled opposition and detract criticism from unpopular policy decisions or incompetent and corrupt mismanagement. If that happens, we should expect NAB, FIA, FBR and IB to get hyper active after all state institutions are brought on the same page…The constitution may also be targeted for amendment. The 18th Amendment, for starters, has become irksome because it shaves the federal pool — which is required to pay for increasing defense expenditures and pensions— by devolving financial resources to the provinces. A need may also be felt to reduce the size and strength of Punjab in the scheme of things…Plans remain on the anvil to carve it up into three or more ‘units’ that are politically more ‘manageable’… But the ‘new dream team’ that is lining up to run the ‘new Pakistan’ will not find it easy going. The economy needs more than a shot in the arm. Hard times are upon us and the very middle-classes and rich that have catapulted Imran Khan to office will have to pay the price of their convictions. The value of their rupee is going to fall, so their everyday needs will become expensive; they will have to pay more indirect taxes and duties; and IMF structural reforms will dampen infrastructural growth and employment. This will give grist to the opposition, media and judiciary to stand up and create hurdles in his path.
Much of what we predicted is already evident. But if the opposition, media and judiciary have not yet banded together to challenge Imran Khan, it is only a matter of time before they do. The more the PTI government falters and takes one U-Turn after another, the more it will be discredited. Popular disenchantment with it is being rapidly converted into outrage.
The economic outlook is dismal. GDP growth is expected to fall to 3%; at least 4 million people will fall below the poverty line; inflation is forecast to rise to 15 per cent; out of the 1.8 million youngsters coming into the job market, at least 1 million will remain jobless. And so on.
Worse, the PTI is riven with bitter internal divisions. Stalwarts FM Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Jehangir Khan Tareen (JKT) are slugging it out in the open; MOI Fawad Chaudhry is blasting away at the MD PTV who is protected by a cabal close to the PM; and there is a subterranean battle underway among JKT, MOF Asad Umar and MOC Razzak Dawood. Ex-ATM Aleem Khan is bitter, Punjab Governor Chaudhry Sarwar is sulking and ex-CM KP Pervez Khattak is simmering. Ominously, the Miltablishment is beginning to wonder whether all its eggs are safe in IK’s basket.
A single spark can light a prairie fire.
Crunch time
April 12, 2019
“Imran Khan will have to go home”, declared Asif Zardari recently. Alas, that’s easier said than done. If only Mr Zardari hadn’t been so cocksure about his “strategy of cooperation” with the Miltablishment. But Nawaz Sharif is in the same boat. If only he hadn’t been so rigid about his “strategy of defiance” of the Miltablishment. Indeed, if only both had not underestimated the rising worth of Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to the Miltablishment.
The traditional parties are now paying the price for being unable to discern the rise of an angry, youthful, insecure, urbanizing middle-class that forms the support and recruitment base of both the PTI and the Miltablishment, which colours their mood and outlook and gels both together. The buzz word for both party and institution is “corruption”. Both passionately believe that an end to “corruption” will usher in an era of economic growth that would provide more, better paying jobs to the one and bigger “defense” budgets and security to the other. Both also favour a certain administrative set-up to achieve this end – a non-party local government at the lowest rung of the political ladder and a powerful political leader (President) right at the top in line with their mutual interests – Imran Khan being the charismatic, cultish agent for the change in the status quo that they seek. Both are pressurizing the other institutions of state and society like the judiciary, media, public accountability watchdogs and corporate regulators to do their bidding. The PTI provides the legitimate cover for the use of forceful measures by the Miltablishment.
It doesn’t much matter to them that there is no organic link between corruption and economic growth or political and administrative systems. Some very corrupt countries like China (a dictatorship) and India (a democracy), show the highest economic growth rates in the world. Nor indeed is there any evidence that the politico-administrative system they have in mind, which has been tried and abandoned at least three times in the past – during the decade-long dispensations of Generals Ayub Khan, Zia ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf and their civilian collaborators and puppets – will deliver this time round.
The Miltablishment has been an enduring pillar of the Pakistani state. Progressively, however, its Intel Agencies have acquired greater say in how its interests are managed. This is largely due to an overload of “national interest” duties beyond its eastern and western borders in the last four decades which have necessitated appropriate “political management” at home to be effective during times of civilian rule. This management began to make inroads into the political system during the PPP regime from 2008-13 when the PMLN, superior judiciary and corporate media were all successfully nudged into destablising the Zardari government and relegating the PPP from a national to a regional party. During the subsequent regime of Nawaz Sharif, a two-pronged strategy was undertaken to weaken it. First, Mr Sharif was pressured to go after Mr Zardari and the Sindh government on the pretext of a definite link between corruption and terrorism. Then, having alienated the two mainstream parties from each other, new life was breathed into the PTI and Imran Khan was catapulted to the commanding heights of opposition. Panamaleaks fortuitously provided a convenient plank to undo Mr Sharif while Mr Zardari watched anxiously from the sidelines. Come Elections 2018 and the dye was cast.
If Mr Sharif had played into the Miltablishment’s hands by targeting Mr Zardari, the latter now went the extra mile to endear himself to it by facilitating the rise of the PTI and its capture of parliaments at the centre and in the provinces in exchange for being allowed to rule in Sindh. Now, having rendered the PMLN and Mr Sharif impotent, the Miltablishment is going after Mr Zardari.
Both Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif have been “played”. Imran Khan has been planted firmly in the saddle. Efforts are afoot to “play” Shahbaz Sharif by driving a wedge between Shahbaz Sharif and Nawaz Sharif so that all remaining opposition to the Miltablishment’s “Grand Scheme to Reform Pakistan” is decimated.
Shortly after the 2018 elections, Maulana Fazal ur Rahman echoed Nawaz Sharif’s charge that the elections had been stolen from them. He asked both Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari not to sit in parliament and legitimize the new dispensation. Mr Zardari refused because he thought he would have at least a free hand to rule in Sindh. Nawaz Sharif refused because Shahbaz Sharif urged him to seek relief from imprisonment by cooperating with the Miltablishment. Now both must realise the grave error in their calculations.
Maulana Fazal wants to launch protests after the budget is announced because the people will be angrier and the Miltablishment possibly restless with Imran Khan’s leadership. Do Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari have the political courage to sacrifice their personal interests and endure hardship for the sake of their parties by heeding the Maulana’s advice? Or will they be “played” again? Crunch time is here.
Truth to power
April 19, 2019
Every ten years or so, some “interested” quarters start hankering for a “strong” presidential system of government along with “true” grass roots local government. Until now this wish was granted by coup-making military dictators like Generals Ayub Khan, Zia ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf. But, as these generals found to their acute discomfort, sooner or later they were compelled by the force of political circumstance to dilute their grand centralizing designs and share power with a bicameral parliamentary system bound together by four provinces. This “hybrid” system was finally overtaken by the 18thconstitutional amendment in 2010 passed jointly by the PPP and PMLN parties – exactly 37 years after it was first introduced by the 1973 constitution – whereby the Presidency became purely ceremonial and political and legislative power at the federal level was transferred exclusively to the prime minister/cabinet and the national assembly and senate respectively. Most significantly, however, the 18th constitutional amendment devolved more economic and administrative power to the provinces on the expectation that they would in turn devolve such power to local government.
But that hasn’t happened. The provinces are uniformly averse to establishing vibrant local governments headed by local leaders with an adequate purse from the provincial government. Worse, the federal arrangement is now wilting under the weight of rising defense and debt expenditures and regretting having to fork over a greater share of the central resource pool to the provinces as required under a National Finance Commission Award tied into the 18th constitutional amendment. So we have a political and economic crisis at the very top and bottom simultaneously that is creating anxiety about the “effectiveness” and “desirability” of the current governance system and a yearning for a system that is supposedly effective at the very top and bottom.
The fact, however, is that while we may have made the Presidency ceremonial and devolved more autonomy to the provinces, nothing has been done to rein in the centralizing instincts, demands and powers of the Miltablishment. Having lost the umbrella of the Presidency, these are now expressed more directly and ruthlessly than ever before by the “deep” organs of the state. In recent times, this “deep” state has engineered the rise and fall of political leaders and governments, manipulated elections and conducted foreign policy independently. Now, as the crisis of economy and governance deepens and criticism of its mishandling increases, the Miltablishment is getting impatient with some checks and balances that remain in the system in the form of small pockets of resistance in the judiciary and media.
The media has been effectively throttled by direct and indirect pressure. Direct pressure is exerted via door knocks, calls from unknown phone numbers and, in extreme cases, “disappearances”. Indirect pressure is exerted through PEMRA, cable operators, the FIA, NAB and FBR. In a unique innovation, we have now a band of unknown “concerned” citizen-vigilantes posing as petitioners for constitutional rights to protect national security institutions from “smear” campaigns by “unpatriotic” persons.
This method of harassment is now being applied to a category of judges as well. These judges are deemed “errant” because they have dared to speak truth to power. The first judge to taste this Miltablishment medicine was Justice Shaukat Siddqui of the Islamabad High Court. A maverick who had traditionally stood with the deep state but challenged it recently in a fit of pique rather than principle, he now faces a Reference in the Supreme Judicial Council.
Now we learn that Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court is overwhelmed by nine petitions challenging his judgment and remarks in a suo motu case relating to misuse of authority or deliberate inaction on the part of certain politicians and state institutions during a demonstration by Labaik Ya Rasool Allah last year before the general elections. Justice Isa criticized PEMRA for not fulfilling its duty against TV channels which violated the terms of their licences by airing and propagating the hate speech of the LYRA and failing to protect the rights of broadcasters. He held that politicking, manipulation of media undermines the integrity of the armed forces; he was perturbed by a perception of an intel agency’s involvement in matters that are not its concern; he reprimanded the Election Commission of Pakistan that its responsibilities are not optional; and he took to task inflammatory statements and behavior of politicians like Sheikh Rashid and Ijaz ul Haq and parties like the PTI. They have all petitioned the bench to review its remarks and exonerate them, or at least expunge some of its indictments. There is also talk of filing a reference against him in the Supreme Judicial Council, a foolish move that is bound to turn the spotlight back on its movers and shakers.
As our political history shows, neither the presidential system nor overt and covert interventions by the Miltablishment can deliver a prosperous and stable Pakistan. This is too complex and burdened a country for such simplistic solutions. Only by painstakingly building a national, democratic consensus can we save our soul.
Conspiracy theories
April 26, 2019
Let’s chew on a new conspiracy theory. It goes something like this:
The Miltablishment has reviewed its Political Engineering Design and finds that it is woefully short on expectations. Imran Khan’s parliamentary team is nothing short of a disaster. Worse, because its ownership falls squarely on the shoulders of the Miltablishment, it is bringing it into disrepute. Something needs to be done quickly before it all goes down the tube. A redesign is proposed. Imran Khan may throw up his hands in despair, claim that he is being thwarted from reform, dissolve the Assemblies, call fresh elections, and ask the people to give him a two-thirds mandate so that he can do the job he was ordained by Allah to do. A caretaker set-up of technocrats is firmed up. It imposes a Financial Emergency and requests the Supreme Court to allow a postponement of the elections until the country is out of the crisis (or until Imran Khan is somehow enabled to sweep the elections). In the meanwhile, NAB is spurred to knock out all the Zardaris, Bhuttos, Sharifs and their lieutenants so that the field is cleared for him. As a prelude to the redesign, the existing local government in Punjab – which is choc a bloc full of PMLN supporters — is dissolved by the passing of the new local government bill (which targets new elections a year hence) and the province is fully handed over to ever-loyal bureaucrats to assist in the project.
This theory is lent weight by one significant development. Instead of focusing on governance, Imran Khan has suddenly taken to travelling across the country to areas where the PTI is thin and addressing sizeable crowds herded into compounds by the bureaucracy, there to breathe fire and venom against the leaders of the PMLN, PPP and JUIF, announce new local development grants and projects. This is the sort of canvassing one does before an election, not after.
What if Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and his colleagues reject the feelers and are not ready to play ball? Well then, let’s check out Plan B. It goes something like this:
Ideally, a Presidential system with Imran Khan as President and empowered non-party local governments at the bottom would best suit the Miltablishment. That is the formula enjoyed by all our military dictators in the past. Such a system can be introduced via the sort of Yes/No Referendum employed by Generals Zia ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf. The Constitution requires both the Senate and the National Assembly to pass such a resolution by a majority. But the Senate is currently in opposition hands and will shoot down any such attempt. So Plan B is to install pro-Miltablishment provincial CMs coupled with technocrats and bureaucrats in all core ministries as advisors/special assistants/secretaries/IGPs etc and keep the ball rolling until the next Senate elections two years hence when the PTI can muster a majority in the Senate and introduce the Presidential system if necessary.
On paper, these political machinations seem do-able. After all, the Militablishment is all powerful and the opposition is divided and its leadership has been backed to the wall. But serious questions can be raised about the desirability of political engineering based on eliminating the opposition parties and setting up a one-party Miltablishment dictatorship at a time when the country is passing through its most acute economic crisis and is threatened by India, Afghanistan and Iran on three borders, an overly aggressive and interventionist United States and an unduly restrictive IMF. One would have thought that a national consensus comprising all the political parties binding the nation together would have served the Miltablishment better at such a juncture instead of a bitterly divided polity. Indeed, we might pause to consider what might have happened if the conflict with India in February had escalated to a point where the Miltablishment-government would have sought the opposition’s support and found it lacking – at the very least the PTI government would have been the “fall guy” for any negative consequences arising out of it.
In fact, we may realistically predict the following developments in the next two years or so. First, the economic crisis is going to leave most Pakistanis angry and alienated from the PTI government. A single spark could light a prairie fire. Second, The US-Saudi-Israeli plan for regime change in Iran is going to embroil Pakistan in its blowback by strengthening the India-Iran axis. Third, the US exit from Afghanistan is predicted to be humiliating, Washington will accuse Pakistan of facilitating its debacle and plan to take revenge by further cozying up to India. Fourth, the re-election of Narendra Modi will lay the ground for further destabilization of Pakistan. At times like these, nations need all their hands on deck.
One last point for consideration. An anti-opposition, anti-corruption agenda is fine during elections. Indeed, it is necessary in times of economic growth when opportunities for corruption are great. But when Pakistan is in the political and economic doldrums, political consensus and business confidence are essential to pull it out of the crisis.
Time’s not up
May 3, 2019
In a wide ranging and far reaching “briefing”, Maj-Gen Asif Ghafoor, DG-ISPR, has laid down the grundnorm of state realism. But consider.
He says there is no organized terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan. True, the military has knocked out Al Qaeda/Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and degraded the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. But a question mark still hangs over the fate of our “freedom fighter” jihadi organisations which are deemed to be “terrorist” by the international community. That is why Pakistan is struggling to remain off the FATF black list. The Maj-Gen says Pakistan has paid a huge price in the martyrdom of 81,000 citizens in the war against terror. True, but the world couldn’t care less: these homegrown terrorists were the outcome of our own misguided policies. He says that “radicalization” took root in Pakistan due to the Afghan jihad. True, but we were more than willing partners in that project. He says that terrorism came to Pakistan after the international community intervened in Afghanistan. True, but we provided safe haven to the Taliban for nearly twenty years and allowed them to germinate in our womb. He says it was decided last January to “mainstream” proscribed organisations. True, but what took us so long to tackle a troubling problem for twenty years when we were not busy in “kinetic operations”?
Maj-Gen Ghafoor says madrassahs will be mainstreamed under the Education Ministry. A noble thought. However, far from being mainstreamed, the madrassahs have so far refused to even get themselves properly registered as per the National Action Plan. Now the Punjab government and religious parties have refused to comply. Indeed, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government is actively funding some big ones which have provided the backbone of the terrorists.
But it is Maj-Gen Ghafoor’s briefing on the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) that has generated the most controversy. He says the military has responded positively to its demand to de-mine FATA and reduce check posts but is constrained by lack of civil administration in the area and resurfacing of terrorists from across the border. Fair enough. But most of the “disappeared” are still “disappeared” and extra-judicial killings, like those of Naqeebullah Mehsud, are not being investigated. He wants to know why the PTM asked the Afghan government not to hand over the body of Dawar to the Pakistan government. He has accused PTM of receiving funds from hostile intel agencies. If that is proven it would be a damning indictment of PTM.
The PTM has responded by accusing the military of being unaccountable and repressive, a view that is echoed by many rights groups, media and political parties across the country.
In response, Major General Ghafoor has threatened: “Time is up”. Presumably, the military wants to detain and charge some PTM leaders as “traitors”. That would be most inadvisable. It will only serve to swell the PTM ranks. It may even precipitate an armed resistance, given the propensity of foreign intel agencies to fish in troubled waters. We also know how the various “traitors” in Pakistani history have ended up acquiring heroic proportions while “state realism” dictated otherwise. The list is long and impressive: Fatima Jinnah, Hussein Shaheed Suharwardi, Mujeebur Rahman, G.M. Syed, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, Khair Bux Marri, Ataullah Mengal, Akbar Bugti, etc. etc. We also know the fate of “banned” organisations – they simply reappear under another name.
The PTM has arisen because of the trials and tribulations of the tribal areas in the last decade of terrorism. The Pashtun populace has been caught in the crossfire of insurgency and counter insurgency. The insurgents were once state assets with whom the populace was expected to cooperate. Those who didn’t suffered at the hands of both. But when these “assets” became “liabilities”, those who didn’t cooperate with the one were targeted by the other. In consequence, from racial profiling to disappearances, a whole generation of tribal Pashtuns is scarred by state policies. The PTM is voicing that protest. If neighbouring foreign intel agencies are exploiting their sentiments, it is to be expected as a “realistic” quid pro quo for what Pakistani intel agencies have been serving its neighbours in the past. New York City destination wedding packages for perfect elopement . We plan affordable weddings at Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Top of the Rock and other places.
If the Pakistani Miltablishment has been compelled by the force of new circumstances to undo its own old misguided policies, it should at least recognize the legitimate grievances of those who have paid the price of its miscalculations and apply balm to their wounds. Every other household in FATA is adversely affected one way or the other by the “war against terrorism”. The PTM is their voice. It needs to be heard. The media should be allowed to cross-examine it. In turn, the PTM must be wary of being tainted by the “foreign hand” and stop abusing the army.
The civilian government and opposition in parliament should sit down with the leaders of the PTM and find an honourable and equitable way to address mutually legitimate and “realistic” concerns. The military’s self-righteous, authoritarian tone must give way to a caring and sympathetic approach. Time’s not up. It has just arrived.
He doesn’t know
May 10, 2019
Acheeky reporter asked Imran Khan the other day whether it was easier to lead the opposition than to run government. Pat came the reply: “Government”. The Prime Minister couldn’t be more wrong. As he stumbles from one stupid decision to another, he would be advised to heed the wise old man with a leaky umbrella: If you know that you don’t know, you can learn and become a wise man; but if you don’t know that you don’t know, you’re a fool who will court disaster.
It has taken Imran Khan over nine months of U-Turns to finally decide that Pakistan cannot do without an IMF bailout plan. In the process, he has thrown Asad Umar overboard, his avowed right hand finance minister, and sacked Tariq Bajwa, Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, whose three-year constitutional term still had a year to run. The irony is that both home spun gentlemen were striving to conclude a realistic adjustment programme with the IMF so that the expected hardship could be spread over the populace less inequitably and more gradually. On the other hand, the two gentlemen he has imported to replace them, Hafeez Sheikh and Raza Baqir, are blue-blooded by the standards of international donor finance institutions, including the IMF, and are likely to sign on the dotted line as and when required. The irony is that the IMF has long advocated the necessity of the SBP being independent, or at least autonomous, of the Finance Ministry. Now it is rubbing its hands in glee at the effective merger of the SBP with the Ministry of Finance under two IMF-chosen “experts”.
The PM’s decision to appoint Shabbar Zaidi as Chairman FBR, even as the incumbent, Jehanzeb Khan, is still working overtime to prepare budgetary plans, is another lesson in arrogant recklessness. The Establishment Secretary’s note for approval of the cabinet says that there may be a conflict of interest in Mr Zaidi’s case and contempt of court if proper procedures and concerns for selecting someone to such a post aren’t followed. The PM didn’t like this summary and ordered it replaced with a one point note seeking approval of the appointment on a pro-bono basis. It may be recalled that in at least four judgments between them, the Supreme Court, the Islamabad High Court and the Lahore High Court have struck down earlier Prime Ministerial appointments of Chairman Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority, Tariq Sadek; Chairman FBR, Ali Arshad Hakeem; Chairman Securities and Exchange Commission, Mohammad Ali; and Chairman PEMRA Absar Alam, for failing to follow strict guidelines of selection, competition and transparency. Indeed, even Presidential appointments without due process are open to challenge in the courts, as evidenced in the case of Salman Farooqui some years ago. Bilawal Bhutto says he may challenge Baqir’s appointment. Meanwhile, the appointment of Hafeez Sheikh has already been challenged in the Peshawar High Court and there is resistance from the FBR Officers Association to Mr Zaidi’s proposed nomination. The likelihood is that either Mr Zaidi will extricate himself from this mess by withdrawing his candidature or Imran Khan will ride roughshod over all objections and appoint him, only to face legal challenges in due course.
The recent cabinet changes also confirm the fact that Imran Khan is clueless about how to pick and choose a successful team. Why Usman Buzdar continues to be Punjab CM remains a mystery that has stricken half of Pakistan. Why Fawad Chaudhry, who was an effective pain in the opposition’s neck, was shunted to the Ministry of Science (“Hubble telescope was put into orbit by Suparco” will remain a priceless gem for a long time) and replaced by Firdaus Awan of no particular virtue, will rankle for months to come. Why, after having kicked out Asad Umar ignominiously, the PM is now desperate to bring him back into his fold, is equally baffling. And so on.
In a meeting of the PTI parliamentary Party last Wednesday, the PM was confronted with awkward questions. Why was Asad Umar sacked? Why are blue-eyed IMF boys being imported to run the economy when everyone knows the IMF programme is going to alienate the populace and make it bitterly angry at the PTI? Why are parliamentarian legislators being shunted from ministerial positions as enjoined by the constitution and replaced with non-accountable advisors and special assistants? Does the PM have any idea of how the graph of the PTI is falling outside the PM House and why his MNAs and MPAs are unable to show their faces in their respective constituencies?
Imran Khan’s response was not surprising. I am the PM. I am answerable to the people and not you. I will take whatever decisions I think are in the people’s interest. In effect, shape up or ship out.
It didn’t occur to the “selected” PM that this applies more than ever to him rather than anyone else. He doesn’t know that he doesn’t know.
Small print
May 17, 2019
Finally, after flip-flopping for nine months, the PTI government has signed on the dotted line with the IMF. It has also revived the PMLN’s tax amnesty scheme that it once lambasted as “a national security threat”. In the bargain, it has ditched the finance minister, Asad Umar, and the Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Tariq Bajwa. Both gentlemen seemed to be overly concerned about protecting Pakistan’s interests , while their boss, Prime Minister Imran Khan, was ready to throw in the towel. Peeved, Mr Umar is threatening to reveal details of his disenchantment with the IMF.
To be honest, though, there’s no point in haggling when you don’t have a leg to stand on. Without the IMF’s financial assistance, we will default on our external payments and be declared bankrupt. Without an extra injection of funds from the Tax Amnesty Scheme, we will have to cut back on defense or development expenditures, which we can ill-afford.
The “deal” with the IMF is subject to certain tough conditions. First, we must get the green light from FATF. As we speak, Pakistani officials are negotiating compliance before the Asia Pacific Group of FATF chaired by India. A lot of homework has been done. But this will be an on-going review process. If there are terrorist attacks in India whose footprints can be traced to Pakistan, the FATF file on Pakistan will be opened again.
Second, the IMF wants Pakistan to roll over its debts to China, Saudi Arabia and the UAE so that the burden of debt payments can be staggered over time. So Prime Minister Khan will have to pick up the begging bowl and grovel in faraway capitals all over again.
Third, the provinces will have to be pressured to accept a cut in their constitutional share of federal revenues so that IMF targets of the primary deficit can be met. While PTI governments in three provinces may be expected to roll over and play dead, Sindh will scream. But NAB can be leveraged to silence it.
Fourth, the IMF wants to “facilitate trade”. This will mean an end to export subsidies and restraint on increasing import duties. In other words, trading volumes will be determined exclusively by the exchange rate.
Fifth, the exchange rate will float freely so that the SBP doesn’t deplete its reserves by selling forex in the market in order to prop up the rupee. In other words, there will be continuing devaluation and rising inflation.
Sixth, the IMF wants to encourage spending on development and poverty alleviation. With given debt payments, that will lead to pressure on defense expenditures. Can we expect the brass to receive this with equanimity?
Last, but most important, it is an established fact that Washington leverages the IMF, World Back, Asian Development Bank and other international financial institutions through the US Treasury to achieve its foreign policy goals. Should Pakistan fail to deliver on US objectives in Afghanistan and India – a difficult task – we may expect these institutions to get tougher on future installments of funds.
The PTI Tax Amnesty Scheme is not dissimilar to the PMLN scheme that fetched less than Rs 100 Billion. But with the economy headed into a deeper trough, even that amount seems far-fetched. Some wisdom has therefore prevailed in allowing tax payable to be determined in the next six weeks but payment made over the course of the next twelve months, albeit with some surcharge.
But, like the PMLN scheme, the PTI scheme suffers from one major defect. It excludes “holders of public office” in the last twenty years. Why twenty years? Why not the last five or last thirty? What is the objective criterion for this cut-off date? Then there’s the definition of public office. It is all encompassing, spanning full three pages of an Ordinance. It includes everyone from the President of Pakistan at the top to Tehsil Nazims at the bottom, including paid private sector executives, advisors, consultants, etc., of statutory organisations or institutions or organisations in the control of the government of Pakistan. In other words, it excludes tens of thousands of officials and “public” representatives who are amongst the most corrupt in the country. This is the cream of the elite that has captured the state. This is the elite against whom we all love to rail. But what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. It seems that the bowels of the state of Pakistan are not to be cleansed after all.
The Tax Amnesty Scheme was nine months in the making. If the PMLN scheme had been extended when the PTI government took over, there would have been a lot of money in the coffers today. In the event, it took half a day to be promulgated via a Presidential Ordinance after proroguing the National Assembly so that it couldn’t be debated.
The small print in the IMF Agreement and Tax Amnesty Scheme testifies to the incompetence of the PTI regime in the face of rising national security challenges to the state of Pakistan. The forecast is grim.
Faites vos jeux!
May 24, 2019
Maulana Fazalur Rehman’s efforts to unite the PMLN and PPP and launch agitation against the PTI government have finally borne some fruit. An Iftar dinner last week of all opposition parties was presided over by Bilawal Bhutto and included Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Mariam Nawaz Sharif, Maulana Fazal and a clutch of leaders of small parties. The moot agreed on one point: a consensus strategy on the way forward would be stitched up at an All Parties Conference after Eid. But differences of emphasis and opinion were conspicuous.
Both the PPP and PMLN say the PTI government should be allowed to complete its tenure. Neither said a word against the ubiquitous Miltablishment they hate as the bane of their existence. Both want to peg the agitation to the discontent of the masses following the IMF’s harsh measures. Both are at pains to ‘clarify’ that their opposition is not related to the corruption trials and tribulations of their leaders at the hands of the PTI government, Miltablishment and NAB.
The ANP leader from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, whose only son was assassinated by the Pakistani Taliban, was more forthright. He laid the multiple woes of the country, including the rigged elections of 2018, squarely at the door of the Miltablishment. But the JUI’s Maulana Fazal and the two leaders of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement present, Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar, were more circumspect, refraining from attacking the Miltablishment, a notable departure from earlier practice.
Clearly, there seems to be a consensus that the attack should be focused on Imran Khan and NAB, and the Miltablishment should not be provoked further.
What happens at the APC after Eid when the austerity budget will be announced by the PTI government will depend on how events shape the political fate of Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari. The former is desperate to get bail and exit the country. The latter is anxious to avoid arrest by NAB in multiple cases of money laundering and corrupt practices. Whoever gets some palpable relief will not wish to antagonize the Miltablishment (that is fully backing the PTI government) by wholeheartedly participating in any anti-government agitation. But if both leaders are crucified, then we may expect their parties to mount an agitation on the back of widespread popular anger at galloping inflation and soaring joblessness.
Mr Zardari is running from court to court, posting or extending bail. He could be arrested at any time. But Mr Sharif’s fate will take longer to decide. His bail application in the Islamabad High Court and pursuant appeals in the Supreme Court will not be conclusively decided in less than two or three months. So it is unlikely that the PMLN will risk any direct confrontation with the Miltablishment-backed PTI government until then. In other words, the probability is that the APC after the budget will be more sound and fury than militant protest.
As a measure of what lies in store, a recent interview by the NAB Chairman, Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, to a TV anchor and columnist has diluted the media impact of the Iftar dinner. He says Asif Zardari and Hamza Shahbaz will be arrested soon. He implied that the Sharifs want an NRO deal. He admits that the PTI government won’t last ten minutes if NAB were to open cases against its political allies and new entrants but revealingly adds that he doesn’t want to create political instability. In short, his interview has confirmed the counter charge that NAB is under pressure from the PM to pursue the PPP and PMLN and sway public opinion against the opposition leaders.
Meanwhile, before they chalk out their respective strategies, the opposition political parties would do well to make a proper determination of the exact power dynamics of the relationship between Imran Khan and the Miltablishment. Some people think that Imran Khan has considerable autonomy in taking core political decisions, especially in relation to the opposition. Others believe that the Miltablishment calls the shots and Imran Khan is a mere puppet. If the former is correct, then a policy that focuses on confronting Imran Khan will pay dividends. But if the latter is the case, then nothing will be gained by tiptoeing around the Miltablishment. Indeed, a better policy might be to attack Imran Khan for the worsening economic and social conditions of the country while simultaneously alluding to the real puppet master behind him. This assessment would also imply that the Miltablishment has taken Shahbaz Sharif and Asif Zardari for a ride and is wholly responsible for their tribulations. It would, in the event, compel the opposition to calibrate its policies accordingly.
In the next six months, three developments will cast a shadow over political stability in Pakistan. First, the personal fate of Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif at the hands of NAB and the courts. Second, the simmering rage of the people at their IMF-sponsored disembowelment. Third, change or continuity in the Miltablishment high command. Faites vos jeux, place your bets, ladies and gentlemen!
Hope vs reason
May 31, 2019
The economy is in tatters, inflation and joblessness are stalking the landscape. Both western and eastern borders are insecure – a civil war is threatening to spill over one border while an invigorated predator is sizing up its prey on the other. Terrorism/insurgency in Balochistan is barely manageable even as another threatens to shatter the newfound peace of FATA. Hounded to the wall, the mainstream opposition is inching towards mass agitation. Yet the PTI government of the day – hanging by an arrogant and unaccountable puppeteer’s thread — is bent upon imprisoning popularly elected leaders of Sindh, Punjab and FATA, blackmailing the NAB Chairman to do its bidding, prosecuting an honourable judge who dares question the writ of the puppeteer, extinguishing a rising star from lighting the path of the opposition and gagging the media from speaking the truth. Under the circumstances, can we shut our minds to reason and hope that all will be well? Or will defiance trump logic and set things right?
The Afghan Taliban are not likely to concede core American demands. In time, the Americans will blame Pakistan for not doing more to bail them out. President Trump has already teamed up with PM Modi to contain, if not confront, Pakistan’s lifeline ally China. Before long, both will turn the screws on Pakistan, the former via the US Treasury’s manipulation of the IMF and FATF and the latter by priming its “offensive-defense” proxy war doctrine. This will transpire when the ruling Puppeteer–PTI clique stands totally alienated and isolated from most sections of state and society.
The confrontation in FATA between the “patriotic” army and “treasonous” populace may get worse. Both sides have wantonly crossed red lines. In the heat of the moment, the protestors tried to overrun a security check post. The army shot and killed several of them. Next time, the protesting crowds will be bigger. If a new insurgency is born, it will doubtless be aided and abetted on a bigger scale by hostile neighbours.
The NAB chairman was spoiling to be hoist on his own petard. But the PTI exploited his weakness to advance its anti-opposition agenda. Now, if he throws in the towel and the government is successful in empowering its hand-picked Deputy Chairman, then there will be more confrontation, more repression, more political instability, more economic chaos. It is remarkable, isn’t it, that the media managers of the government, in cahoots with a civilian intel agency, should have successfully staged such a coup? No wonder, the government is adamant in denying a proper investigation into L’Affaire Chairman!
The decision to target a Supreme Court judge and teach a suitable lesson to other wayward judges was expected. The good judge had dared to tick off the Intel Agencies and seemed inclined to read out the “democracy” sections of the constitution to them. Horror of horrors, he was also lined up in due course to rule as the chief justice of Pakistan for many years. Confronted by leaked reports of a Presidential Reference to the Supreme Judicial Council to defame him, he has demanded to know the veracity of the reports. The Additional Attorney General in Karachi has resigned in protest. If other judges don’t resist such machinations, the peoples’ struggle for an independent judiciary will be lost. Certainly, there is at least one other judge who may be on the hit-list for ruffling the untouchable feathers of certain VIP housing societies across the country.
Next in line is the Election Commission of Pakistan. Having advisedly taken a soft look at the shenanigans of the Prime Minister, it is now being pressured to take a hard stance against Mariam Nawaz Sharif. If it does the government’s bidding, it will join the queue of discredited state institutions that are paving the way for societal anarchy and states of siege.
The worrying future is already upon Pakistan. The US is gearing up India and others to confront and contain China in the Asia-Pacific and Asia-West region. China’s Road and Belt project, in general, and CPEC, in particular, will be targeted. It is also engaged, along with Saudi Arabia, UAE and others in trying to force regime change in Iran as a prelude to redrawing the map of the Middle-East. This makes Pakistan’s third southern border vulnerable. It also threatens to open deep sectarian divisions within the country.
Wiser counsel would surely advise a contrary path. A national all-parties government headed by a stolid prime minister who can disarm domestic critics, build trust with prickly neighbours, manage the economy dispassionately and herald certainty and stability would do Pakistan much good. Such a dispensation would heal the wounds between provinces, between state institutions, between political parties, between classes and ethnicities, between Pakistan and its neighbours while pulling the economy out of its current trough. A nation united and at peace with itself is bound to be a nation united and at peace with the rest of the world. More than anything else that is the need of the hour.
Will hope be rekindled at the altar of realism? Or will despair be our lot when reason is sacrificed?
Last Bastion
June 7, 2019
Supreme Court Justice Qazi Faez Isa is in the eye of a storm. It doesn’t require rocket science to figure out what happened and why.
Justice Isa has committed three cardinal sins. He was the author of the Quetta Commission Report into the bombing in August 2016 wherein he noted the complicity of terrorist and jihadi organisations with the security organs of the government. Then he took suo motu notice of the 21-day long Faizabad dharna staged by the Labaik Ya Rasool Allah in November 2017 and censured the dubious role therein of civil-military intelligence agencies, the Election Commission of Pakistan, PTI and touts like Sheikh Rashid, Ijaz ul Haq etc. Last month, he made bold to deliver a lecture to a gathering of civil society in Lahore on the merits of democracy, the protections afforded to it in the 1973 constitution of Pakistan and how these have been violated from time to time to the detriment of the judiciary and Pakistan. Wounded, all the “aggrieved” parties filed review petitions in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, seeking a reversal or expungement from the record of the stinging remarks passed by the good judge. Meanwhile, a conspiracy was hatched to discredit and maybe even get rid of him from the SC. After all, the Miltablishment has no love lost for judges who are inclined to rock its boat. In this case, the motivation is doubly reinforced: the troublesome judge is lined up to be the Chief Justice of Pakistan in a few years’ time.
But the ironies in this case should not to be missed. Qazi Faez Isa was the very judge who presided over the Memogate case in 2011 in which the PPP’s Ambassador to Washington, Hussain Haqqani, was hauled over the coals by the Miltablishment. Then Qazi Faez Isa was deemed patriotic, now he is subversive. Hence the Reference for Misconduct filed by the President of Pakistan, Arif Alvi, upon the advice of the Prime Minister, Imran Khan, both of whom have been suitably guided. The Reference was stitched up by two of the PM’s point-men in such matters: the man who drummed up the complaint, Shahzad Akbar, the PM’s special assistant on accountability heading the newly established Assets Recovery Unit, and Farogh Naseem, the Miltablishment’s favourite [Law] Minister who was also General Pervez Musharraf’s lawyer. Mr Alvi, it may be recalled, had tweeted in high praise of Justice Isa in 2015 and Ms Shirin Mazari had lauded his upright and independent stature as a judge. The former has now blithely signed on the dotted line while the latter is conspicuous by her stunning silence.
Whether or not Qazi Faez Isa was obliged by law to declare some of his foreign wife’s assets in his own wealth statement, the political motivation to gun for him cannot be denied. The PM and President come to the Reference with unclean hands, bad faith and mala fide intentions. This fact alone will certainly cast a dark shadow over the trial. This case also has the potential to weaken and drain the SC by subjecting its judges to “accountability” trials for political reasons. As it is, the Court is already in the dock of the PMLN and tens of millions of its supporters for stringing up Nawaz Sharif on the dry twig of Iqama. It is doubly ironic that this Supreme Court comprises judges who were in the vanguard of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy a decade ago against the authoritarian whims of a military dictator. Should they again succumb to pressures from similar quarters, they will be signing off on the chapter of their collective demise in the people’s history of Pakistan. After the siege of the mainstream parties and the capitulation of servile media owners, the SC is the last bastion of the Republic. As we speak, there are loud whispers that the next-Chief Justice of Pakistan, Gulzar Ahmad, is also in the gun sights of the same forces for censuring their pet housing societies.
The agitation brewing outside the SC should not be dismissed out of hand just because the two mainstream political parties, PPP and PMLN, are crippled by the incarceration of their respective leaders. Civil society and lawyers countrywide are beginning to stand up as much in personal support of Justice Faez Isa as for the principle of judicial independence and opposition to Miltablishment meddling. The Additional Attorney General in Karachi has resigned in protest; national and provincial Bar Associations have resolved to resist such conspiracies; leading lawyers, retired judges and independent media persons are speaking up. Despite the censorship and blackmailing threats, there are stirrings of resistance everywhere.
PEMRA is trying desperately to stop the media from airing contrary opinion and the facts. No matter. The truth will out and this attack on the judiciary will be repulsed. The puppeteer and the selected government will rue the day their arrogance and self-righteousness got the better of them as General Pervez Musharraf learnt to his abiding regret.
Political Economy of Budget
June 14, 2019
The PTI government has unveiled a harsh budget. The FBR aims to collect about 40% (Rs 1.5 Trillion) more taxes in the next twelve months compared to last year, despite forecasts of a fall in GDP growth from 3.3% to 2.4%. Every reputed economist says this is grossly unrealistic and we should expect periodic mini-budgets when the government misses its IMF-dictated targets and is compelled to dish out more of the same medicine (increase in tax rates). Under the circumstances, how can the economy be “stabilized” when the fiscal deficit is targeted at 7.2% but may in fact hit 9% if the revenue targets are missed?
The Finance Minister, Hafeez Sheikh, claims the new budget is anti-rich and pro-poor. To give the devil his due, the rich will certainly have to fork over more, which is as it should be. So-called “non-tax filers” will be brought into the tax net by various means; property speculators will have to pay capital gains tax; property valuation for tax on registrations and transfers will be significantly increased to reflect market rates; dividend income tax will go up; rental income tax will be progressively at par with income from other sources; questions will be asked about source of foreign remittances for investment if these exceed Rs 5m; those who don’t disclose foreign assets can be imprisoned for up to 7 years apart from paying hefty fines; “gifts” from non-family sources will be taxed as income; the condition of foreign residency – used to evade filing tax returns in Pakistan – has been increased from six to nine months. The super-rich will have to cough up as much as 35% of their income. And so on. What is conspicuously missing in this area are death duties and inheritance taxes. Both are levelers of wealth in rich countries but haven’t been countenanced in Pakistan! Similarly, corporate tax rates remain low, having fallen from 33% in 2015 to 29% last year and today.
But the poor will be at the receiving end of the stick. The burden of a regressive income tax structure on the salaried lower and middle classes is all too palpable – for instance, as noted economists have argued, those in the salary range of Rs 30,000 -50,000 per month are fated to lose the equivalent of two salaries in the year due to various tax measures. Given the recent devaluation of 25% and the additional burden of heavier import duties on edible oils, pulses, tea, and a range of household items, inflation of 15% is bound to hurt the relatively poor more than the rich. Indeed, over 2400 import tariff lines are going to be enhanced, some of which will inevitably take a toll of the lower and middle classes. Similarly, a substantial increase in the taxes on cement, sugar, juices, aerated water, etc, will hurt the consumption of the middle classes. Taxes on retail have been extended across the board.
There are misgivings in other areas as well. The PSDP is frozen and the budgeted outlays for CPEC related projects are down by 40%. Both are critical to economic growth and employment.
The government’s problem relates to two main necessary expenditures: debt service and defense. The former will gobble up 50% of all projected revenues while the latter will account for up to 34%. We were told that the defense budget would be cut. In fact, however, it is proposed to rise by 11% from last year’s budgeted sum of Rs 1694 Trillion to Rs 1882 Trillion this year. But that is partly because of overruns last year owing to tensions with India.
The PTI government doesn’t inspire confidence. It has missed major targets in the last twelve months. Despite a devaluation of 25%, exports haven’t registered any rise. Large scale manufacturing was targeted to grow by 6.8% but it fell to 2.9%; Agriculture growth was set at 3.8% but scraped through at 0.8%. The IMF program was delayed by nine months. A U-Turn was taken on the Amnesty Scheme after a year of vacillation and, despite repeated exhortations by Prime Minister Imran Khan, not much has come of it.
In a veritable midnight knock, Mr Khan has ranted about the piling up of the national debt to crippling proportions “in the last ten years”. He is setting up a task force to determine who is responsible for this policy debacle. But, instead of economic and finance experts, this will comprise civil-military intelligence and criminal investigation agencies and the tax collection authorities. His intention is clear: to further castigate the PPP and PMLN regimes of the last decade to divert attention from the PTI’s own mess-ups.
This Miltablishment-dictated model of political economy comprises elements of state repression, media suppression, judicial interference, enforced extraction and dispossession, as in Turkey and Egypt. Both these countries are autocratic, relatively homogenous and enjoy foreign backing. Still, they are racked by high inflation and simmering political discontent. But Pakistan is bristling with passionate ethnicities, class inequalities, regional tensions, foreign hostilities, resilient party political structures and “civil-democratic” traditions. It won’t work here.
Propaganda, no substitute for governance
June 21, 2019
The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf’s strategy for survival is not based on good governance or performance. It is based on two Goebbelian propositions: first, if you lie about something time and again, the gullible masses will begin to treat it as the truth. Second, if you continuously hound your enemies to the wall, they will have no time to focus on your failures. Thus the tall claims made by Imran Khan and his cohorts about their own successes and the crimes of their political opponents.
Shahzad Akbar, the PM’s Special Assistant on Accountability, is wont to making tall claims but has seldom much to show for them. Recently he outdid himself when he boasted that the PTI government had signed an Extradition Treaty with the British government whereby Ishaq Dar, the ex-PMLN Finance Minister, “hiding” in London would be repatriated to Pakistan, after being brought before a British magistrate, to face various corruption charges. But a day later, an intrepid reporter in London asked the British Home Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to clarify the situation. Pat came Mr Hunt’s response in the presence of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi. “There is no extradition treaty that the UK would ever sign that would allow for politically motivated extradition”, said Mr Hunt. Mr Qureshi could only muster one word in concurrence: “Correct”. It seems that Mr Dar hasn’t been sitting at home twiddling his thumbs. He had already met with officials of the Home Office to acquaint them with the facts of the political victimization of the PMLN’s leading stalwarts, including himself.
It seems that Mr Hafeez Sheikh, Pakistan’s finance minister appointed by the IMF to negotiate with the IMF, has also succumbed to this Tall Claims disease after rubbing shoulders with Imran Khan. He recently announced that the Asian Development Bank would chip in with over US$3.4 billion in aid to Pakistan. Stunned by the falsehood, the ADB had to pull out its spokesman from his weekend reverie and issue a swift denial.
Award for the Tallest Claim, however, goes to Imran Khan himself. Not so long ago, he announced a bonanza of oil and gas off the shores of Karachi that would transform Pakistan from a hell of poverty into a paradise of plenty. The ministry concerned and the American oil drilling company were not amused: they were shutting up shop and heading home after confirmed failure to discover anything when the prime minister was exhorting Pakistanis to offer “thanksgiving” prayers to the Almighty for showering them with his largesse. Mr Khan has now achieved legendary status as the Pied Piper of Pakistan. He claimed he would end corruption in 90 days. He claimed that he would attract hundreds of billions of dollars from expatriate Pakistanis for investment in Pakistan. He pledged to present 5 million houses to the poor. He vowed to plant 1 billion trees in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. He also said he would commit suicide before begging the IMF for money (pity that he didn’t). The list is unending.
Not to be forgotten is the PTI Minister, Faisal Vawda who recently claimed that his government would provide 1 million jobs to Pakistanis in a matter of weeks.
Now the government has sourced a report that claims “India has responded positively to Pakistan’s offer of talks”. Delhi says no such thing has happened.
As if the NAB witch hunt against the PMLN and PPP isn’t enough to detract attention from the PTI government’s resounding failures on every front, the doer prime minister has now established a commission of inquiry to investigate why the national debt has ballooned in the last ten years. This commission is headed by a police officer in NAB. It comprises investigators from various government agencies and departments like a veritable JIT. This is remarkable, considering that economic policy rationale is the supposed subject of the inquiry, which an A-Level student of Economics can give us on the basis of facts and figures supplied by the State Bank of Pakistan and the Finance Ministry. Equally, Dr Hafeez Sheikh, the PTI’s finance minister who was part architect of some of those debt-driven economic policies in the Musharraf and Zardari governments, can brief the PM about the logic behind them. But no. The PM would rather treat this exercise as a criminal offense by the PPP and PMLN. Hence there is no attempt to even consider what happened under military governments.
That indefatigable warrior against corruption, Shahzad Akbar, has explained that this commission will probe, with the help of the Auditor General of Pakistan, all the economic projects of the PPP/PMLN governments that have shaped the debt profile of the country with a view to unearthing the corruptions that lined the pockets of PPP/PMLN politicians and their families. In other words, more of the same propaganda against the opposition.
This strategy is not a substitute for governance. Propaganda cannot provide employment, health, education or homes. It cannot put money into the pockets of the needy. This everyday truth will come to haunt the PTI in time to come.
Hugging and puffing
June 28, 2019
After a month of thundering how they would all heave the PTI government out of Islamabad, a gaggle of big and small opposition parties that met last Wednesday in Islamabad could only muster an agreement to huff and puff without bringing the House down. The truth is that nothing more was expected of them.
Everyone has known of tactical and strategic splits within the PMLN, with Nawaz and Maryam Sharif urging the party to charge the citadels of the Miltablishment and Shahbaz Sharif stolidly in favour of appeasing it. This was embarrassingly evident in the run-up to the All Parties Conference: Shahbaz proposing a Charter of Cooperation on the Economy with the PTI government and Maryam dismissing it as a veritable joke! In the APC, neither pressed his/her point and let the discussion meander to its logical non-end.
The PPP was always circumspect. The Co-Chair, Asif Zardari, had done a deal with the Miltablishment before the elections whereby, in exchange for being given a free hand to win and run Sindh, he had delivered a government in Balochistan to the Miltablishment and thrown in the Senate Chairmanship for good measure. How could he now jeopardize his party’s provincial gain by burning his personal boats, especially since he still had a couple of cards up his sleeve while he waited and watched for some sign of relief from his erstwhile “partners”? Better, he reasoned, to encourage young Bilawal to spit fire and venom against the PTI government while he personally maintained a studied non-committal gravitas.
Maulana Fazalur Rahman’s case is different. He believes passionately that his JUI was robbed of precious electoral seats, including his own, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa because of a Miltablishment conspiracy to cut him down to size. Therefore, he has everything to gain if there is a new election or if he is accommodated in parliament following some change of government in Islamabad. That is why he has been playing on the front foot, as it were, demanding en masse resignations from parliament and a “million-man” march on Islamabad to dislodge the PTI from power. He must be disappointed that all he has got from this exercise is the promise of a JUI man as Deputy Speaker of the Senate, following the proposed ouster of the current Chairman and Deputy next month.
The rest were largely small fry who didn’t much matter. The two parties that could have helped fuel street agitation or resistance in their own spheres of influence, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Baloch National Party, didn’t bother to attend. The JI is wary of wielding its street clout in favour of two parties (PPP and PMLN) that its electorate immensely dislikes. The BNP was wooed over with sweet nothings at the last minute by no less than the PM himself. Mr Akhtar Mengal, its leader, probably reckons that the Miltablishment and PTI alliance is unshakeable, for the time being at least, and there is no point being at the receiving end all over again.
Now we have the future charter before us. The opposition parties will mull over how to persuade the Senate Speaker to quit voluntarily (because he’s a decent man), failing which they may serve a formal notice to him to quit or face a no-confidence move. If the Senate falls into their hands, they can create many logjams for the PTI government even if they can’t oust it. Beyond that, there was a meek call for a Black Day next month and a litany of demands, demands and damned demands, all of which the PTI government can blithely ignore as it has done in the past.
We can draw one conclusion for sure from this charade. Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif and many of their party stalwarts are not yet ready to face long imprisonments. All are still hoping for some sign of personal relief from the Miltablishment. If it comes, well and good; if it doesn’t, the option of burning their boats is still there at a better time, that is when Imran Khan has completely lost his sheen and the masses are thoroughly fed up and ready to rise and revolt against the PTI.
Does this mean that the status quo is solidly entrenched for five years? Not at all.
No one, least of all the Miltablishment, is under the delusion that Imran Khan has the experience or ability to deliver on the multi-faceted national crisis at hand. But its options are decidedly dismal. After having spent the better part of the last five years destabilizing and demonizing the two mainstream parties, how can “they” ask any one of them to form a new government even if the chosen one is ready to bow and scrape before them? A “national government” is an option whose time hasn’t come because Imran Khan’s voters may be sullen but the economy hasn’t yet bitten them severely enough in the behind for them to scream for his scalp.
Meanwhile, there are pressing issues to attend to, like matters of postings, transfers and extensions.
New Star
July 12, 2019
Mariam Nawaz Sharif has finally shrugged off her ailing father’s mantle and come into her own. Sitting center stage with PMLN President Shahbaz Sharif and ex-PMLN Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on either side, she stole the show exposing the dubious role of NAB Accountability Judge Arshad Malik in the conviction of Nawaz Sharif in the Avenfield Flats Reference that sent him to prison for ten years. It was, by all accounts, a forceful performance which has set the stage for a revival of the beleaguered PMLN’s fortunes in the face of a relentless assault by the government and Miltablishment. Last week, Mariam whipped up an impressive rally in Mandi Bahauddin without the key stalwarts of her party in attendance. Throughout her campaign, her tweet brigade has hogged social media with stinging barbs at the “selected” and “fake” prime minister.
The PTI government has responded by pressurizing the mainstream TV media to black out her presence. Three “errant” TV channels led by Channel 24HD were taken off air for showing her rally. Channel 24HD has cancelled a scheduled “Up, Close and Personal” interview with Mariam. Now the government has ordered NAB to file another case against her. But, instead of being cowed down, Mariam has warned that if she is dragged to the courts again in trumped up cases, she will exploit the opportunity to reveal the shady role of high functionaries of state organs in compelling Judge Malik to pronounce her father guilty.
In the new NAB case she is accused of submitting a fake Trust Deed in the Avenfield Reference. The maximum punishment for such an offence is six months. But she has already been awarded a seven-year sentence in the same case because the judge did not accept the validity of the Trust Deed. The case is also hollow on one critical ground. The NAB Ordinance specifically bars the judge from entertaining an application from NAB seeking a fresh conviction on any aspect of the case after 30 days of the pronouncement of the judgment, which was pronounced over a year ago.
Clearly, the aim of NAB is to intimidate and harass Mariam. The government has already stopped Nawaz Sharif from meeting visitors apart from core family members. It has also stopped him from receiving food from home even though he has charged the prison administration of “poisoning” him to aggravate his illness. Mariam has threatened to go on hunger strike outside Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore if these rules are not relaxed. The government has now allowed a family doctor to see Nawaz Sharif once a week. She has upped the ante by releasing another incriminating video against Judge Malik.
Shabaz Sharif is silent. But Mariam’s daring has compelled Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to stand up and be counted too. He has gauged the mood in “relevant quarters” and said that tenure extensions have not served the armed forces well in the past, therefore General Qamar Javed Bajwa, COAS, will not seek an extension in November this year. Ominously, though, he says the PTI government will fall before November.
Mariam’s courage is infectious. Respected voices in mainstream media are beginning to openly resist government diktats through PEMRA. Pressure is mounting on judges to thwart the blackmailing tactics of the Miltablishment. Even though many lawyers bodies have been bribed by the government (in the form of monetary grants by the Law Ministry) not to agitate against a cooked-up Reference in the Supreme Judicial Counsel against Qazi Faez Isa, the Supreme Court judge who has dared to chide various organs of the state for overstepping constitutional red lines, a majority are still geared up to defy.
Elsewhere, agitated business bodies have either shut shop or are threatening to strike against crippling IMF-dictated tax impositions while the public is groaning under the weight of double digit inflation following 40 per cent rupee devaluation in the first year of PTI government.
The combined might of the PTI government and the ubiquitous Miltablishment has not been able to consolidate the gains of the rigged elections of 2018 for two basic reasons. The “Selected” prime minister is clueless about how to select and manage his team. He has wasted one full year taking policy U-Turns and shuffling ministers, compelling the IMF to blame the PTI government no less than the PMLN for the current economic mess. He has also focused on hounding the PPP and PMLN instead of delivering on his good governance promises to the people. Worse, his tactics have forced the hitherto warring mainstream parties to join hands and try to oust him from power. The instability and uncertainty thus engineered has exposed the many fault lines in state and society and made the prospect of a “New Pakistan” full of doom and gloom.
Leaders are born in the crucible of resistance to tyranny, oppression and injustice. Like it or not, Mariam Nawaz Sharif is the new star on the horizon eclipsing Imran Khan.
Political economy of growth
July 5, 2019
Rana Sanaullah, the feisty President of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), is in the clutches of the Anti-Narcotics Force, (ANF) facing death or life imprisonment because 15 kg of heroin was recovered from his family car. Prime Minister Imran Khan had publicly vowed to drag him by his moustache and bung him into prison. Next: Ahsan Iqbal, the PMLN’s ex-interior minister, is lined up for discovery of a couple of cruise missiles from the boot of his car. He too has been a pain in the neck, rattling off facts and figures to the acute embarrassment of the PTI government. Not to be forgotten is Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, ex PMLN prime minister, who is going to have a hard time explaining how four goats belonging to the prime minister have ended up grazing in his backyard. Last, but certainly not least, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, should be careful lest a miniaturized nuclear device camouflaged as an iPhone is discovered in her Chanel bag when she ventures out to address a charged anti-IK crowd in Mandi Bahauddin.
Mr Hanif Abbasi, President of the PMLN Rawalpindi, has faced harrowing months of incarceration courtesy the ANF because he had the audacity to petition the courts regarding a personal matter pertaining to the prime minister. Rana Sanaullah is also paying the price for alluding to similar issues. Some troublesome journalists, too, never tire of pointing out inconsistencies in the record of ownership of the prime minister’s Bani Gala estate. This issue acquires a degree of irony because the PTI government has just seized large tracts of valuable urban lands ostensibly belonging to ex-President of Pakistan, Asif Zardari, and PMLN’s Senator Chaudhry Tanveer which are listed as “benami”. Many more opposition politicians are likely to be targeted. Another journalist has been stopped from airing the contents of an interview of Asif Zardari in which he predicts trouble for the prime minister in a case unfolding in the UK and USA.
Increasingly, it seems, that the government is resorting to the use of state institutions and national security organs for repressing the opposition and media and pressurizing the courts and commissions. Ominously, therefore, these “national” institutions are losing their constitutionally ordained political neutrality so critical to their efficient and credible functioning. Anti-state slogans and sentiments that were once heard in disgruntled or alienated peripheral regions of Pakistan like FATA and Balochistan protesting state repression are now common even in the heartland of Punjab whence over 70% of state organs are recruited. By any stretch of the imagination, this meltdown of the steel framework of the state cannot be good for the stability and longevity of Pakistan.
The greater tragedy is that this repression of political opponents and hounding of journalists and civil servants is inimical to the economic reforms of the PTI government that are desperately needed to put the country back on track.
The resort to the IMF and international donors, however belated and controversial, could not have been avoided, given the desperate straits into which the economy was about to plunge. Tax reform was equally necessary, even though we can disagree with some details and timings, to stop the government and country going bankrupt. The PTI’s tax amnesty scheme, too, is welcome, no matter that Imran khan had opposed the PMLN tax amnesty scheme in 2018 that netted about Rs 140 billion in additional revenues from about 90,000 new and old tax filers. The new scheme has generated about half as much in revenue records. In all, both schemes have recorded about Rs 6 trillion in hitherto undeclared assets and added over 100,000 new tax payers. The law against “benami” assets is also good. This was an outrageous anomaly that facilitated money laundering by the rich. It is, of course, unfortunate that the rupee has greatly devalued in the reform process and will hurt many sections of the population whose standard of living is linked to cheap imports of food, medicines and industrial raw materials, etc. But it was about time we learnt to live within our means instead of banking on foreign handouts to maintain an artificially propped up lifestyle.
To be sure, economic or political reform is always painful for vested interests that stand to lose their perks and privileges. Inevitably, such vested interests will resist their losses by resorting to protests, strikes and lockouts. The poor, especially, will be hard pressed to keep their head above water. Naturally, they will be angry, alienated and prickly. In such a situation, a single spark can light a prairie fire and bring the government down and doom the reform program.
National consensus, political stability, media accountability and economic certainty are a necessary condition for economic development that breaks the chains of external dependence and internal mismanagement. That is why, instead of beating the opposition black and blue, stifling reasoned criticism and bringing state organs into disrepute, the prime minister would be advised to offer principled reconciliation in the national interest.
Big Brother’s Heel
July 22, 2019
Media rights have come full circle. Three decades of relative freedom are over. We are well and truly shackled. Consider.
For four decades after independence, from 1947-1988, the media was, in Zamir Niazi’s immortal word, “in chains”. During the decades of dictatorship under Generals Ayub Khan and Zia ul Haq or under Z A Bhutto’s autocracy, Pakistanis were compelled to tune into BBC Radio to know what was happening in their country.
But after the fall of General Zia in 1988, democratic elections were ordered and a caretaker government amended the Print and Publications Ordinance of 1962 and freed the print media. Benazir Bhutto didn’t warm to criticism in her first regime from 1988-1990 but learnt to live and let live, as she put it, “in the din of democracy”. Nawaz Sharif was inclined to be less tolerant from 1990-1993 but generally didn’t kick the media about. While Ms Bhutto remained true to democratic form in her second term from 1993-1996, Mr Sharif’s “heavy mandate” in 1997 went to his head and he started to get tough with dissenting voices in the media. Both were wary of allowing the print media to venture into the electronic age.
Then General Pervez Musharraf became a darling of the media in the early 2000s when he opened the floodgates of TV licensing and lapped up media compliments for being a hybrid democrat who had got rid of a budding “Amir ul Momineen”. A hundred TV channels bloomed. The media promoted the good general’s government and all was hunky-dory, until he made the fatal mistake of rounding on a maverick judge and lit a prairie fire. The media that he had freed now turned on him and turfed him out.
Asif Zardari’s regime (2008-13) was very tolerant even though the media was very sharp. So was Nawaz Sharif’s (2013-2018) even though he lost his job, thanks to Panamagate scooped by the media.
But one important development in the media was already becoming evident in the last decade – corporatization. Increasingly, big business was seizing control of print and electronic organs and beginning to downgrade journalistic ethics, standards and independence at the altar of vested corporate economic and political interests. One unfortunate consequence of this development was the ease afforded to the Miltablishment to make inroads into the media and influence its editorial policies on the pretext of the patriotic “national interest”. Democratically elected popular civilian governments were now subjected to Miltablishment pressure and criticism via the popular media when they ran afoul of it. This began during the Zardari tenure and acquired sinister proportions during the last Sharif regime.
The Miltablishment has changed over the years. Its rank and file are more intrusive, more aggressive, more self-righteous than ever before. This is part of the “nationalistic” anti-liberal status quo wave sweeping across the Millennial globe. One consequence is that the ISPR has started to loom larger than life. After General Musharraf’s exit, its DG was upgraded from the rank of a serving Brigadier to a Major-General. Its HQ was rebuilt and modernized. It was flushed with funds. Its scope and mission statement was enlarged. The DG’s press statements, conferences and tweets were now splashed across the front end of the news cycle. Millennial reporters and TV anchors tripped over themselves to showcase their “patriotic” credentials and consolidate their jobs with business bosses. The elected leaders in government were subjected to a barrage of hostile media fire. Their inefficiency and corruption – notions rooted in the training and ethos of the Miltablishment – became the buzzwords of the new media to besiege the democratic process.
Everyone knows that the elevation of Imran Khan and Millennial-backed PTI is owed in great measure to the tactical and strategic policies of the new Millennial Miltablishment. Now we are reaping the fruits of this unholy political alliance.
PEMRA was supposed to be an independent media watchdog. Now it has become a potent anti-media weapon in the hands of the Miltablishment-Government. The cable operators in the private sector were expected to be business-neutral. Now they are only an unknown phone call away from blocking channels. Social media thought it could function freely in the rarefied space of the Worldwide Web. But Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are routinely petitioned by the PTI government to take down hostile voices. Sometimes social media critics are “disappeared” to teach everyone a lesson. Now plain clothed agents have taken to visiting journalists and advising them to behave, or else. More ominously, prominent journalists are being accused of being “unpatriotic” and cases of “treasonable” behavior are being lodged in police stations across the country. Media owners are sacking “troublesome” journalists and anchors, even going so far as to ban some of them from tweeting opinion from their personal social media platforms. Journalists’ protests are routinely blacked out by their own organs.
The judiciary is not affording any relief. Even the mighty BBC has been sent packing.
Pakistan’s “democracy” is now firmly situated in George Orwellistan. We are under the heel of Big Brother.
Hercules Unchained
July 26, 2019
Upon his return from the US on July 24, Prime Minister Imran Khan told a charged welcoming crowd of PTI activists at Islamabad airport that “I feel as if I have returned after winning the World Cup”. What, exactly, is the Herculean feat that he claims to have performed in Washington?
In a speech at the United States Institute of Peace, Mr Khan said he was “bowled over” by President Donald Trump. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard any such reciprocal sentiment from President Trump. This is the same President Trump who called ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif “a terrific guy”.
The PTI government is crowing about President Trump’s offer to “mediate” the Kashmir dispute as a great initiative by PM Khan. Alas! There is no such mention in any press briefing or statement by the US State Department or White House, and New Delhi has swiftly put paid to the notion that any third-party mediation over Kashmir was ever mooted between Indian PM Narendra Modi and President Trump. Washington insiders clarify President Trump’s statement as another one of his notorious gaffes.
Mr Khan claims that he did not seek financial or security assistance from the US because he abhors “dependency”. We note only that President Trump referred to the possibility of “incentivizing” Pakistan in the distant future only if – and this is the Big IF – Pakistan were to “do more” to facilitate the US end-game in Afghanistan. True, Mr Trump held out the carrot of “trade and investment”. Curiously, however, he only talked of how US exports to Pakistan in agriculture and energy could be increased without once mentioning how Pakistani exports to the US might be facilitated in the future.
We know that Pakistan pulled out all the stops to get this appointment with President Trump. So what’s the Big Deal now that the two great leaders have met?
It appears that the sole aim of Mr Khan’s visit was to establish a “personal rapport” with President Trump and charm him to death so that the US is more sympathetic to Pakistan’s myriad internal trials and external tribulations, so that the US trusts Pakistan not to play “double games” as in the past but also understands why Pakistan cannot fully and quickly deliver Washington’s foreign policy agenda in the region in view of the “complex situation” in Afghanistan. Equally, Pakistan hopes Washington will not lean on FATF and the IMF to tighten the screws. If this mission has been accomplished, then Mr Khan can genuinely claim to have secured a great diplomatic success. But the jury is out on this critical matter.
America wants the Taliban to cease fire, start talking to President Ghani and his coalition Northern Alliance partners, agree to a power sharing formula based on a constitutional consensus, participate in the forthcoming elections and usher in peace and stability so that an agreed timetable for US troop withdrawal can be implemented. All this must be done in the next few months. If this isn’t a tall order which Islamabad is expected to furnish, we don’t know what is.
Mr Khan has informed the Americans that he intends, very soon, to meet with Taliban leaders and convince them of the need and urgency of accomplishing these goals. But he has also cautioned that there are strong vested interests, internal and regional, which do not much care for peace and stability in Afghanistan along the lines advocated by Washington and Pakistan. He has exhorted the US administration to stop these from putting a spanner in the works, an allusion to India which is cut up by its exclusion from the regional dialogues (US, China, Russia and Pakistan) taking place about the way forward in Afghanistan.
Mr Khan has also warned about the likely regional and global consequences of a US-Iran armed conflict, especially during the current window of opportunity to “sort out” Afghanistan. This is a bold and timely intervention, for which he must be praised, given President Trump’s hostile attitude towards Iran and countervailing military moves in the Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz.
Mr Khan admits that “mutual trust” between the US and Pakistan has been lacking in the past. He attributes this to the different national interests and narratives of each side which haven’t been squarely put on the table and reconciled honestly. He says he’s a straight talking person and hopes to bridge this gap. He holds out the assurance that he will be as good as his word because, unlike in the past, the Pakistani Military and civilian government are on “the same page” viz a pragmatic “resetting” of not just Pak-US relations but also Pak-Afghan and Pak-India relations.
In international relations, trust is built by delivering on mutual interest. The Trump administration is also in a hurry to announce a “successful” pullout from Afghanistan in election year. If Imran Khan can deliver on this external agenda no less than on his internal reform program, he will truly deserve a second World Cup trophy.
Beware!
August 2, 2019
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is about to detonate a political device in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir whose “nuclear fallout” may spill over into Pakistan with far reaching adverse consequences. At this stage in regional dynamics, exactly the opposite is the need of the hour for Pakistan. It could also destabilize Pakistan internally, derail its Afghan-reconciliation and peace policies and thereby strain relations with America once again. Consider.
Mr Modi has announced his intention to repeal Article 35A of the Indian Constitution that allows the Parliament of Jammu and Kashmir to define “permanent residents” of the state regardless of any rights granted in this context to citizens of the rest of India by the Indian Constitution. The J&K state law restricts “outsiders” from acquiring immovable property, getting jobs or scholarships in the J&K government or “settling” in the state. This right was granted in 1954 by a decree of the Indian President incorporated into the Indian constitution in the context of Article 370 according “Special Status” to J&K in 1952.
Various arguments for and against its repeal have been advocated in India. But the Modi government’s decision will be challenged in the Supreme Court of India. If the SC holds in the government’s favour, J&K will “explode”, to use Kashmiri leader Mehbooba Mufti’s word of warning. Indeed, Kashmiri leaders across the political divide have vowed to “resist” this encroachment on the rights of the state because they fear its true objective is not just to transform the demographic profile of their state to advance the cause of “communal-minded majoritarianism” espoused by the Sangh Parivar as “an ideal solution to the problem of Kashmir” but also bury all notions of J&K autonomy and its “disputed” status vis a vis Pakistan. Put bluntly, Mr Modi wants to “settle” J&K in the same manner that Israel has “settled” Palestine – by rooting in it strong Hindu vested interests aligned to New Delhi.
This move comes at a time when J&K is already in violent revolt against its “occupation” by New Delhi, when India-Pakistan relations are at their lowest ebb following the armed conflict because of the Pulwama incident earlier this year, when soldiers and civilians of both countries are daily dying across the LoC by the retaliatory shelling of the two armies. As a measure of its urgent purpose in anticipation of renewed resistance, New Delhi has hurriedly dispatched over 10,000 soldiers to J&K to buttress an existing force of over 500,000 troops, para-militaries and police. The irony is that this “warlike” development comes in the wake of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent request to US President Donald trump to “mediate” the Kashmir dispute (which met with favour) so that Pakistan can give its undivided attention to stitching up peace in Afghanistan as part of an “honourable” exit strategy for the US in the long war with the Taliban.
As the wannabe regional hegemon, Modi’s India is cut up by exclusion from the round table comprising Pakistan, China, US and Russia that is now deciding Afghanistan’s future. It has invested over US$2 billion in Afghanistan’s infrastructure. It has invested geopolitically in the development of Chahbahar Port in Iran and a road and rail line from there to Afghanistan as a foil to Pakistan’s stranglehold over routes to the land locked country. It has persuaded the international community to wield the sword of FATF and isolate Pakistan diplomatically as a “terrorism exporting” country. A reset in US-Pak relations favourable to Islamabad’s strategic objectives in the region that leaves New Delhi out in the cold is unacceptable to India. Now, when the Pakistani polity is deeply divided, when its economy is nose-diving, when the Pakistani army and ISI are stretched politically and militarily, internally and externally, Modi’s India has launched its Kashmir “colonization” policy with one main objective after severing links between pro-resistance jihadi forces in Pakistan and Kashmir via FATF – to consolidate its hold by effecting demographic change in J&K through a repeal of Article 35A.
If this plan unfolds in this manner, the ruling civil-military junta in Pakistan will be hard pressed by the opposition parties and the jihadi groups to switch back into aggressive anti-India and pro-Kashmir resistance mode. Both are bristling with hostility towards the current political rulers of Pakistan. They will clutch at any opportunity to embarrass and divide their nemeses. The Pakistani media, which is also suffering at the hands of the same junta, will fan the flames of ingrained anti-India nationalism and back the political opposition-jihadi narratives. So too will the people of Pakistan who are laboring under the burden of harsh US-IMF sponsored economic conditions. Such a development will weaken the ruling junta and divert its focus from external to internal stabilization. This will displease the US whose exit strategy may be adversely impacted by a sudden deterioration in Pakistan’s relations with India.
Beware! The repeal of Article 35A threatens to unleash a dangerously destabilizing dialectic in the region.
Crisis of National Power
August 9, 2019
Shortly before the Indian elections, Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, wishfully declared that a win for Narendra Modi would prove to be good for peace between India and Pakistan. In the event, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
By separating Ladakh from Jammu and Kashmir and annexing both as Union Territories, Mr Modi has torn up Article 370 and Article 35A of the Indian Constitution that granted Special Status to Jammu and Kashmir pending a settlement with Pakistan. Outraged, Pakistan reacted by downgrading diplomatic ties with India, suspended trade and airspace and vowed to internationalize the dispute.
Mr Modi couldn’t care less. He had other plans from the start. He won the election by stoking fears about Pakistani-sponsored terrorism and followed up by delivering “strategic strikes” against the old enemy. After winning New Delhi, he put together a coalition government in Kashmir; then, by turns, he engineered the fall of the state government, imposed Presidential Rule, dissolved the state assembly and, as required in the absence of the state legislature, obtained the President-appointed Governor’s ascent for the President’s attack on Article 370.
Imran Khan has been clean bowled. He didn’t know what to think of Mr Modi’s pre-emptive additional troop deployment in Kashmir or the travel advisories to tourists and Hindu Yatris to quit Kashmir. He didn’t even know what to say in Parliament after the shocking event. He waited for a cue from the Corps Commanders meeting but when they didn’t come up with a “befitting” response – what’s the big deal, they said, Pakistan hadn’t accepted the legitimacy of Article 370 and 35A in the first place because of the primacy of the UN Resolutions – Mr Khan followed suit. Why, he thundered, we have known all along about the BJP’s anti-Muslim ideology, its thinking about revoking the Special Status of J&K (it’s in their manifesto, silly!) and so on, and this makes not a whit of difference to our traditional stance about a permanent solution based on a UN-sponsored Plebiscite. However, for the international record, he warned about massive repression in Kashmir, fierce resistance, an act or two of “terrorism” that would be laid at Pakistan’s door as in the case of Pulwama, heightened tensions along the border leading to conventional military conflict and, given the military imbalance, nuclearisation of the conflict with horrendous consequences for the region and the world.
But nobody seemed to much care about Pakistan’s dilemma, not even traditional Muslim allies like Saudi Arabia. Even China only put out a temperate statement asking both countries to resolve their disputes peacefully. And that great crowing “reset” with the US that Mr Khan had earlier likened to a second World Cup victory, following his “successful” talks with President Donald Trump in which he offered to mediate the Kashmir dispute, only yielded a denial that Washington was ever in the loop about Mr Modi’s intentions, a charge that India’s foreign policy establishment had cunningly leaked earlier. Fearing a public backlash about Pakistan’s “soft” response, a hurried huddle of the National Security Council, that includes the top brass, declared trade, airspace and diplomatic suspensions. Two days later, however, there was backtracking on most “suspensions”, raising suspicions that some “deal” at least on facilitating India-Afghan trade via Pakistan had already been brokered in Washington earlier and couldn’t be retracted.
The Miltablishment is in a royal fix. Over the decades, it has so injected the narrative of “Kashmir is Pakistan’s jugular vein” into the body politic of the state and people that anything short of “Kashmir banay ga Pakistan” is hard to sell at home. Nawaz Sharif twice tried to build a narrative of peace with India pending a final solution to the Kashmir dispute but he was castigated with the slogan “Modi Ka Jo Yaar Hai, Ghaddar Hai, Ghaddar Hai”! The Miltablishment is desperate to cement the status quo with India while it focusses on resolving Afghanistan to its advantage and enabling an “honourable” exit for the US. But Mr Modi has thrown a spanner in the works.
Public disquiet over Miltablishment policies regarding India and the US, suspicions that perhaps some other secret deal to “sell-out” on Kashmir has also been struck with Washington, coupled with rising anger over IMF sponsored economic policies, is a powder keg. The Opposition and media have already been hounded to the wall and are looking for an opportunity to stick the knife. The country is bitterly divided at home and isolated abroad. India’s leaders sense this as a particularly weak moment for Pakistan and are aiming to exploit it fully.
Unfortunately, the Miltablishment is at its wits end. Having put all its eggs in Imran Khan’s flaky basket and approved his decimation of the opposition and gagging of the media, it has left itself with few allies or options in the event of a strategic or tactical mishap, when Mr Khan will have to be scapegoated. The longer it takes to realise this unfolding crisis of National Power, the more problematic the solution will be when it explodes.
“Reset” thyself!
August 16, 2019
Pakistan is in the eye of a gathering storm. All the dangerous signposts ahead are clearly marked. For better or for worse, the decisions made and routes taken by our current civil-military leadership will make all the difference. Consider.
There is, truly, an unprecedented economic crisis. The leadership is still floundering after a full year of indecision or misplaced concreteness. Assistance from Saudi Arabia, China and the IMF is not without stiff political and economic conditions. By all independent accounts, many of these conditions relating to fiscal and trade deficits, inflation, growth, etc., will remain woefully unfulfilled. This will lead to stop-go logjams, uncertainty and political instability on the back of pervasive hardship for the common man.
There is also a simultaneous geo-strategic crisis at hand. On the one hand, America is leaning upon Pakistan to fulfill its pledge to pressure the Taliban to deliver a stable and peaceful power sharing dispensation in Kabul that allows for a safe and honourable exit for US troops from Afghanistan next year. On the other, India is determined to degrade whatever advantage Pakistan can derive from such an arrangement no less than the other Afghan players who are all inclined to lean towards India. But, significantly, the US and Kabul are both insisting that Pakistan must not link a multilateral Afghan “solution” to its bilateral problem with India even as the latter is making aggressive moves against Pakistan.
The problem for Pakistan is therefore two-fold. In order to continue receiving economic assistance from the IMF and other international financial institutions controlled by the US, Pakistan is obliged to comply fully and irrevocably with Washington’s political agenda on its terms. This is going to be a tough job. Simultaneously, Pakistan cannot afford to be baited by India vis a vis its recent unilateral annexation of Jammu and Kashmir, its proxy warring in Balochistan and FATA, and its border incursions. If economic management in such a harsh environment is going to prove difficult, imagine how much more impossible it will be for the civil-military leadership not to respond in equal measure to India’s aggressions. For seventy years, the theory of Realism has compelled a zero-sum game between the two adversaries. Now, however, it seems as if India is going one-up and there is nothing Pakistan can do about it. In the old days, Pakistan would have jumped into the Kashmir fray with state and non-state action. Now the best it can do is downgrade diplomatic relations and suspend trade, even though the former is meaningless and the latter will hurt Pakistan’s economy more than India. This will lead to bitter and sometimes unbridgeable angst not just within the rank and file of the civil-military leadership but also among its support base in the people of Pakistan.
In short, the critical “reset” that the civil-military leadership is now seeking with the US is fraught with pitfalls. It also implies a “reset” of its thinking about the role and status of Afghanistan in Pakistan’s National Power strategy. More importantly, because Pakistan’s Afghan strategy emanates from the compulsions of its strategy vis a vis India, there will be enormous international pressure to “reset” this relationship with India too at the same time. That would help to explain the timing of India’s move to annex J&K and conclude the “unfinished business of Partition” to its advantage.
Therefore, four hard, critical and simultaneous “resets” are required from the civil-military leadership. The economic “reset” cannot be accomplished without US support. US support won’t be forthcoming if its Afghan agenda is not delivered. The Afghan agenda can’t be delivered as long as India, with implicit support of the international community, is threatening to undo 70 years of Pakistan’s National Power policy. The problem is magnified by the fact that Pakistanis are not ready to meekly submit to economic hardships; the Taliban and other Afghan stakeholders are not ready to accept Pakistan’s advice or pressure; the US is not ready to accept “excuses” for failure, and India is determined to push ahead with its advantage.
On its own, the civil-military leadership is in no position to manage these four “resets” without major upheavals in the framework of state and society. One precondition in preparation for confronting these harsh realities is national consensus and political unity. But the civil-military leadership is lacking on both fronts.
In fact, it can be argued that the civil-military leadership seems to be moving in the opposite direction. Instead of bringing all political stakeholders to the table, it is putting them into prison. Instead of encouraging the critical media to invigorate the debate over the four “resets”, it is gagging it. Instead of striving for a national consensus on the way out of this multi-faceted crisis, it is confusing and alienating public opinion. The economy has taken the old tactical and strategic equations hostage. Under the circumstances, it is past time for this leadership to shape up and “reset” itself.
All bets are off
August 23, 2019
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s grant of a three-year tenure extension to General Qamar Javed Bajwa, COAS, hasn’t come as a surprise. Miltablishment-favoured journalists have been “breaking” this news for months. Indeed, each is now tripping over himself to claim he was the first to predict the earth shattering news. Nor is it surprising that Mr Khan has done yet another U-Turn, having earlier criticized the PPP government of Yousaf Raza Gilani for granting COAS General Ashfaq Kayani a three year extension and praising COAS Raheel Sharif for announcing well in time that he wasn’t interested in an extension from Nawaz Sharif. This is Imran Khan’s nth U-Turn, and we are still counting. If we continue to think Mr Khan means what he says or says what he means, we have another thought coming. He has made a fine art of deception that would do any politician proud.
What is surprising, though, is the form and timing of the announcement. There are still three months to go before Gen Bajwa’s first term ends. One can only speculate that the hurry may have been prompted by the need to divert attention from a chorus of angry voices criticizing the ruling junta’s mishandling of the Kashmir crisis, especially after crowing about President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate the conflict between India and Pakistan and likening Imran Khan’s trip to the US as a second World Cup victory!
Evidence of a hurried decision comes from three pointers. The first is the brief notification signed by the Prime Minister. It bypasses the President of Pakistan upon whose authority, on the written advice of the Prime Minister, such an appointment or extension is constitutionally made. No such advice was given before this notification was signed on 19 August. Second, it follows on the heels of the hurried arrest of Mariam Nawaz Sharif who was outspoken in her critique of the junta’s Kashmir policy and was expected to denounce the extension decision as well if she had been free. Third, the reason given for the extension – continuity of national security command in view of the regional situation – is thin on the ground. Inspired talk of the extension was leaked months ago when there was no India-provoked crisis in the region. It is also a poor reflection of the military’s institutional decision and command structure that it should admit dependency on one particular person at its apex.
The stunted response of the mainstream opposition parties isn’t surprising either. Apart from the usual suspects – like Farhatullah Babar of the PPP and a spokesman of the ANP who have taken principled stands – Mr Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto and Shahbaz Sharif are conspicuous by their silence. It is as if their silence was “coaxed” before announcing the decision so that no controversy would taint it. Under the circumstances, if the government, opposition and military are all “on the same page”, why should the media risk life or limb by not pretending that all is proper and well in the “national interest”?
PTI stalwarts have heaved a sigh of relief that General Bajwa will be sticking around for another three years to make sure that Imran Khan will complete his five years in office (if not in power). Indeed, some are going so far as to predict that Mr Khan will get another five years after that because the General-in-Waiting (who is said to have masterminded the Grand Slam that knocked out Nawaz Sharif, hoisted Imran Khan and ensured General Bajwa’s extension smoothly, will ascend the Miltablishment throne in November 2022 and continue on the path of the good and grand transformation of state and society launched in recent times.
Such is the stuff of hopeful elite chatter in drawing rooms no less than the hopeless refrain of the common man on the street.
But the perennial naysayers have not lost all hope yet. Politics, like everyday life, is not without its black swan. When Generals Musharraf and Bajwa were handpicked by Mr Sharif, no one could have imagined what role each might end up playing in their benefactor’s political ouster. Similarly, it would require a heroic feat of the imagination on the part of Imran Khan to think that he can remain in the great General’s good books for long if he slips up on delivering the tough economic and geo-strategic agenda at hand. At the end of the day, as the saying goes, a Pakistani Army Chief who can move a million armed men at the wag of his little finger is no one’s man except his own. Indeed, if the PM begins to think he has done the COAS any favour that must be returned, surely the COAS must be in a hurry to dispel such an impression in order to remain in command, and retain the respect of his rank and file.
The next year or two are going to be a hard test for the “same page” civil-military doctrine that is currently sprouting from every PTI rooftop. All bets are off!
National government
August 30, 2019
The first year of Imran Khan’s government is the bleakest in living memory. Part of the blame must rest with the Miltablishment that selected and hoisted him to power and condoned his bumbling, stumbling U-Turns. Unfortunately, despite pious statements from a battery of spin masters, the outlook for the next twelve months is extremely depressing. Consider.
Economic Policy: The fiscal deficit for 2018-19 was 8.9% of GDP (first target 4.9%, second target 7.1%), the highest in 40 years. This was largely due to IMF conditions regarding interest rates and rupee devaluation that bloated debt payments. Matters deteriorated when the PTI government’s mismanagement led to a drastic fall of the Tax/GDP ratio from 15.2% in 2017-18 to 12.7% in 2018-19. Inflation is the highest in decades, the poor are drowning in it. Business confidence is rock bottom, investment has ceased. The bureaucracy is afraid to sign off on projects. CPEC has ground to a halt. Standard & Poor rating agency has downgraded Pakistan’s yearly outlook from B to B-. The revenue in the first quarter of the new fiscal year is far short of targets. Development budgets have been slashed. Privatisation policy is uncertain and confused. Public sector development in health, education and the social sector is dismal. Exports remain sluggish. There are no foreign investment inflows on the horizon. The large-scale manufacturing sector is sagging. Forex Reserves are falling. Unemployment is rising.
Foreign Policy: Pakistan’s isolation is unprecedented. Barring Iran and Turkey, no Muslim country has supported Pakistan’s position on the annexation of Jammu & Kashmir by the Narendra Modi government. Indeed, several of them have lined up to invest big time in India and award Mr Modi with medals for being a high achiever. Even US President Donald Trump has withdrawn his offer to mediate the Kashmir conflict. Indeed, he has gone so far as to support Mr Modi’s position that the two neighbours should resolve their problems bilaterally. At home, the Miltablishment-Government is up the creek without a paddle. It is beating its chest and running out of breath. While Mr Modi is treading the red carpet in the capitals of the world, our own Imran Khan is regaling us to death with history lessons about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Regional Security: Ominously, President Trump has publicly confirmed that India is a strategic stakeholder in the resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan even as we are being assured by our Miltablishment that a big breakthrough – a deal between the Taliban and Washington – auguring well for Pakistan is on the cards. But this isn’t clear at all. There is no assurance that the Taliban will ceasefire for long, nor that they will effectively share power with the pro-American government and other stakeholders in Kabul. In other words, a deal with the Americans doesn’t automatically imply a deal between the Afghans, which means that the civil war may simply take another turn after the Americans’ exit, prompting regional countries like Iran, India and Russia to restart proxy interventions and wars.
Internal Conflict: The unrelenting clampdown on the opposition and media has sharpened divisions at home and weakened the national resolve to confront national crises together. The exploitation of NAB, FIA, IB, ISI, FBR, etc. for persecuting political opponents has damaged the credibility of state organs by eroding the notion of a constitutional contract between the rulers and ruled. Parliament hasn’t passed a single law in the last twelve months. The President of Pakistan has been issuing Ordinances and References without fulfilling his constitutional duty to vet these for propriety, resulting in an embarrassing blowback from the Chief Election Commissioner, Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court and various organs representing the bar and bench. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Pakistan and certain judges have been so politicized in the blind subservience of the Miltablishment and government that the notions of justice and trust on which the modern state rests have been rapidly eroded.
Spectre of War: The failure to anticipate the turn of events in India and fashion internal and external policies to confront them has raised the spectre of war with India at a moment in time when we are economically and institutionally weak and when the chances of any “settlement” with India are truly remote. Even a limited conflict will exact a heavy toll of our economy. But an escalation will draw foreign powers into the conflict and they will tend to lean on India’s side. This will lead to political upheaval at home and plunge the country into an existential crisis when we are not equipped to cope with it.
Way Forward: In this situation, it is insufficient for the Miltablishment and PTI government to be “on the same” page when the mainstream opposition parties are in the dock, when the independent media is gagged, when the courts, Election Commission, NAB etc. are under pressure to give biased judgments, when parliament has been rendered impotent, when the people are simmering, and when international powers are conspiring. A strong national government is the need of the hour.
Deal Politics
September 6, 2019
Conspiracy theories of a “deal” between the Sharifs and the Miltablishment originate mainly from media touts of the Miltablishment or PTI. They allude to secret meetings between Miltablishment emissaries and Shahbaz Sharif focused on the “voluntary” exile and silence of Nawaz and Mariam, plus a pledge not to undermine the Miltablishment or destabilize the Imran Khan regime, in exchange for some relief from NAB prosecution of the Sharif family and an enlarged role for Shabaz Sharif in the affairs of the current parliament and future government.
But since the Miltablishment must always come out looking good and the Sharifs as smelling foul, Nawaz and Mariam are “reported” to be desperate to get off the hook. One TV tout recently assured his viewers that the Sharifs had agreed to part with “trillions in looted money” in a plea bargain for freedom from jail and prosecution. This is aimed at confirming the PTI narrative that the Sharifs have stolen oceans of money and are ready to admit guilt by returning some of it. In one variant of the deal syndrome, Shahbaz Sharif is being encouraged to “break” with Nawaz Sharif so that he can curry favour with the Miltablishment.
The truth of the matter is more complex. Consider
The Miltablishment is “soft” on Shahbaz and “hard” on Mariam and Nawaz for sound reason. Shahbaz has always advocated a “big brother” role for the Miltablishment in government and advised Nawaz not to get entangled with Miltablishment demands and priorities in practical recognition of its enormous and unaccountable power. But Nawaz has constantly sought to establish the hegemony of parliament, prime minister and cabinet over the organs of the state who are constitutionally obliged to obey the “sanctity of the vote”. On three occasions in the past – 1993, 1999 and 2017 — he has lost his prime ministership by insisting on the primacy of this constitutional position. Now both he and his daughter are in prison, having consciously returned to Pakistan from a temporary reprieve in London, to stand up and face the consequences of demanding their democratic rights. Nawaz’s incarceration has adversely impacted his health while Mariam’s courage in resistance has landed her in the clink.
In the event, father and daughter have received succor from large swathes of Pakistanis, suggesting that the anti-Sharif “corruption” narrative has failed to take root beyond the PTI’s die-hard voter. That is why the last election was stolen from them and that is why efforts are now underway to neutralize their opposition to the “selected” government propped up by the Miltablishment. Therefore, it is not the Sharifs who are fishing for “deals” but the Miltablishment that is constantly baiting them.
In this unfolding scenario, the role of the judiciary in general, the visible conduct of certain judges and biases of judgment have been noted with increasing unease. That is why all potential “deals” with the Miltablishment involve equally “suitable” decisions from the judiciary. Today, there is no merit in Nawaz Sharif’s application for relief on health grounds but tomorrow if a “deal” is materialized the same grounds could become suddenly relevant. Today, the argument goes, judge Arshad Malik’s video is suspect. Tomorrow, if a “deal” is signed, it could lead to bail, if not quashing of Nawaz Sharif’s conviction, in the Avenfield Flats case.
This leads to one question: why is the Miltablishment keen on a “deal” with Nawaz?
There are two main reasons for this initiative. The first is the abysmal failure of the Imran Khan regime to deliver the Miltablishment agenda of good governance and development without which no artificial political dispensation can last for long. The second is the nature of the geo-strategic crises facing Pakistan which can only be contested successfully on the basis of a national consensus which is lacking because of Imran Khan’s vindictive, single minded pursuit of one sided “accountability” via NAB.
The Miltablishment’s dilemma is accentuated by the fact that the more the judiciary bends before its will, the more it loses credibility; the more Imran Khan’s “selected” government flounders, the more its puppeteer is discredited; and, by corollary, the more Nawaz and Mariam Sharif’s narrative gains in the popular imagination.
Until now, the Miltablishment has got away with its political shenanigans because two opposition leaders have gone against the grain of popular opinion. Asif Zardari and Shahbaz Sharif have not sided with Nawaz and Maulana Fazal ur Rhman in launching a popular movement to dislodge the PTI government. Amidst the mounting economic crisis, a great opportunity presented itself recently for agitation when the Miltablishment-PTI junta was all at sea in the confrontation with Modi’s India. But both shied away from exploiting it.
That may change in time to come when another such crisis hits Pakistan. That is why the Miltablishment is keen to cover its flanks by doing some sort of a deal with Nawaz Sharif. But the longer Nawaz and Mariam hold out for their own terms, the greater the likelihood that they will emerge as the ultimate winners.
Peace Deal Trumped
September 13, 2019
US President Donald Trump has junked the proposed Afghan peace agreement with the Taliban cobbled by his handpicked emissary, Zalmay Khalilzad, over many rounds of meetings with stakeholders in Qatar, Islamabad and Kabul. He says he had planned to bring Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Taliban leaders to Camp David for a historic signing but cancelled at the last minute because the Taliban continue to launch attacks on American and Afghan forces and won’t agree to a ceasefire.
This is a sloppy excuse. The Taliban say they never agreed to any signing in Camp David – the agreement was for an announcement in Qatar where all the talks have been held. The Taliban also say that they have consistently rejected the proposal for a ceasefire before the agreement as they have of any direct meeting with representatives of the Ghani government. The record bears them out. There were only two main points to the agreement: a firm American timetable for withdrawal and a pledge by the Taliban not to allow any terrorist activity from Afghan soil in America.
Clearly, Mr Trump has been clever by half. The Camp David scene was set to sell a “historic agreement” to the American people in which the US would have been billed as the victor in a long, bloody and costly conflict. But the Taliban rejected it because they are the victors in Afghanistan and don’t want to be portrayed in America as the losers. Certainly, their own constituents would have disowned their leaders if they had allowed themselves to be bullied into embracing sworn enemies Presidents Trump and Ghani.
But President Trump’s own team was also increasingly unhappy about the proposed deal. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had already expressed reservations and said he wouldn’t sign off on it. NSA John Bolton consistently argued for a much harder line with the Taliban and has been forced to resign because of disagreements with President Trump. Core right-wing Republicans in Congress and the Administration were also uneasy – they thought that, with Taliban attacks continuing, the deal wouldn’t even serve as a fig leaf for US troop withdrawal and provoke a domestic backlash, especially if the “murderers” of yesterday were feted as the “friends” of today on American soil.
Postscript: Mr Pompeo has tried to reassure Americans that US forces have “killed over 1000 Taliban in one month alone” and will continue the good fight against the forces of evil in Afghanistan. And Mr Trump insists he has junked the deal for good because the Taliban won’t agree to a ceasefire or talk directly with the Ghani regime. What next?
Clearly, Mr Trump is not about to junk his oft-repeated campaign pledge to the American people that he will bring American troops home from Afghanistan next year. So we may expect that after strong words have been exchanged between both adversaries, including well publicized attacks on each other’s forces in Afghanistan, they will be inclined to re-start talks sooner or later. Therefore, President Trump will now put great pressure on Pakistan not just to help restart the dialogue but also to “do more” to get a better deal from the Taliban for America. He will reinforce the traditional “carrot and stick” policy in hand: the carrots are spares for American weapons systems with Pakistan, Coalition Support Fund handouts, trade incentives, etc, while brandishing FATF and IMF sticks to drive the point home.
But this is easier said than done. There are many complications ahead.
The Presidential elections in Afghanistan are scheduled for later this month. If these are not postponed indefinitely pending an agreement with the Taliban, there will be massive bloodshed and instability because the stakes are very high for those who wish to participate and for those who wish to derail them. New vested interests on both sides will be consolidated and it will be difficult to undo them later. Apart from the US, which will be compelled to support the Afghan regime with more money and weapons, India, Russia and Iran will also strive to obtain leveraging footholds in the developing scenario from which they will not budge easily later. And Pakistan will find it difficult to convince the Taliban to concede some chips to America before all this happens.
President Trump’s wacky decision has put the Bajwa-Imran junta on the spot. They thought they had stitched up a win-win situation for Pakistan vis a vis the Taliban and the Americans, while managing to isolate and weaken the pro-India Afghan regime of President Ghani. Indeed, their glib spokesmen were prone to tick off critics who questioned the significance of the of the 21-gun welcome salute they received in Washington last month. Now it is back to the drawing board, with President Trump menacingly looking over their shoulder.
Pakistan’s trumped up “reset” with America has been unilaterally undone by President Trump. The junta will have to “Do More” to earn it now. That won’t be easy without economic revival, political stability and national consensus at home.
Course correction
September 20, 2019
The illegitimate political system thrust upon Pakistan last year, with the fig leaf of a “selected” prime minister, has come a cropper. This was a chronicle foretold by some political analysts. But, understandably enough, few dared to challenge the Man on Horseback. There are too many ethnic, regional, sub-nationalist, class, sectarian, institutional and ideological interests competing for a slice of Pakistan’s political economy to blithely accept such an authoritarian formula. It was only a matter of time before the contradictions, tensions and pressures of these competing interests rose to the surface and exposed the brittle nature of the political engineering carried out by the Miltablishment. The truth is that the complex crises facing Pakistan – economic, constitutional and regional – cannot be faced without a consensual national narrative at home. Consider the emerging fissures in the system.
The popularity of the mainstream PMLN that has been excluded from office in Islamabad and Lahore has risen in direct proportion to the failure of the PTI to “deliver”, no less than the plummeting credibility of certain state institutions to deliver “insaf” to Nawaz Sharif whether through the courts or through the NAB. Indeed, contradictions have arisen between the courts and NAB, with the former trying to protect its credibility by bending before the Bar while pointing an accusatory finger at NAB for discriminating between government and opposition. The recent conduct of the Supreme Court under CJP Asif Khosa to redress the imbalance, albeit belatedly, as evidenced in the latest developments in the Qazi Faez Isa case, should not be missed.
Much the same may be said of the Chief Election Commissioner, a retired high court judge, who has finally plucked up the courage to call a spade a spade. For obvious reasons, the CEC may not be keen to speed up the disqualification petitions against the “selected” prime minister, Imran Khan, but he has put his foot down on two important cases that have a direct bearing on political developments in Pakistan: he has refused to accept the PM’s two nominees on the ECP because these have not been sanctioned via due constitutional process; and he has allowed Mariam Nawaz Sharif to retain her Vice-Presidency of the PMLN.
Much the same sort of tremors are beginning to be felt in the media. The independent press, which had succumbed to junta pressure, is beginning to anticipate the prospect of breathing freely again. Proof of a halting revival comes from two opposite developments: a significant gang of “journalists” who had sold their souls to Imran Khan, or simply couldn’t resist the indiscreet charm of the Miltablishment, have suddenly taken a U-Turn and launched a barrage of criticism against the cult hero for whom they voted. Alarmed, the PTI government is trying to rush through emergency legislation to establish anti-media, speedy Tribunals, an effort that is likely to be fiercely resisted by the opposition in the Senate no less than by the media in the courts.
Cracks are also beginning to appear in the upper echelons of the Miltablishment. The loudest whisper is that not everyone is happy with the PM’s decision to extend the tenure of the army chief. And the more the political model fails to deliver, the more its chief architects and beneficiaries come under critical scrutiny. Indeed, the fact that the Miltablishment is facing a loss of credibility, trust and legitimacy in its bastion of Punjab whence its rank and file is largely recruited is cause for serious concern amongst its supporters. The fact that the chief minister of Punjab, a dubious selection, is the butt of both crude jokes and frustrated rage, is sufficient to reinforce the perception of unremitting, abject failure.
The continuing mismanagement of the economy and its ensuing hardships, in the backdrop of developing crises in relations with India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, America and Afghanistan, is giving sleepless nights to all and sundry.
Now Maulana Fazal ur Rahman has announced a million-man march on Islamabad. Nawaz Sharif is on board even if Asif Zardari is still hedging his bets. At the minimum, this will destabilize the government and set back its reform agenda. Maximally, it may spur a change of horses mid-stream to salvage the situation.
The most important factor in the dynamics of success and failure of any political strategy is popular perception of its strengths and weaknesses. Until recently, the Miltablishment was perceived to be ubiquitous, omnipotent and infallible; the combined opposition was imagined as weak, vacillating and divided; and the selected prime minister was lauded for his inspirational leadership qualities. But all that has, by turns, rapidly evaporated. The legitimacy of the political engineering has been corroded by the arrogance, incompetence, bias and unaccountability of its main practitioners in the organs of the state while the credibility and strength of the opposing forces, inspired by the courage and resilience of Nawaz and Mariam Sharif, has risen exponentially.
The sooner we recognize our failures and correct course, the better it will be for Pakistan.
Heart attack?
September 27, 2019
“Hindu” India is in raptures over the massive “Howdy Modi” reception accorded to its prime minister in Houston by expat Indians. Images of a triumphant Mr Modi and a beaming US President Donald Trump wading through the 50,000 strong crowd, hand in hand, are plastered all over Indian social media, signaling a solid relationship between the “greatest” democracy and the “biggest” democracy in the world. The implied textual reading is that America has bought the Indian stance on Pakistan, hook, line and sinker.
Interestingly, only last month, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan also received a tumultuous reception from around 10,000 Pakistani fans in Washington. Proportionately, speaking, this was even more significant, considering there are ten times as many Indians as Pakistanis in America. President Trump also had some flattering remarks to make about Mr Khan and Pakistan and the close cooperation and understanding between them going forward. That is when Mr Trump revealed that Mr Modi had asked him to mediate conflict between India and Pakistan, a claim that was promptly denied by New Delhi but without any impact on Mr Trump who has continued to publicly offer his services to both countries as an effective mediator.
What is significant about the separate meetings of the two sub-continental prime ministers with President Trump is the different meanings both have drawn from their joint press conferences with him and assorted statements later attributed to him.
The Indians say that President Trump has bought their argument about Pakistan as a “state sponsor” of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and approved Modi’s formal annexation of the state. The Pakistanis say that, on the contrary, President Trump is aware of the relevance of the UN Resolutions on Kashmir and is disturbed by the large scale, unprecedented violation of human rights in the Valley following the Indian “lockdown” in Kashmir.
The Hindu newspaper reports that the “Indian and US sides offered summaries of the meetings (of Mr Modi and Mr trump) that were, in some respects, at variance with one another”. The paper pointed out that “at least two differences between the two accounts – one on Afghanistan and one on terror and Kashmir – were substantive. The Indian account … said that Afghanistan had not been discussed …; the US administration, however, said that the two countries discussed Afghanistan”. The Indians said that “the session was split equally between a discussion on terrorism and trade” and that Mr Modi explained in detail “the challenges India had faced from terrorism, especially in Jammu and Kashmir over the last 30 years”. However, wrote The Hindu, “there was no mention of terrorism in the White House readout … Additionally, the (US) President encouraged Prime Minister Modi to improve relations with Pakistan and fulfill his promise to better the lives of the Kashmiri people”. The Hindu failed to note another difference: while the Indians claim that Pakistan’s terrorism was discussed, the White House declares that terrorism in Afghanistan was discussed!
Clearly, both India and Pakistan have articulated their respective positions to President Trump and, clearly, he has made reassuring noises in private to both. Clearly, too, he has been careful in public not to appear to be taking sides in the India-Pak conflict by fully endorsing anyone’s point of view. But it is significant that President Trump recognizes the potentially disastrous consequences of any military conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations because he keeps repeating his offer to mediate between the two countries.
The fact of the matter is that the US is walking a tightrope between two objectives: in the short term, it tactically needs Pakistan’s unstinting support to extricate itself honourably from Afghanistan – it now wants Pakistani to bring the Taliban back to the negotiating table with the US – and it needs Pakistan to stand with it and Saudi Arabia in their simmering conflict with Iran; in the long term, the US is committed to propping up India as a strategic partner in its conflict with China. The last thing President Trump wants in his election year is a conflict between India and Pakistan that drags Pakistan away from focusing on getting America a good deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan. When Mr Khan was asked whether President Trump had sought his mediation between the US and Iran, Mr Khan replied: “President Trump asked me to talk to Iranian President Rouhani which I did…”, without elaborating further.
There are two complications in this developing scenario. First, Mr Modi has ratchetted up tensions with Pakistan to such a point that if he doesn’t do anything to “teach” Pakistan a “lesson” soon, he will lose credibility with his Hindu nationalist constituency. Second, Mr Khan has ruled out the possibility of any dialogue with India unless the original Article 370 status of J&K is restored.
It’s no wonder then that Imran Khan told Richard Haas at New York’s Council on Foreign Relations that if he (Mr Haas) had had to deal with this situation, he would have had a heart attack!
Tryst with democracy
October 4, 2019
According to his never-say-die supporters, Imran Khan has returned from New York a “conquering hero”. There were even endorsements of one loyalist suggestion that the commercial plane carrying him back from Jeddah to Islamabad should be escorted by a fleet of F7 Thunder jets as a mark of honour. Imran bravely spoke “straight from the heart”, they say, and swept all Doubting Thomases before him, highlighting the critical issues facing the world today: climate change, Islamophobia, safe havens for money laundering and the Kashmir lockdown. Never mind that the hall was only half full. Never mind that he admitted Pakistan’s culpability in germinating Al Qaeda. Never mind that he raised the world’s hackles by brandishing nuclear weapons and threatening Armageddon. Never mind that the vicious Indian lockdown in Kashmir persists. Never mind that the prospects of Indo-Pak dialogue are dimmer than ever before. Never mind that a territorial state conflict has been relegated to a clash of fierce ideologies representing “Islamic” Pakistan and “Hindu” India.
There were some unintended consequences of the trip too. Inexplicably, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, was so alienated by some dimensions of the Pakistani prime minister’s diplomacy in New York – he couldn’t have been happy at the prospect of Imran Khan, Recip Tayyib Erdogan and Mahathir Mohammad planning to jointly represent the Islamic bloc, nor with Pakistan’s interlocution with Iran without his explicit approval — that he visibly snubbed Imran by ordering his private jet to disembowel the Pakistani delegation. Significantly, too, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi, lost her job (did Khan’s cronies have anything to do with it?) before the dust of “victory at the UN” had settled.
Regardless, a besieged and floundering Prime Minister has been given a lease of life by his foreign sojourn. Upon his return after scoring this “great victory”, Imran Khan has taken a “fresh stance”, as they say in the cricketing parlance so dear to him, and ordered a reshuffle of the confederacy of dunces surrounding him. We may recall his inflated sense of importance after his trip to Washington earlier this year in which he said he felt he’d won a second World Cup by charming President Donald Trump to death! In the event the US is still asking Pakistan to “do more” by leveraging the IMF and FATF.
Pity the nation that is so forlorn of substance, support and leadership that it must clutch at empty nationalist rhetoric to redeem some self-respect.
One is reminded of the hero’s welcome Zulfikar Ali Bhutto received after his address to the UN on the night of December 15-16, 1971, when Dhaka fell. “I will not be a party to it”, he thundered. “We will fight; we will go back and fight….Why should I waste my time here in the Security Council? I will not be a party to the ignominious surrender of a part of my country”. And it came to pass that Mrs Hasina Wajid, the daughter of the “traitor” Mujibur Rahman who led the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan, spoke at the UNGA after Imran Khan and “reminded” the world how many “millions” of Bengalis died and how many “hundreds of thousands of women” were “raped” by the Pakistan Army, an affront no less outrageous than the one caused by Narendra Modi’s naked annexation of Kashmir.
The truth is that the world doesn’t give a damn about the UN resolutions on Kashmir. The truth is that Pakistan’s intelligence and diplomacy failed to anticipate Modi’s moves and devise appropriate pre-emptive policy. The truth is the world is now ready to live with India’s annexation of Kashmir. The truth is that Pakistan is internationally isolated. The truth is that Pakistan is bankrupt and desperately dependent while resurgent India is globally wooed.
But we are fortunate that some more powerful truths are eclipsing these realities. Narendra Modi has internationalised the Kashmir dispute by an unprecedented lockdown and violation of human rights, something that Pakistan’s civil-military leaders failed to do in seven decades of conflict, four wars and loss of half the country. Mr Modi has sown the seeds of irrevocable alienation of 200 million Muslims in India that is bound to engender greater violence and bloodshed. He has blotted the secular spirit of the “biggest democracy in the world”, abandoned its pluralist tryst with destiny and eroded the pacifist spirit of Gandhi that begat India’s great romance with the world. And he has brought the subcontinent to the brink of war, death and destruction like no other Indian leader has done in the past.
General Qamar Bajwa, the Pakistani army chief, tells everyone he wants to positively “reset” relations with the West, in general, and the US, in particular. That is a welcome dose of “strategic realism” long missing in Islamabad. But he must not forestall a national consensus to achieve Pakistan’s own tryst with democracy. That is not possible so long as Imran Khan remains obsessed with his brand of divisive, confrontational politics that weakens Pakistan.
Maulana’s mandate
October 11, 2019
In a significant display of political craftsmanship, Maulana Fazal ur Rahman has managed to stay on the front page for many months despite being unprecedentedly stripped of all electoral relevance in the JUI’s traditional strongholds in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan and, consequently, in the National Assembly. His latest move to march to Islamabad and besiege the capital on October 27 has sent political pundits scrambling for their thinking caps. Who has prompted the good Maulana to destabilize and possibly overthrow the PTI government? What does the Maulana expect to get out of it? Why hasn’t he been able to persuade the mainstream PMLN and PPP to fully throw in their lot with his Long March?
Maulana Fazal attributes his party’s lack of success in the 2018 elections to an electoral rigging conspiracy by the Miltablishment to bring Imran Khan to power in Islamabad and subsequently deliver both KP and Balochistan to him. From Day-One he has not been afraid to say so openly even as other political leaders who also allege election rigging have been circumspect. Consequently, his demands are understandable: resignation of Imran Khan and fresh elections without any administrative or overseeing role of the armed forces in managing them as evidenced in 2018.
The good Maulana’s track record shows him to be always on the right side of the Miltablishment. Indeed, that is why he was afforded an opportunity to form the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal by the Miltablishment under General Pervez Musharraf and handed over the reins of power in KP after the 2002 elections. That is why he was always able to clinch the slot of Chairman of the NA’s Parliamentary Kashmir Committee. That is also why both PPP and PMLN governments always considered it prudent to include him in their power-sharing schemes.
This factual reference leads pundits to the conclusion that Maulana Fazal could not have threatened his long march without a wink or nod from the Miltablishment. But, in turn, that leads logically to another question: why would the Miltablishment do any such thing when it is constantly reminding everyone that it is on the “same page as the PTI government” and backs it wholeheartedly? Indeed, the confusion is compounded by the fact that the PMLN and PPP — without whose full throttled participation any long march aimed at overthrowing the PTI government cannot be successful — have not received a green light from the same Miltablishment. If they had, they would have happily led the long march instead of flapping about determining the nature, timing and extent of their participation.
Logically, this would lead to the conclusion that the Miltablishment is only seeking to bring Imran Khan under some controlled pressure via Maulana Fazal in order to compel him to concede some of its demands and concerns – the two top ones being replacing Usman Buzdar as CM Punjab and giving an extension to the army chief – instead of getting rid of him altogether. This makes sense considering that the only politically popular and natural alternative to Imran Khan is Nawaz Sharif, who is anathema to the current leaders of the Miltablishment.
It can be argued, of course, that there is a middle way out of this mess. If controlled pressure on Imran Khan can be brought to bring an in-house change in the National Assembly that leads to the ouster of Imran Khan as PM without immediately leading to a new general election or to the installment of a PMLN government in Islamabad, that would work to the advantage of the Miltablishment. Such a dispensation would be in the form of a “national government” of sorts led by an “acceptable” Prime Minister, all beholden to the Miltablishment. It would also end the political polarization in the country and bring all the parties together to jointly confront the multi-faceted national crisis facing the country.
The key word here is “controlled” pressure. A malleable Maulana in the lead can be “controlled” by the Miltablishment but a rigid Nawaz Sharif in the lead cannot be “controlled”. That is why the Maulana must be the pivot of such pressure and the leader of the long march so that the limited goal of the Miltablishment can be achieved through the flexibility of its key player when the time comes to heed the Miltablishment’s tactical advice. That is why, instead of a green signal only an amber light is flickering for the PMLN and PPP. Naturally, under any such “national” dispensation in Islamabad, Maulana Fazal may expect to reap great dividends both personally and for his JUI party. At the very least, he could expect a JUI stake in KP and Balochistan after the PTI-led governments there are also ousted in due course.
This course correction must be accomplished before a particular Miltablishment deadline expires in less than six weeks. Hence Maulana Fazal’s refusal to delay the long march. Only two questions remain. Can Imran Khan throw a spanner in the works by conceding the demands of the Miltablishment? Or has the Miltablishment decided to dispense with him, regardless, and steer a more “national-consensus” course for Pakistan?
It’s the economy, stupid!
In the last year or so, Prime Minister Imran Khan has spent a lot of time to-ing and fro-ing to China and Saudi Arabia. Now he has added the US and Iran to his itinerary. What is the purpose of these trips? Shouldn’t he spend more time focusing on the economy and political developments at home?
China is the largest foreign investor and trading partner of the country and it is the sole defense and strategic geo-political ally of Pakistan. Of late, however, the Chinese have expressed concerns about the fate of various CPEC projects launched during the PMLN regime that are languishing since the arrival of the PTI government. Four broad reasons are attributed to this slowdown: the PTI government’s investigations into the alleged “corruption” of the PMLN government in awarding contracts to Chinese companies; the PTI government’s inability to cough up countervailing funds for Chinese projects from its severely constrained budget; the IMF’s insistence on inspection of such contracts that have hitherto remained confidential and its advice to curtail further Chinese debt because of Pakistan’s inability to service it without dollops from Western aid agencies; and the lack of a modus operandi to accommodate the military establishment’s insistence on decision making regarding CPEC in equal measure with the civilian bureaucracy. Clearly, a lot of ironing needs to be done, both internally and with the Chinese government and companies so that misunderstandings are avoided and commitments are fulfilled with an all-weather friend and ally.
Saudi Arabia also occupies a unique position in Pakistan’s firmament. Put simply, Pakistan cannot “afford” to antagonize or alienate it under any circumstance. There are over 2.6 million Pakistani workers in the Kingdom; they remit over US$5 billion every year to Pakistan (about 25% of its total receipt of foreign remittances); the Saudis provide several billion dollars of deferred oil payment facilities to Pakistan; and have recently lent $ 3 billion to prop up Pakistan’s forex reserves. Additionally, over 70,000 Pakistani servicemen are employed in the Saudi military and defense infrastructure. Recently, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was personally instrumental in facilitating the Pakistani Establishment’s “reset” in relations with the US which led to Pakistan’s renewed engagement with the Taliban to facilitate a favourable US exit from Afghanistan. In return, President Trump is leaning on India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, to tone down his aggressive rhetoric against Pakistan, to lift the lockdown in Kashmir and avoid precipitating military conflict with its neighbor. His support is also critical to continued international financial assistance to Pakistan, especially from the IMF, no less than to stop Pakistan from sliding into the FATF blacklist which would put paid to its efforts to keep its economy afloat in a sea of indebtedness.
In recent years, however, tensions were reported between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia after the former refused to sanction military troops in aid of Saudi forces in the war in Yemen or take its side in its conflict with Iran. Indeed, the Saudis were so irritated when Imran Khan recently said in New York that he had been asked by Prince Mohammad bin Salman to mediate on his behalf with Iran that they promptly issued a statement denying any such request. Now Imran Khan has scurried to Riyadh to smooth over its ruffled feathers rather than report on any unwanted mediation with Iran.
After he became Prime Minister last year, Imran Khan announced he would not take foreign junkets and concentrate instead on arresting corruption, bringing back hundreds of billions in “looted” money in safe havens abroad, incentivizing expatriates to invest generously in Naya Pakistan, catch tax thieves and spurn foreign loans and debts. Under the circumstances, one year down the line, he has not succeeded in any of his objectives. International debt has piled up. Tax amnesty schemes have been launched. Only the tip of corruption has been tackled by NAB and that too at a huge cost – the civil bureaucracy has been rendered impotent and businessmen are scared of investing in Pakistan. Expatriates are not confident about the future of Naya Pakistan. Consequently, the economy is racked by crippling inflation, shutdowns, layoffs and rising popular discontent. A recent survey shows the PMLN’s popularity on the upswing and the PTI’s plummeting downhill. The disenchantment of Pakistanis with the Miltablishment for bringing in and then propping up Imran Khan is palpable.
Imran Khan has wasted a lot of time and energy making and unmaking economic and foreign policy. Someone should remind him that “it’s the economy, stupid!” It can’t be run by fiat or pious hope. It certainly cannot be revived amidst the gathering storm of political confrontation between the government and the opposition. Good governance is as much about political stability as it is about economic certainty. The recent announcement by the IMF that economic growth will fall to about 2.4 percent next year is ominous. Minister Fawad Chaudhry’s statement that people shouldn’t look to the government for jobs is another nail in the PTI’s coffin.
Poisoned chalice
Nawaz Sharif is reportedly at death’s door. He has been treated in a most inhumane and callous manner while in custody. This is a thrice-elected prime minister who voluntarily returned from London and went to prison. This is a man who was kept in jail while his wife was dying in London. This is a man who has been convicted by the Supreme Court on the thread of a loose definition of “assets” in an unauthorized reference dictionary in the prejudicial context of “Sicilian Mafia”. This is a man who has been convicted by a judge who was blackmailed to get his conviction. This is a man who has resolutely resisted the various offerings of the Establishment to leave Pakistan and quit politics. His crime: he ran afoul of the Establishment by mistaking the elected office of prime minister for the font of power in Pakistan. Worse, he refused to learn and repent.Popular opinion holds that Imran Khan is personally responsible for Nawaz Sharif’s deteriorating health. His government has tightened the screws by withdrawing all manner of decent prison and medical facilities befitting an ex-prime minister. Yet when a reporter recently confronted Mr Khan with this perception, “he threw his arms up with a bewildered look on his face: ‘Am I the doctor? Am I the court’?” The reporter added that shortly thereafter Mr Khan called up the Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and ordered him to arrange a meeting between Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Mariam. A day earlier, Mariam’s request for such a meeting had been denied by a NAB accountability court. Clearly, Mr Khan has answered his own questions.
Mr Khan also told reporters that there was a “foreign hand” behind Maulana Fazal ur Rahman’s long march and dharna. Incredibly enough, he pointed a finger at India! If he had hinted at another foreign power with which the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam and its leader has had traditional religious relations, he might have been less incredible. But how could he have summoned up the courage to bite the hand that feeds him?
The Maulana is still talking tough. But suspicions have arisen about his aims and objectives. It has been reported that he met Establishment Big Wigs recently and was told flatly that there would be no minus-Imran solution and that there might be other “minuses” amongst politicians. Curiously, opposition party activists are being arrested daily even as Mr Khan has belatedly allowed the dharma to proceed to Islamabad. The Establishment has reportedly told the Maulana that his dharna should be short and peaceful, otherwise it would do its “constitutional duty” to protect the “lawful” government. This is in sharp contrast to what it did during Mr Khan’s long drawn out dharna.
The fate of Nawaz Sharif hangs in the balance. Some “connected” journalists are claiming that both father and daughter will be allowed to go to London without an NRO because Nawaz is precariously ill and the Establishment doesn’t want his blood on their hands – they are still reaping the political backlash from the assassinations of two Bhuttos. The popular mood in the Punjab – the recruiting ground and bulwark of the Establishment – has palpably turned against it. This is unprecedented.
We – people and institutions – are all drinking from a poisoned chalice. Imran Khan is guzzling from the poisoned chalice of a rigged election. The people are choking on the poisoned chalice of the IMF. The opposition parties and leaders are swallowing from the poisoned chalice of their corruptions and commissions. The Establishment is gulping from the poisoned chalice of its regional adventures and internal interventions. The judiciary is swigging from the poisoned chalice of its great betrayal of the lawyers’ movement.
This need not have been the case. Only six years ago, we witnessed a peaceful transfer of power, the second consecutive handing over of the baton from one elected government to the next. The judiciary gave hope with its newly grown spine courtesy the successful lawyers’ movement. The media, though raucous, was reverberating with the din of democracy. Nawaz Sharif’s government was making regional alliances and reaching out to neighbours. The 18th Amendment had devolved power to the provinces, fulfilling a long-standing demand of Pakistan’s alienated ethnic populations. This was in the natural order of things: the system growing, changing, adapting, on the road to cleansing itself.
But these very changes threatened to whittle down the power of Pakistan’s deep state. The latter’s response was concerted and fierce. We all know what happened thereafter but it is deeply ironical that we are once again desperate for the reprieves that were all within grasp only a few years ago – peace at home and goodwill abroad, relief from international punitive actions, a buoyant economy, a developing democracy worthy of respect. We cannot upturn the natural order of things and expect to come up trumps again and again. Our chalices will remain poisoned until we purge ourselves.
Two narratives
Two powerful and unprecedented narratives are playing havoc with the sentiments of the nation. The first is about Nawaz Sharif’s disqualifications and convictions, personal health and heir apparent. This narrative is fast assuming critical mass in the democratic struggle for civilian supremacy over the Miltablishment. The second is about Maulana Fazal ur Rahman’s “long march” that has arrived in Islamabad and captured the stage for ousting Imran Khan and his PTI government.
The success of one narrative feeds into the other. Together, they serve to reinforce the popular rejection of the unholy alliance of the Miltablishment with the PTI that seeks, first, to exclude the two mainstream PMLN-PPP parties, the JUI and smaller regional parties and their political leaders from the political stakeholder landscape and, second, to establish a one-Miltablishment party rule in the country that diminishes the constitutional rights and autonomies of civil society, media and judiciary.
In an extraordinary display of personal courage and political astuteness, Nawaz Sharif has resisted Miltablishment efforts to emasculate him physically and politically so that the PMLQ reverts to its traditional King’s Party role. The more Nawaz has stood his ground despite failing health, the more popular he has become; the more the Miltablishment joins with select judges to thwart him, the more discredit they heap upon themselves. It has now come to pass that the Miltablishment is desperate to let him go so that his failing health doesn’t become a millstone around its neck.
Maulana Fazl has sprung up out of nowhere to seize the moment. His JUI is a most unexpected and unsuitable substitute for the PPP or PMLN. But he has filled the vacuum created by the decimation of the leadership of both parties and captured the imagination of the people. The Miltablishment is now scrambling to save its nth political experiment in extra-constitutionalism.
Several questions have arisen. If Nawaz Sharif has dug his heels in to resist the Miltablishment, why isn’t the rest of the PMLN parliamentary leadership in step with him? The pressure on him from Miltablishment, party and “family” to leave the country and quit politics is relentless. Indeed, that is why the PMLN has not actively lent its crowds to swell the long march heading to Islamabad. Much the same may be said of Asif Zardari and the PPP. Is it because both PMLN and PPP are cowering in shame and impotence following credible charges of corruption against party bigwigs, and wish to avoid coming under the Miltablishment heel any more forcefully?
This raises the question of why Maulana Fazl has decided to take a solo flight at the end of October and refused to postpone it even by a month at the request of both Shahbaz Sharif and Bilawal Bhutto. Never one to resist the inducements of power, he has taken on both the PTI government and the Miltablishment. If his purpose was merely to oust Imran Khan, his mission would have been better served by taking along the PMLN and PPP and delaying the Long March. No, it does seem that he has thrown the gauntlet to that section of the Miltablishment and PTI that is constantly threatening all and sundry with its “same-page” unity because he has the implicit but firm support of those in the same constellation who are not on the same page.
One issue, above all, has muddied the waters. That is the matter of the extension in tenure of COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa. Since both Gen Bajwa and Imran Khan never tire of reminding everyone of unity and continuity in command, this was a no-brainer. Yet some decidedly curious steps and statements have clouded the issue. In mid-August we were shown a “notification” from the office of the PM, signed by Imran Khan, giving an extension of three years to Gen Bajwa. But when it was pointed out that the notification must come from the office of the President of Pakistan, there was a stunning silence. In mid-September, a journalist asked President Arif Alvi whether he had signed and issued any such notification. His reply: “Although a decision has been taken to extend Gen Bajwa’s tenure, the file has not yet been sent up to me for signing.” Now, on the eve of the Maulana’s entry into Islamabad, a journalist has been put up to “confirm” that such a notification has indeed been signed by President Alvi. If that is the case, why is everyone pussyfooting around the subject? Why don’t we get to see the notification? Has it been signed but not declared in the public domain for some reason? Might the invisible “notification” be withdrawn or substituted by another notification in the near future? Does Maulana’s demand for Imran Khan’s ouster have anything to do with it? Who is going home? How close are the objectives of Nawaz Sharif and the Maulana? The answers are blowing in the wind.
Indirect approach
Maulana Fazlur Rahman has been described by pundits as “a wily old fox” and an “experienced and astute political player” who rarely makes a false move. Yet the same pundits are scratching their heads trying to fathom the strategy behind the Maulana’s long march to Islamabad, solo, without the support of the mainstream PMLN and PPP to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Imran Khan. It is pointed out that such “mob” tactics are bound to fail, as they did during Imran Khan’s 126 day long “dharna” against Nawaz Sharif in 2014.
But that’s not the only question agitating analysts. Why, it’s asked, was the Maulana adamant on launching his march in November without any wind in his tail – there’s no mass agitation in the country despite the economic hardships and political anguish caused by NAB – when he was repeatedly requested by his erstwhile partners to postpone it by a couple of months. It’s also a mystery why the Maulana is tight lipped about how he means to achieve his maximalist demands.
The threat by the Maulana to use any one of several “religious” cards has also upset many “modern” or “liberal” minded folk and stopped them from supporting his dharna. “Democracy is a cover”, they say, “because his movement has largely been built around religious issues”, never mind that the PTI, PPP and PMLN and their leaders have rarely shied away from succumbing to the same expediencies when it suited them.
The most perplexing factor relates to the Maulana’s historical relationship with the ubiquitous Miltablishment. The Maulana has rarely, if ever, stood on its wrong side. Indeed, he was cozily embedded with the Musharraf regime for many years as a part of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal government that ruled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for five years. In fact, he seemed to forever serve as Chairman of the National Assembly’s Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir with the approval of the Miltablishment. And yet, here he is today, brazenly accusing the Miltablishment of having rigged the 2018 elections to hoist Imran Khan as prime minister, of abandoning the jihadi case of Kashmir and demanding that the Election Commission of Pakistan ban the entry of soldiers into polling stations and election booths on election day. This is such a radical demand – the Miltablishment will surely see it as an outrageous affront – that the mainstream parties have shied away from making it.
When concrete information is hard to come by as an explanatory factor, conspiracy theories are bound to take root. According to one, flogged by the government and Miltablishment, the Maulana is funded and guided by India because only India can stand to gain by the chaos and conflict that threaten to destabilize Pakistan. But this is laughable. The Maulana has been thundering against India, Israel and the lukewarm response of the Pakistani Miltablishment against India’s annexation of Kashmir.
Another conspiracy theory claims that elements of the Miltablishment who are unhappy at the extent of naked support given to Imran Khan, which has discredited the organs of the state in the eyes of the people, are egging on the Maulana to “attack the headquarters” for failing to remain politically neutral. This seems like a throwback to Chairman’s Mao Cultural Revolution in the 1960s when the Great Helmsman urged the rank and file of the Chinese Communist Party to attack its leaders in government for revisionism that amounted to a betrayal of the purity of the Chinese Revolution.
Although the Miltablishment is a sealed book in so far as internal dissent is concerned, conspiracy theorists have been clutching at some signs to argue their case. How come the Maulana has been progressively upping his critique of the Miltablishment’s “unholy alliance” with Imran Khan, something that the mainstream parties most adversely affected have consciously refrained from doing explicitly? How come the Maulana was “summoned” to a talking-to at headquarters and ordered to get off his high horse, or else? How come, indeed, the Maulana gave as good as he got and returned without a ruffle in his turban?
The answers, claim such conspiracy theorists, lie in the timing of the Maulana’s long march. It arrives on the eve of a decision by the government end-November that will either lead to continuity or change in the leadership of the Miltablishment and thereby set the parameters of the political dispensation for the foreseeable future. Statements by the government and allied vested interests insist that the decision for continuity has been signed and sealed. But there is no sign of any formal notification of it.
This conspiracy theory would confirm Maulana Fazal ur Rahman as a veritable practitioner of Liddelharts’ Indirect Approach. Instead of going directly for Imran Khan, he thinks it is a better idea to shake up the Miltablishment pillar on which Imran stands. Shorn of its blind support, he will be easy to fell in the second round. In fact, change or continuity, the Maulana’s various charges against the Miltablishment during the dharna are laying the groundwork for Imran Khan’s isolation and ouster sooner than later.
End-Game
Maulana Fazal ur Rahman’s long march/dharna promised a big bang in D Chowk in Islamabad but has seemingly retreated with a whimper. His obedient supporters will now partially block some roads and arteries until his demand for the prime minister’s ouster followed by fresh elections are met or, failing that, he is obliged to shift gears into Plan C, whatever that might be. This tactic will certainly keep him on the front page – albeit reduced from four columns to two and even one in due course – even if it doesn’t succeed in outing Imran Khan. But, surely, the Maulana has known this truth all along.
This brings us full circle to a set of questions we have asked from the outset: What are the real motives behind Maulana’s dharna? Why was the Maulana adamant on launching it in November? Why didn’t the PPP and PMLN join forces with him, especially since they have the most to gain from ousting Imran Khan?
A second initiative seems to have got unstuck too. That is Shahbaz Sharif’s efforts to put ailing Nawaz Sharif on a plane to London for medical treatment. But it suddenly transpires that the PTI government won’t let Nawaz Sharif out of sight without compelling him to cough up Rs 7 billion – the amount of corruption attributed to his account by two judges – that would, in effect, amount to a confession of guilt on his part. Wags say that Imran Khan has put a spoke in the “understanding” reached between Shahbaz Sharif and the “Establishment”, which would lead to the more ominous conclusion that the government is no longer on the same page with the partner who “selected” it and put it there in the first instance.
Is there a common factor that might explain these two new developments?
The Maulana has been hard on the Establishment, constantly accusing it of disrepute for aligning itself so closely with a “failed” prime minister and incompetent government. He has gone so far as to publicly accuse it of “disappearing” persons, rigging elections, selecting Imran Khan and abandoning the cause of Kashmir. In contrast, Shahbaz Sharif purrs like a kitten whenever the “Establishment” finds mention and Asif Zardari is conspicuous by his studied silence on the same subject. What is it about November and the Establishment that puts Maulana Fazal, Shahbaz Sharif and Imran Khan on high alert and compels them to tug in so many different directions and ways?
Let’s stop pussyfooting about the subject. Everyone and his aunt has been speculating for months about one issue that is dead-lined for resolution end-November when the term of the current army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, ends. Government ministers have proclaimed that this is a non-issue since an extension in tenure for three years has already been granted to Gen Bajwa and President Arif Alvi has confirmed signing the relevant notification. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, this notification remains in the pocket of Gen Bajwa and has not been officially notified in the public domain even though a couple of journalists have been “shown” it unofficially.
Is it conceivable that Maulana Fazal ur Rahman’s behavior, no less than that of Shahbaz Sharif and Imran Khan, remains contingent on whether or not General Bajwa agrees to serve as army chief for three more years? One might imagine that the Maulana’s backers would like the business of extensions to be done away with in the larger institutional interest of the army and are hoping General Bajwa declines to accept the extension. Equally, Shahbaz Sharif and Asif Zardari are taking no chances siding with the Maulana, just in case Gen Bajwa decides to stay on as the most powerful player in the arena. But it is Imran Khan’s behavior that is both intriguing and revealing. On the one hand, he has signed away the extension; on the other, he hasn’t put it in the public domain; on the one hand, he is constantly at pains to insist that the government and Establishment are on the same page; on the other, he is clearly not on the same page as the Establishment in so far as dealing with the political opposition is concerned.
The Establishment is concerned that another Martyr – and a popular Punjabi one to boot – would severely undermine its institutional interests. It may also be concerned about the disunity in the country provoked by Imran Khan’s obsession to wipe out the leadership of the PPP and PMLN at a time when Pakistanis are heaving under the yoke of severe economic pressures and hostile regional powers may be conspiring against the country.
Has the Maulana been conveyed some assurances? Certainly, Imran Khan’s latest spanner in the works would suggest a degree of boldness that can only result from the knowledge or perception that General Bajwa has decided to go home. He would be a very foolish man to take this stance if he knew that Gen Bajwa aims to wield the stick for another three years.
Failed Experiment
Some people think that the Military Establishment – Miltablishment – has emerged stronger than ever from the recent crisis. They say Imran Khan has been weakened, Nawaz Sharif has “fled” the country like a coward, Maulana Fazalur Rahman’s dharma has flopped, the judiciary has been discredited and the media remains in chains. But there’s another way of reflecting on the current situation.
The big loser is the Miltablishment. It has been stripped off its “sacred cow” status and thoroughly discredited for its blundering political interventions. The first stone was cast by Nawaz Sharif when he alluded to the rigging of the last elections by “Khalai Makhlooq”. Then Maulana Fazal pitched in with his priceless remark about “Nikay da Abba”. By the time his Dharna took place, the Maulana and his lieutenants were openly accusing the Miltablishment by name of “disappearing” people, rigging the elections, selecting the prime minister and manipulating the judges. Such discrediting is more troubling because it is happening, for the first time, in the Militablishment’s home ground of Punjab. Worse, the PTI that has most benefitted from the military’s interventions is dejected because it suspects that Nawaz Sharif’s exit could not have materialized without the Miltablsihment’s active involvement, leading to speculation of some sort “deal” with the Sharifs at the expense of Imran Khan. Now someone has had the gall to petition, on grounds of religious faith, the Peshawar High Court against the extension to the army chief given by the Prime Minister. Now the Pakistan Bar Association has announced November 28 as a “black day” to protest the army chief’s extension!
This is shocking. Until recently, no one could say a bad word or attribute a selfish motive to the military and its leaders. Indeed, we were compelled to use the term “Establishment” when discussing military matters. Challenging the army chief by name was unthinkable. Now all this is par for the course because the military leadership has started to engineer the political system and manipulate the political parties quite nakedly, the more so since such interventions have been exposed to be shoddy, biased and unworkable. This was bound to happen when all popular stakeholders in the political system are blatantly marginalized and harassed to the point where they have nothing to lose by naming names and shrieking murder.
As far as the Maulana’s dharna is concerned, it is true that he couldn’t extract the PM’s resignation and compel another round of elections. But it can be argued that perhaps that was only his stated objective while the true motive of the dharna was to focus on, and undermine, the Miltablishment leadership that “selected” Khan in the first place and has propped him up since. The logic of this indirect approach is inescapable: by challenging and exposing the Miltablishment, he was buffeting the pillar on which the PTI government stands and deepening the cracks in that unholy alliance. Certainly, the pointed accusations during the dharna, followed by the petition in the Peshawar High Court, would seem to confirm this line of reasoning. Indeed, the timing of the dharna in November may be said to align with the proposed retirement/extension in the tenure of the army chief most directly charged with the political engineering that has aroused the ire of all the other stakeholders. So when the Maulana claims his dharna was successful and he got what he wanted, we can only deduce that it has must have something to do with the Miltablishment which should become clear soon enough.
Nawaz Sharif’s narrative is also alive and kicking. His supporters and voters in the Punjab are relieved that he will live to fight another day. They are a cynical lot, having learnt to shrug off the martyrdoms of the Bhuttos. They rallied around Nawaz when he returned to Pakistan after ten years in exile and they will likely do the same again when he returns or when his heir apparent Maryam steps into the arena.
Imran Khan is the biggest loser. His “same page with the Miltablishment” roar is sounding hollow. His allies are beginning to flap their wings. His words and body language suggest an erosion of trust with the “Selector” and deep anguish about the current situation. He senses a state of siege, and therefore wants to bring back loyalists into the team. Now the NAB chairman has announced his intention to target the PTI to redress the balance. And the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Asif Khosa, has ticked him off for doubting the credentials of the judiciary by letting Nawaz Sharif off the hook.
The Miltablishment’s “experiment” with Imran Khan has come a cropper and its credibility has plunged. Imran Khan is clearly not the man of the hour billed by his supporters. On the other hand, Nawaz Sharif’s popularity has soared (a recent poll shows he would sweep the elections now) while Maulana Fazal has overnight become a leader of substance. It’s only a matter of time before the Miltablishment’s latest experiment is relegated to the dustbin of Pakistani history and we are obliged to start at the beginning all over again.
New Crisis
The gallery is sorely disappointed. Shouts of “Noora Kushti”, “Topi Drama”, and many foul expletives deleted that leave nothing to the imagination rend the air. The people are variously cynical or outraged.
But Imran Khan, for one, has tweeted his delight that the opposition’s hopes of a clash of institutions have been dashed. After the short order, the two most incompetent spokespersons of the PTI government, Firdaus Awan and Farogh Nasim, were veritably sweating with relief.
Is the crisis over? Have the judges resolved the crisis? Will everything be hunky dory now?
No, on all counts. A new political crisis has just begun. Consider.
The short order sets out to clarify some murky areas that have historically bedeviled civil-military relations and tilted the balance in the Miltablishment’s favour. After the fallout, the legal and constitutional ambiguities in favour of the Miltablishment will inevitably be ironed out in favour of civil society. The fact that the judges have only given a sitting army chief a reprieve of six months and put the selected government on notice to sort out the matter in the highest civilian forum of the country, parliament, is sufficient proof of this mood. That is the good part.
The case exposes the PTI government to be unprecedentedly incompetent and dangerously stupid. It is bound to trigger some serious rethink in the Miltablishment about the quality, reliability and sustainability of such a sole political partner for the breadth of socio-economic transformation it has in mind. By dragging the army chief into the dock, yoking him with a six-month extension and compelling the brass to go back to the drawing board and war game the near political future, it has opened the floodgates of nasty debates and speculation about his person no less than his institution. The “same page” narrators must be seething with rage at the exposure of their hollow claims. This is also all for the good.
If truth be told, the judges could not, realistically speaking, have sent an army chief packing. Nor could they have ignored the blatant errors of omission and commission by the PTI government. They have done the next best thing: kept the ball in flight and kicked it in the direction of parliament where it belongs.
Two broad conflicts will open shortly. The first is legal. Does the order envisage a constitutional amendment or will a simple act of parliament suffice to resolve the matter? The debate will rage far and wide. The first requires a 2/3 majority in parliament which cannot be obtained without the support of the opposition. There’s no way the opposition can concede it without a big quid pro quo, as much from the PTI as from the Miltablishment, unless it is ready to commit political hara kiri exactly when it can smell its enemy’s blood. The other option will be challenged in parliament and in the courts again, making it a long drawn out and noisy affair that will keep everyone guessing while destabilizing economy and society.
The second is political. Resolving the matter in six months without the opposition’s agreement is going to be a tall order. If, as is likely, Imran Khan persists with his victimization campaign, the opposition will see the political wisdom of not succumbing to any Miltablishment pressure. This may provoke the Miltablishment to lose patience with Imran Khan and fall back on Plan B. If Nawaz Sharif’s recent “relief” case is an indication of the suspicions aroused in the PM’s camp, which led to tensions with the judges and Miltablishment, we can imagine a worse scenario in the near future.
While new confrontational fronts are going to open, we can be sure that existing ones will be accentuated as a perception grows that the PTI’s expiry date is nearing with the Miltablishment’s Khan romance on the wane. The foreign funding case is “open and shut”, and if the current Chief Justice of Pakistan doesn’t deliver justice, the next one is going to be under greater pressure to assert his honour. Similarly, the judges may drag their feet on the Musharraf case but the verdict cannot be sidestepped much longer. If the Miltablishment’s back is going to be scratched in one case, a balance is likely to be struck by spiking Imran Khan in the other.
Whichever way one looks at it, it will require a Herculean effort of stupidity by the combined opposition to fritter away the best opportunity to come their way in a long time to drive an irrevocable wedge between the PTI and Miltablishment. Either the Miltablishment can continue on a path with the PTI that has brought anguish and discredit to it or it can ditch it, making new allies and cutting its losses. Certainly, the current junta has lost face in the eyes of the people.
If Pakistan’s power-stakeholders are not to confirm the country’s “banana republic” status in a moment of national crisis, they should help restore law and democratic order under a competent consensus government.
The game is on
Despite the Supreme Court’s instruction to the federal government to amend the laws relating to the extension in tenure of the army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the matter is still hanging fire because it’s not clear how this is to be done. The bitter rift between the government and the opposition is also likely to cast a shadow on Gen Bajwa’s fate.
Until the SC issues its detailed judgment, the government cannot finalise its legal strategy. Will a simple amendment to the Army Act by a simple majority in parliament suffice to produce the desired result or will the cooperation of the opposition be needed to amend the constitution by a 2/3 majority? If the government takes the former route, will the opposition challenge it in the courts and delay a definitive conclusion to the matter and make it more controversial? If the latter route is required, what is the quid pro quo that the opposition will demand of the government and will the government be amenable to it? What does the institution of the military think and how will it react to delay and growing controversy?
The government is preparing to confront both options. On the one hand it is readying a draft law to amend the Army Act with or without the opposition’s support but on the other it has set up a three-person committee to contact its allies and opposition parties to ensure cooperation and speedy progress in parliament. Two of the members of this committee, Asad Umar and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, are close to the military. So we can assume that this initiative has been taken at the behest of the military that would like the passage of the bill to be based on a national consensus rather than any lingering dispute. But suspicions and conspiracy theories abound in all quarters.
How is it conceivable that the government messed up a simple routine procedure relating to the extension in service of the army chief when there were several precedents on record? Why is the government’s explanation replete with lies and inconsistencies? Why did Gen Bajwa deem it necessary to personally oversee cabinet proceedings to ensure that the case was suitably presented by the government in the Supreme Court on 28th November? On the other side, too, no less than the prime minister, Imran Khan, has stridently voiced his suspicions about how and why Nawaz Sharif was able to get relief from the courts and go to London, an obvious allusion to some sort of collusion between the courts and the powerful Miltablishment. All this is happening in a political environment rife with talk of the imminent end of the line for Imran Khan through some secret alliance between the Miltablishment and Opposition.
The Opposition’s stance on the army chief’s extension is also instructive. The PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto says that Mr Khan has to go home before it will extend support to any change in the law on the matter. It does not say it is opposed to the extension. It has also changed tack and sought bail for its incarcerated leader Asif Zardari, an indication that it ready for some sort of deal with the Miltablishment. The PMLN wonders how it can cooperate with the government when it is being hounded from pillar to post via NAB and the FIA. Still, it has deferred its strategic response to advice from Nawaz Sharif. It is also not opposed to the extension in principle. Maulana Fazal ur Rahman is more definitive. He predicts that Mr Khan will be ousted in December and is demanding fresh elections so that the next parliament can deliberate on the matter of the extension. The ANP is straight and upfront: the army chief should resign, period, because he has muddied the waters by extensive and illegal political engineering.
The PTI government has responded by nudging NAB to approve six new corruption references, three investigations and 15 inquiries against the PMLN’s Shahbaz Sharif, Rana Sanaullah and Balighur Rahman and the PPP’s Nisar Khuhro, Agha Siraj Durrani, Senator Anwar ul Haq, etc., while seizing various properties of the Sharif family. It has also decided to challenge the bail applications of Rana Sanaullah and Fawad Hasan Fawad and lodge references against Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Miftah Ismail. No less significantly, Imran Khan has defied the Miltablishment’s demand for replacement of Usman Buzdar as chief minister of Punjab by a competent and honest leader of action. More ominously, the PM has ousted an honest professional head of the FIA because he wouldn’t do his bidding in hounding opposition leaders and troublesome journalists, and installed the redoubtable, poker-faced witch-hunter Shahzad Akbar, to lord it over the FIA, thereby undermining the writ of the interior minister, Brig ®Ijaz Shah, a Miltablishment appointee.
The stage is clearly being set for renewed conflict between government and opposition and tension between government and Miltablishment. The Chaudhries of Gujrat, who are the weathercocks of all occasions and the perennial allies of the Miltablishment, are the center of attraction in the Punjab, no less than Mian Shahbaz Sharif at the centre.
Minus-3 Formula?
For a year and more the PMLN opposition has been trying to sit together with the PTI government to stitch up a working relationship that enables parliament, government and opposition to do their respective jobs efficiently as envisaged in the Constitution. But the “selected” Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has consistently derailed all such efforts. Mr Khan refuses to consult and develop a consensus with the Opposition on various matters as required under the Constitution. That is why the Election Commission of Pakistan is non-functional and prospects for necessary electoral reform are dim. He refuses to enable the Public Accounts Committee to do its job because its head is a PMLN nominee as required under the Constitution. That is why audits of public sector companies by the Auditor General of Pakistan are in cold storage. He has ordered the Speaker of the National Assembly not to facilitate the production of incarcerated (but not convicted) PMLN leaders in Parliament. That is why Parliamentary proceedings are acrimonious and susceptible to disruption and walkouts. Worse, Mr Khan is using the FIA to settle personal and political scores and leaning on the NAB to hound the Opposition. For all these reasons the Opposition, which controls the Senate, has spiked various attempts by the government to bulldoze contentious Acts and Presidential Ordinances. It’s a sorry state of affairs that gives Pakistani “democracy” a bad name.
The PMLN has finally taken a decision with far reaching consequences. Its leading spokesman, Khawaja Asif has announced that the PMLN will no longer make any attempt to work with the government to resolve outstanding issues of national interest. In the immediate context, this means that the PMLN will not cooperate with the government to make appropriate laws to extend the tenure of the Army Chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, as required by the Supreme Court; nor will it waste its time trying to nominate a consensus Chief Election Commissioner. Instead, another spokesman, Ahsan Iqbal, has announced that the party’s focus will now shift to maneuvering for an “In-House” change in parliament as a step in the direction of free and fair elections as soon as possible.
In effect, this is the notorious “Minus-1” formula that has been floating around for some months. All it requires is for the allies of the PTI like the MQM, GDA, PMLQ etc. to desert the ruling coalition, send Imran Khan packing and elect a new Leader of the House in charge of a “national” or “unity” government for a specified period of time before calling fresh elections.
But this is easier said than done. The allies of the PTI were herded into its stables by none other than the powerful Miltablishment and will not bolt until the same Miltablishment gives a signal. How likely is that?
Until now, the Miltablishment has pulled out all the stops to protect and defend its political engineering in support of the PTI. That is why, despite periodic reminders of the abysmal performance of the PTI, its spokesmen are constantly regurgitating the “same page” mantra to counter naysayers. It is hard for the Miltablishment to admit that its great strategists and tacticians have failed in their attempts to establish “Naya Pakistan”, and that the option of reverting to “Purana Pakistan” makes them anxious.
But the fissures in the relationship between state and society are beginning to show. The Miltablishment is having to shoulder the blame and burden of the PTI’s dismal performance. Lay folks are flaying the Miltablishment openly and unabashedly in its home province of Punjab, compelling it to question the wisdom of its political engineering. Indeed, it is in the Punjab that the PTI’s performance is most pathetic since the PM’s handpicked chief minister, Usman Buzdar, is a shambolic shadow of Shahbaz Sharif, the dynamic PMLN chief minister renowned for his meritorious achievements. Make huge money above your imagination, I want to inform you of the latest and interesting facts of GETTING RICH ABOVE YOUR IMAGINATION, have you ever heard about DARK WEB, you can google it to understand better. We are Russian Hackers from the dark web and we offer different types of hacking services, follow the link for more details. GET OVER $100,000 MONTHLY THROUGH BANK TRANSFER HACKERS AND CLONE ATM CLONED CARDS. The North Korea has been benefiting from this scheme and recently hacked banks over $2 Billion USD which you can confirm it on google. WELCOME; Come and make your dream life a reality.
A fresh source of tension has now erupted. A simple matter of documenting the correct procedure for notifying the extension of the army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, has been blown into a full-fledged crisis that has hugely embarrassed him and simultaneously created uncertainty about his fate. This is the very stuff of conspiracy theories. In this case, it’s a moot point now whether Mr Khan wants to give the extension or not, and how he intends to proceed in this matter. From General Bajwa’s point of view, the matter should not have arisen in the first place but since it has cropped up it should be resolved asap and with the support of the Opposition so that it is committed to a national consensus. Predictably, the PTI government has compelled the Opposition to refuse such support and appears to be dragging its feet on resolving the issue quickly and efficiently.
It is significant, too, that Nawaz and Maryam Sharif, the two most outspoken anti-Miltablishment leaders of the PMLN, are finally conspicuous by their silence. One is already out of the country while the other is perched to fly off. This “Minus-2”’ factor appears to be setting the stage for Shahbaz Sharif, the pro-Miltablishment PMLN leader for all seasons, to negotiate the “Minus-1” option with confidence.
Powerful deterrence
The conviction of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, ex-COAS, for High Treason, by a Special Court set up by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, is an unprecedented and extraordinary act with far reaching consequences for the continuing struggle for supremacy between military dictatorship and constitutional democracy in Pakistan.
The 2:1 judgment awarding Gen (retd) Musharraf the death sentence for his action on November 3, 2007, suspending the constitution, slapping a State of Emergency in Pakistan, dismissing all the judges of the superior courts and compelling hand-picked ones to swear a new oath of office, is unfortunately marred by the remarks of J Waqas Seth (with which the other two judges disagreed) that, in the event of his death outside Pakistan, General (retd) Musharraf’s corpse be “dragged to D Chowk in Islamabad”, and hung there for three days. This has given grist to the mills of the Miltablishment and detracted from the essential integrity of the judgment. It’s no wonder then that the judgment is being blasted for being “unfair”, “hasty” and “politically motivated” and critics have seized on the D Chowk remark to call it “barbaric” and “mad”. A petition before the Supreme Judicial Council alleging J Waqas Seth to be “unhinged” is on the cards.
The DGISPR claims the military is in “pain and anguish”. He has declared the judgment to be against the norms of humanitarianism, religion and culture. He warns that the “enemy” within and without will not be allowed to sow divisions in state and society. The COAS, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, also wasted no time going to the SSG headquarters, Gen (retd) Musharraf’s alma mater, to raise a clenched fist, signaling resolve to resist the judgment. On cue, the usual suspects in the media and cabinet have started issuing dire warnings of how any “clash of institutions” (meaning “any challenge to the Miltablishment) is going to harm the “national interest”.
The PTI government, naturally, remains on the “same page”. It appointed Gen (retd) Musharraf’s lawyers, Farogh Naseem and Anwar Mansoor Khan, as the Federal Law Minister and Attorney General of Pakistan respectively. Both gentlemen desperately tried to derail or delay the proceedings in the case via various tactics — changing prosecution teams midstream, demanding the inclusion of “aiders and abettors”, submitting lists of several hundred witnesses for examination, etc., and applying to various High Courts to stall the Special Court. Imran Khan, the prime minister, has also, conveniently, repudiated his countless statements when in opposition demanding that Gen (retd) Musharraf be tried for High Treason.
Gen (retd) Musharraf’s accountability started on July 22, 2009 – ten years ago – when a full bench of the Supreme Court ordered him to appear and defend his actions. Musharraf fled Pakistan, only returning four years later in March 2013 to “contest” the general elections. But in June, the newly elected Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, asked the SC to set up a Special Tribunal to try Musharraf for High Treason. However, in April, 2014, COAS Gen Raheel Sharif signaled his resolve to “preserve the dignity and institutional pride” of the army (a view reiterated by the DGISPR in the last two days). The prosecution completed its arguments in 45 days but the defense adopted various delaying tactics and it’s no secret that Gen Raheel Sharif pressured Nawaz Sharif to facilitate Gen (retd) Musharraf’s exit from Pakistan in 2016 for medical reasons. However, when he failed to return as promised, he was declared an “absconder”. Three years later, in April 2019, after interminable delays and Gen (retd) Musharraf’s continued refusal to return or respond via Video Conference, CJP Asif Saeed Khosa ordered the trial to continue “in absentia”. The PTI government resorted to various delaying tactics, including nudging petitioners to approach the IHC and LHC to challenge the Special Court’s jurisdiction. But, in line with the SC’s orders, the Special Court rejected such pleas and announced its verdict on Dec 17, 2019.
No one expects Gen (retd) Musharraf to return to Pakistan or this “same page” PTI government to seek his extradition. Indeed, the law will likely be bent to enable the absconder to lodge a robust appeal in absentia in the SC. Indeed, if the Special Court judgment is a political miracle, it would be the Mother of All Miracles if the SC were to uphold it in its entirety, given the unfettered power and reach of the Miltablishment. Will the new CJP, J Gulzar Ahmed, pick up the gauntlet or will he consign the case to the same freezer like the ISI Election Rigging Case of 1990?
Notwithstanding the misplaced D-Chawk remark, the Special Court’s brave judgment is destined to become a landmark in the power struggle between the Miltablishment and civil society institutions. Despite countervailing pressure from three army chiefs to drop or freeze the case, the judiciary, media, PMLN and PPP have trudged on wearily to make sure that Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf does not have a moment of mental peace even in exile. A powerful deterrence has been lodged against any wannabe coup-maker of the future.
Who’s on trial?
The PTI government continues to witch hunt its political opponents through state institutions like NAB, FIA and ANF, eroding their credibility and straining the justice system. Since NAB and the ANF, in particular, are managed by serving or retired military officers, this practice is unfortunately tarring the image of the military as a “national” institution above the din and fray of “dirty politics”.
This developing angst in society is reflected in the recent verdict against General (retd) Pervez Musharraf in which a senior judge wrote that after the convict’s death in foreign lands “his corpse should be dragged to D Chowk in Islamabad and hung there for three days”. A second is the widespread view that by “selecting” and then siding openly with a failing government the military has put personal interests above institutional ones, most prominently in the case of the army chief’s tenurial extension. Yet another is the arrest of Rana Sanaullah Khan, the PMLN MNA, by the ANF last July, in which senior military officers in the ANF are perceived to have colluded in concocting a false case at the behest of the government.
In fact, despite a barrage of propaganda, Rana Sanaullah’s case has elicited strong public disapproval. He was detained in July but the ANF has failed to indict him so far. The tall claims of the minister in charge, Sheharyar Afridi, about the existence of video proofs are not backed up by the ANF. Rana’s bail applications were twice rejected by the special court, in one case the judge who was inclined to dispense justice was transferred in the midst of a hearing by, as he himself said in open court, “a Whatsapp message”, it being left to the Lahore High Court to eventually free him. Rana’s wife has taunted the prime minister: “You people said you would pluck out the hair in his moustache but, look, not a single hair is missing”!
NAB’s track record is, unfortunately, quite depressing too. It is chaired by a retired judge of the Supreme Court who is a decent fellow who wants to be even-handed but is being blackmailed by the government to be selective against the opposition. In an interview to a journalist some months ago, the NAB Chairman was confronted with charges of partisanship, upon which he pledged to go after the big fish in the PTI government, especially those involved in a couple of projects like the BRT and Malam Jabba cases that smack of big scale corruption. But then some videos suddenly emerged and went viral (thanks to a TV Channel close to the PTI government), compromising his person. Since then, NAB has stalled investigations into these projects, conniving with the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to seek “ stay” orders from the courts.
Now NAB has laid itself open to further public censure by arresting Ahsan Iqbal, the Secretary-General of the PMLN, hours after he publicly welcomed the verdict against General (retd) Musharraf and hoped that it would be a deterrent against military interventions in the future. Not to be left behind, the FIA has summoned the PMLN’s Pervez Rashid, who was targeted by the brass in the notorious Dawnleaks case but continues to speak up. The testimony of Bashir Memon, the FIA chief who stepped aside recently, points to the PM’s personal obsession with hounding PMLN and PPP leaders.
Worse, the media has buttoned up since the ISPR effectively seized control of PEMRA and started pressurizing it to start slapping “notices” on TV channels on how to dispense news and opinion and stop various opposition politicians from airing opinions in the media. Some TV shows and anchors have been banned outrightly, most others have to contend with hard censorship “advice”.
In this muzzled state of being, a couple of recent decisions by the higher courts – convicting General (retd) Musharraf and granting bail to Asif Zardari, Rana Sanaullah and Miftah Ismail – suggest signs of resistance. But two cases will test the mettle of the judges. The first relates to the fate of a serving army chief and the second to that of a retired one. Both raise important concerns about the nexus of the Miltablishment with a “selected” political party and leader.
The PTI government is petitioning the SC to review its judgment regarding the army chief’s extension rather than going to parliament to make a new law as advised by the SC. Why it has chosen this path is unclear. What if valuable time is lost without achieving its objective and the army chief is left high and dry in the end? Then there’s the question of the Special Court’s verdict against Gen (retd) Musharraf. Or will it uphold it or remand the case for fresh trial? It is significant that the Lahore High Court has already accepted a petition challenging the very constitution of the Special Court.
Let’s get this right. It is the very organs of the state, and not the PMLN and PPP or Media, that are on trial.
Outlook 2020
January 3, 2020
By any reckoning 2019 was a terrible year for Pakistanis of all classes.
Consider, first, the state of the economy.
The PTI government opted for an IMF program of “stabilization” that increased taxes, interest rates and prices of petroleum products. The rupee was devalued by 30%, leading to 15% inflation because the economy is heavily import-dependent both for consumer goods and producer goods. This reduced consumer demand, slowed down industrial growth, eroded the buying power of the lower and middle classes and increased the impoverishment of the masses. The government had promised to absorb 1.5 million new entrants in to the job market. But real and disguised unemployment have risen significantly with a halving of GDP growth.
Although tax revenues have increased significantly, the burden of debt servicing, defense expenditures and leakages in the public sector economy have taken a toll on poverty alleviation measures, social sector and infrastructure priorities and circular debt targets. The fiscal deficit is running at record high levels, fueling inflation and debt. Devaluation has not led to any significant increase in exports and the balance of payments crisis has not subsided significantly.
Under the circumstances, the economic outlook for 2020 remains grim. Hot money aside, the prospects of foreign or domestic investment spurring growth are dim. Even CPEC funds are likely to taper off as scrutiny and conditionalities are imposed to account for competitiveness and dependency. And any external shock – like an increase in international oil prices, deterioration in ties with America, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, or a military conflict with India – will impose further strains and hardships.
Consider, now, the state of political development and democracy that are prerequisites for economic certainty, stability and growth.
Government-Opposition relations have hit rock bottom. The top leaders of the mainstream parties, PPP and PMLN, are in prison or exile or enforced hospitalization. Parliament is dysfunctional – the government’s preferred route to law making is through short-lived Presidential Ordinances, the working committees are non-existent or deadlocked, the leaders of the House and Opposition are perennially absent and debate is viciously personal. The only thought of reform pertains to the longevity of the term of the army chief as a misplaced security blanket against any direct military intervention.
The media and judiciary as the third and fourth pillars of the state are in a state of siege. Unprecedented censorship, threats, shutdowns and blackmail have laid them low. Even social media activists are threatened with disappearances and shakedowns. The government and Miltablishment have turned a deaf ear to critical appreciation for better governance.
Under the circumstances, this state of siege may continue into 2020 if the government and Miltablishment remain on the “same page”, overwhelmed by 5G war conspiracy theories.
The state of external relations is also uncertain.
Relations with America depend on the Pakistani Miltablishment’s ability to deliver both an “honourable” exit of US troops from Afghanistan and a “workable” formula to end the civil war among the Afghans so that some sort of stable national government comprising all the major stakeholders that is not anti-West is possible. While the first objective may be achieved only because President Donald Trump is ready, in the final analysis, to withdraw unilaterally, the second is unlikely. In the last two decades, the Taliban have demonstrated the will and firepower to hold out for nothing less than full control of Afghanistan. They are unikely to abandon their gains on the eve of a grand and historic victory. This will put Pakistan in the uncomfortable position of having to mediate Western demands to “do more” vis-à-vis a resurgent Taliban regime.
Relations with India will be even more problematic. Given Narendra Modi’s Hindutva agenda and his propensity to whip up anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan sentiment, the probability of a military conflict along the LoC and even the international border is high. Certainly, the greater the civil society resistance in India to his Hinduisation project, the greater the chances that he will seek to dilute and distract his detractors by bogeying Pakistan. However limited, such a conflict will impose another burden on Pakistan’s economy. More ominously, if the conflict leads to some sort of military setback for Islamabad, it will shake up the “same page” political dispensation and unleash political turmoil, with unforeseen consequences.
Conflict in the Middle East will also hurt Pakistan by straining its relations with the contending Muslim nations. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf kingdoms are very prickly about Pakistan’s relations with Iran and Turkey. Pakistan’s tightrope act involves joining the former because they give money and oil and the latter because they support the cause of Kashmir. It doesn’t help that America, which holds the strings of FATF, has solidly lined up against Iran and views Turkey’s growing ties with Russia with hostility.
A national consensus on critical issues at home between government, opposition and Miltablishment would help avert many looming pitfalls for economy and society. But this logic has so far been lost on the PTI government. Indeed, pundits are not hopeful that any abiding lessons have been learnt and will be applied.
All Hail…
January 10, 2020
The PTI government has passed three bills giving the prime minister, who already had the right to appoint the three Service Chiefs and the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, the right to extend their three year terms up to age 64. The exercise is significant for several reasons.
Apparently, the COAS, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, desired an extension in tenure. The Prime Minister, Imran Khan, thought it a good idea too. Both gentlemen have constantly made a song and dance of being on the same page for the sake of the country’s stability. Is this a big deal?
It’s not a big deal because such extensions have been par for the course in Pakistan’s history. All Martial Law dictators gave themselves unlimited extensions, legitimized by the courts, and one prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani of the PPP, says he’s actually very proud to have been given an opportunity to extend the term of COAS Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
But one prime minister, Nawaz Sharif of the PMLN, has refused to accept the hegemony of the military and has never been on the same page with any army chief at any time. He handpicked three chiefs but ended up being embroiled in confrontation with them for one reason or another by turns. One, General Pervez Musharraf, ousted him; a second, General Raheel Sharif, sought an extension and, failing that, tried to oust him but didn’t succeed; the third, General Bajwa, decided eventually to “select” Imran Khan and has just claimed his reward.
So it’s a big deal because the PMLN has now meekly acquiesced in the grant of an extension to Gen Bajwa after having accused him of rigging (“vote ko izzat do”) the last elections and unfairly selecting Imran Khan to be prime minister. Indeed, Mr Sharif’s decision not to oppose the new laws comes as a shock to those ideologues inside and outside the party who are opposed to the hegemony of the military under a “democratic” constitution. The PMLN’s explanation – that it didn’t grant the extension but merely obeyed a Supreme Court ruling to the PTI government to amend the law to legalize an existing prime ministerial practice – is weak. It could have opposed it in light of Mr Sharif’s own restrictive practices as prime minister. At the very least, it could have insisted on certain relevant amendments to the sweeping new law or simply abstained from voting in its favour. But another explanation – that the Selector and Selected have jointly reduced the PMLN to a quivering mass of disability via NAB, especially in view of Mr Sharif’s ailing health — is more relevant. Under the circumstances, the view – that it’s important to remain on the right side of General Bajwa in the event that he decides to ditch Imran Khan for any reason and seeks options – can be subsumed under the adage “live to fight another day”.
Interestingly enough, the new law, itself, has started to generate juristic controversy. While it retains the prime minister’s constitutional right to appoint the army chief, it allows a degree of discretion to the President of Pakistan in according re-appointment or extension conditional to requirements of “national security” or similar “exigencies”. Some eminent legal eagles claim this Presidential discretion is unconstitutional and the law can therefore be struck down by the superior courts, unless the constitution is appropriately amended. This possibility might help explain why the government has simultaneously appealed the original SC decision that compelled it to amend the law relating to this issue. It fears that if the new law is examined under the spotlight and context of that decision and the various remarks of the judges, it could be found to be wanting or misplaced in more ways than one. Therefore, fearing the new law’s vulnerability, the government has sought a “stay” from the SC whilst requesting a bigger bench to hear the appeal.
So, if writs begin to fly, the “crisis” of the army chief’s extension could linger on.
The PMLN has also entered into a crisis. There is a shift away from the ideologues led by Nawaz Sharif in favour of the pragmatists led by Shahbaz Sharif. The significant irony is that it is the elder Sharif who has undoubtedly sanctioned this shift, however reluctantly. This decision will also serve to diminish the populist role of Maryam Nawaz Sharif and her team of hawks in the party. The likelihood therefore is that, for the foreseeable short term, Shahbaz Sharif will return to lead the opposition in Pakistan while Nawaz and Maryam Sharif will silently bide their time in London.
Indeed, the focus could now shift to the fate of Imran Khan. One false move and Gen Bajwa’s B Team could be readied for swift action. On the other hand, if Mr Khan is able to steady the ship of state and fulfil the economic and political requirements of good statecraft, he will be assured a degree of longevity that will compel the PMLN to rue the day the pragmatists seized control in hope of accelerating change in their favour.
Soul of India
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, swept to power last year with the support of about 240 million Indians or 37% of the votes cast. In the past month or so, about an equal number of Indians have erupted in protest across the country, including in pro-Modi states, rejecting his two citizenship bills that discriminate against Muslims. The protestors are predominantly young and comprise students, civil society activists, progressive men and women. This is a spontaneous citizens’ protest without any charismatic leader. In fact, the leading opposition parties are only now beginning to grasp its significance and formulate a strategy to gain advantage. A few states have officially passed resolutions against the new laws. Several civil society organizations and at least one state (Kerala) have petitioned the Supreme Court to strike the laws down as unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the ruling BJP is wielding the baton to put down the protestors – over 50 have died so far – and the jails are bursting at the seams. Going forward, it’s important to recognize some other facts.
The Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah is a far cry from the same party nearly two decades ago under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishan Advani. The latter were content to explode the “Hindu” bomb in 1998 and join the cosmology of Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Atheist “civilizations” as equal global partners while seeking a stable détente with Pakistan. But the former leaders want a radical transformation of Indian state and society which negates the very “idea of India” – secular, pluralist, democratic, unity in diversity – rooted in the Nehruvianism of independence. The new nationalist-civilizational India of Modi and Shah is based on the ideas of V D Savarkar advocated in his 1921 classic “Essentials of Hindutva”. Savarkar’s vision of modern India was pegged to three core planks: first, an end to the caste system; second, aggressive, assertive territorial loyalty of its citizens of “Hindu” religions, that included Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, etc., but excluded Muslims and Christians whose loyalty was suspect because their religions and civilizational symbols originated outside India in the Middle East; third, the use of revisionist history that glorified Hindu rulers and reviled Muslims and Christian conquerors in order to cement the past with the future. The RSS founders clutched at the second and third dimensions of Savarkar’s nationalist philosophy and ditched the first. Modi and Shah are faithful practitioners of this truncated Savarkar vision of India.
Seen in this light, Modi’s policies fall in place. Muslim Pakistan is the implacable enemy bogey which was used to sweep the elections. Muslim Kashmir is Pakistan’s terrorist outpost that must be locked down, crushed, and absorbed into the mainland. The two Citizenship Acts must be enforced to put the Muslims in their place. The state apparatus, army and police, must be politicised to do Modi’s authoritarian bidding. Should civil resistance build up, a diversionary limited war with Pakistan may be launched to bring the Hindu nation together again.
It would be a mistake, however, to see this explosion of resistance only through the prism of Modi’s two Citizenship Acts. The necessary condition of revolt is the dismal state of the economy. The much-vaunted “Gujerat model” has failed. Economic growth is the lowest in 42 years. There are not enough jobs for the 20 million new entrants – part of the demographic youth bulge – every year in the market. The myth of globalizing “Shining India” is in shreds. The internet has enabled young, especially marginalized sections of civil society, to watch how youthful protestors worldwide are challenging the new world order, and inspired them to follow suit at home. The sufficient condition is the stark realization that the anti-Muslim policies of the Modi regime are a forerunner of a new “idea of India” that is authoritarian, exclusivist, divisive, unequal and violent. Young, educated Indians, regardless of party affiliations, are not ready to abandon their long held notions of what India and its perks and freedoms means to them as well as to the world.
But without an acknowledged leader and specific political goals, this resistance may not have sufficient strength to withstand the force of Modi’s state. Meanwhile, the possibility of conflict with Pakistan should not be ruled out. It is curious that the agent provocateur, DSP Davinder Singh, who trapped Afzal Guru has now been caught in a similar situation with two Muslim “terrorists”. Whether this local “capture” was inadvertent and whether this was another Intel agency plot to contrive a conflictual situation with Pakistan is not yet clear. But Narendra Modi will certainly need to manufacture a big distraction to weather his mounting economic and political woes.
The battle for the soul of India is on. Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry of resistance, as in “Hum Dekhaein Gay”, is resonating across India, inspiring hope across borders. But, in the end, India’s destiny may rest on the Supreme Court’s willingness to judge the “nation’s conscience” – as it did in the case of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency or, in the opposite vein, in the case of Afzal Guru – to thwart or uphold Hindutva.
False consciousness
January 24, 2020
Imran Khan’s obsession with “corruption” as the root cause of every ill in state and society has touched new heights. He told the media in Davos that Pakistan’s economic growth and development had plummeted to new depths because of the corruption of the two mainstream opposition parties. He also claimed that the main cause of tension and conflict between the military and various PPP and PMLN regimes in the past was the military’s fierce aversion to their “corrupt” practices. As a corollary, it would appear that since his PTI regime is not corrupt, economic growth should be high; and because there are no tensions with the military, because they are on the same page on every issue, his government is safe and secure and stable. But the record proves him wrong on all counts.
“Corruption” was always the pretext on which political governments and leaders were hung out to dry in order to hide the true reasons for annoying or alienating the Miltablishment. In Imran Khan’s own “corruption-free” case, economic growth has hit rock bottom. There are also increasing signs of tension with the Miltablishment related to poor governance and bad management rather than corruption, leading pundits to wonder whether the end is nigh for the anti-corruption crusaders. A tour of history is also instructive.
Liaqat Ali Khan promulgated PRODA in 1949 to combat corruption in office. In truth, it was aimed at political opponents. The Mamdot government in Punjab was sacked for being “corrupt” and the Sindh CM Pir Elahi Buksh was similarly disqualified. in May 1954, East Pakistan’s CM, AK Fazlul Haq, was accused of corruption and fired. No direct link was ever established between corruption and economic growth. Under Gen Ayub Khan, PODA and EBDO were promulgated, dozens of politicians and over 3000 civil servants, high and low, were charged with corruption and many were disqualified from contesting elections or holding office. But the high economic growth of those years was due to unprecedented levels of economic assistance from the US in exchange for Pakistan’s partnership against “communism”, coupled with better management and planning of resources. Indeed, the Ayub era is often portrayed as the License Raj or golden age of corruption when the civil-military bureaucracy and 22 business families ruled the roost.
Gen Yahya Khan sacked 303 bureaucrats for corruption. But the country nose-dived into economic chaos and dismemberment. In the ZA Bhutto regime, over 1000 officials were sacked for corruption but the economy didn’t pick up. In the 1980s, Gen Zia ul Haq promulgated the PPO 16 and PPO 17 but institutionalized corruption by writing off bank loans of supporters and loyalists and sanctioning “development funds” for loyal MNAs and MPAs. Once again, American funds gushed in to prop up the economy in exchange for launching jihad against the USSR in Afghanistan.
Benazir Bhutto was sacked by the Miltablishment in 1990 on corruption charges. None were ever proved. The real reason was her attempt to challenge the hegemony of the military in foreign and national security policy, especially her quest for a peace settlement with India. Indeed, when Nawaz Sharif was dismissed for challenging the Miltablishment’s writ in 1993, “Mr 10 Per cent” was sworn in as a minister in the interim government and the road paved for the allegedly “corrupt” Bhutto to return to office. In turn, she launched over 100 cases of corruption and irregularities against the Sharif brothers, none of which ever amounted to anything. Indeed, when she was dismissed on corruption charges again in 1996, the “corrupt” Sharifs made up with the Miltablishment and returned to power in 1997. Much the same sort of political opportunism in the name of anti-corruption crusades was evident during General Pervez Mushharaf’s time. NAB was established to wipe out both the PPP and PMLN. Yet in 2007, the same General Musharraf promulgated the NRO to benefit 8,041 tainted politicians and bring the PPP back to power. The economic growth of the Musharraf years had more to do with a revival of large-scale American aid to boost the economy and fight the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11 than with any significant decline in the corruption index.
The PPP government from 2008-2013 was hounded from pillar to post by the Miltablishment not because of any corruption issues but because, first, it tried to wrest control of the ISI; second, because it wanted to engage with India over trade; and third, because it aroused suspicions during “Memogate” that it was conspiring with Washington to clip the wings of the Miltablishment. Much the same reaction was provoked by Nawaz Sharif from 2013-2018 when he opted to prosecute Gen (retd) Musharraf for high treason and challenged the Miltablishment’s pro-jihadi stance (DawnLeaks), which led to the launch of Imran Khan’s threatening dharnas. Nawaz Sharif was finally felled by an undisclosed iqama residence permit.
We have now come full circle to low economic growth, political instability, and tensions with the military in the backdrop of vicious “anti-corruption” crusades against opposition politicians. But this period of false consciousness too shall not deliver.
Open Society
January 31, 2020
Time was when Imran Khan stood atop a container-truck for months and constantly lauded the media and journalists for supporting struggles for a better and fairer Pakistan. Alas. The times, they are a changin’. In Imran Khan’s Naya Pakistan, the same media is in the dog house and those very journalists are out of jobs for pursuing the same cause as vigourously as before.
Mr Khan says that the media in general and some journalists in particular are destabilizing his government. He has advised his ministers and supporters to stop watching TV and reacting to stories of corruption, incompetence, mismanagement, double standards, conflicts of interest, U-turns, ham handedness and infighting in the bowels of PTI governments in Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar. Under his watch, PEMRA is geared to threaten, browbeat and gag the mainstream media like never before, no matter that it is supposed to be an “independent” regulator. Apparently, it was kosher for the free media to destabilise a fairly elected PMLN government in 2013-18 but not when an unfairly “selected” PTI government is at the receiving end.
PEMRA’s latest transgression into media freedoms is a proposed law to control budding online web content by various stratagems. Except in a few authoritarian regimes, such content is regulated under the normal laws of the land in a constitutional democracy. Indeed, since much of it is restricted to persons and not institutions, it is a breath of fresh air away from the restrictive practices and politics of corporate media. But the motive here is mala fide. Its aim is to plug the small gap that has appeared in the overwhelming gagging mechanism of the executive. Journalists who were sacked by media houses for stepping on the toes of the government or Miltablishment took refuge in YouTube and Podcasts. Henceforth, if the proposed new law is passed, they will be pushed offline or prosecuted for non-compliance with strict “codes of conduct” in the context of 5GW or fifth generation warfare. The excuse is that the “enemy” out there has to be stopped from using or exploiting the media to undermine the state’s conventional war capacity. In other words, the media has to be “managed” through censorship of news and analysis.
In practical terms, this has translated into a ban on institutions, parties, movements and persons who are inimical to the partisan political interests of the ruling junta regardless of the fact that they may simply be demanding their constitutional rights. Under this rubric, it is kosher to show every minute of Imran Khan’s aggressive dharna for four months but not more than six seconds of Maulana Fazal ur Rahman’s peaceful march for fresh elections. It is par for the course for the media to highlight every waking propaganda of Imran Khan and his coterie of ministers but not to show case Mariam Nawaz Sharif’s rousing rallies or hard truths defending the trumped up NAB charges against her. Certainly, it is forbidden for the media to air the anguish of the near and dear ones of “missing” or “disappeared” persons and it is downright traitorous to highlight or defend the peaceful Pashtun Tahafuz Movement and its elected leaders. Matters pertaining to the army chief’s “extension” are strictly “no-go” areas. Any criticism of “friendly” states and monarchs is to be shut down. The latest “enemies” are students agitating for local administrative or political constitutional rights, a development that should warm the cockles of archenemy Narendra Modi’s Hindu heart. Indeed, the atmosphere of “prohibition” has become so stifling that an Urdu translation of celebrated author Mohammad Hanif’s bestselling book for many years – “A case of Exploding Mangoes” – is banned, a book on the “Battle for Pakistan” by Shuja Nawaz – a scholar and scion of the distinguished military family of ex-COAS, General Asif Nawaz Janjua, – that discusses the politics of the last decade cannot be launched and a book authored by former DG ISI Gen Asad Durrani whose patriotism cannot be doubted is unavailable in the country.
The media’s trials are accentuated by the shocks of a failing economy and loss of business confidence. With consumer demand and economic growth falling and consequent advertisement revenue plumbing new depths, media houses are laying off thousands of employees and journalists, compelling the more enterprising among these to scramble for alternative avenues of livelihood on the World Wide Web where Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other such social media outlets provide lucrative avenues for creative energies. In time to come, this activity can rival sources of national income like exports and home remittances from overseas working Pakistanis. But if it is stifled on the pretext of “national security” or “anti-state” activity, then Pakistan will be excluded from the beneficial dimensions of globalization.
Pakistan is neither like the UK, EU or USA where no such regulators and regulations exist nor a closed one like China or Saudi Arabia. But with 200 million people jostling for rights under representative political parties, pluralist groups and a vocal judiciary, there is no path for salvation but one that follows the route of open societies.
Why not Pakistan?
February 7, 2020
Thus tweeted Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, our redoubtable Minister for Science and Technology, “Must congratulate @ARYVideos for showing epic drama serial #MereyPassTumHo. Writer n whole team deserves big applause. I yet again ask @amazon and @Netflix invest in Pak drama n film #Pakistan has far better minds than India our music is far superior, you guys wont regret.” So why aren’t Netflix and Amazon investing in Pakistan in a big way like they have in India?
It’s true that the drama serial in question was a roaring success in Pakistan. While husband-adulterers with good-natured housewives (good woman) are par for the course, the drama’s novelty in conservative Pakistani society stemmed from a wife-adulteress (bad woman) with a good-natured husband. Significantly, the serial underscored the writer’s views on issues of women’s loyalty, morality and betrayal that find a resounding echo in state and society: “Like it or not, I don’t call every woman a woman. To me, the only beautiful trait a woman can possess is her loyalty [to her husband] and her haya/modesty. If a woman isn’t loyal then she is not a woman…A man leaves all his honour, his self-esteem with his wife when he goes out to earn a living. And I curse those women who violate that trust. That was the concept behind Mere Pass Tum Ho and so I’m fighting for the ‘good women’.” As one reviewer noted, this is a “frighteningly common mindset that the burden of guilt in moral lapses lies on the woman’s shoulders, not the man’s.” Another explained: “The pietist turn in Pakistani pulp fiction-turned-drama serials in the last 20 years is quite distinct from their ascetic bent of the 1980s. But the turn is not towards some feminist challenging of the unjust male dominant societal system. Instead, the current trope of these popular women-authored scripts urge that injustices can be overcome through Muslim women’s religious agency, education, pietist practice and eventually, by forgiveness for those who have been unjust to the unwitting woman.”
Here, in a nutshell, are clear reasons why Netflix and Amazon aren’t interested in commissioning Pakistani dramas like #MereyPassTumHo and why Indian serials (like Sacred Games, Made in Heaven, etc.) and films (like Dangal) are such global blockbusters. In Pakistan, the reactionary gender and societal status quo is confirmed while in India it is constantly challenged at the altar of women’s liberation, human rights including gay rights, and secular agency, all buzz words for the modern world. A world in which demographic change is tilted towards the youth, and globalizing “anti-stigma” ideas dominate the discourse on the internet.
In India, the mainstream media, the political class, the higher courts are all agreed on promoting and projecting a “modern”, West-compatible image of their country; filmmakers and content-creators who contribute to a cutting-edge, au courant discourse are embraced. And not just in India: a gritty, no-holds-barred web series like Sacred Games, with its “realistic” display of local cusswords and sexual intimacy, has been avidly watched in territories like Japan and Latin America and earned nods at the American Emmy Awards, adding many feathers to Netflix India’s flagship project. It’s a win-win for all involved. Today Melbet is a bookmaker that provides for the game a wide list of more than 250 events in Live daily and 1000 matches on the line. A lot of bonuses await registered users on the official Melbet website , which you can use at any time, even from your phone.
Can we imagine such a project being given the green light in Pakistan? On the contrary, the prospect of a truly candid depiction of our society, of anything that violates the conformist, “pious-moral” style of Urdu drama serials, immediately conjures up a specter of protesting mullahs, reactionary bureaucrats and sanctimonious trolls. In fact, we need not imagine anything at all; just look at the fate of Sarmad Khoosat’s film Zindagi Tamasha, which has been stalled because of rabid threats from religious extremists.
Much the same sort of problems bedevil the promotion of Pakistan as a tourist destination. Majestic mountains, shimmering seas and sandy beaches without the key elements of leisure and relaxation – physical security, five star luxuries, refreshments to uplift the spirit and a public that doesn’t stand and stare – will not attract foreign tourists. Muslim UAE recognized this fact of life and tourism flourished. Now arch conservative Saudi Arabia is waking up to emulate this global standard. If Pakistan is to get a slice of this $10,000 billion per year industry, its people, artists and service providers must supply the social and cultural environment demanded by the global tourist. But we cannot even hold a Basant kite flying festival in Lahore, our so-called cultural capital.
The potential foreign investor is also put off by other such red lines. Political instability, policy discontinuities, ill-informed court injunctions, worthless sovereign guarantees, arbitrary NAB interventions and banking infirmities are forbidding roadblocks that raise the risk quotient to unacceptable levels (that’s why Paypal and eBay aren’t yet in Pakistan). Foreign power producers suffered on this count in the 1990s and mineral prospectors in the 2000s, and attendant costs to Pakistan for unfulfilled contracts in foreign litigations have risen astronomically.
The fact is that despite self-serving rhetoric, political leaders, intellectuals, artists, and state institutions are not ready to educate Pakistanis in some of the ways of the modern world that bring wealth and prosperity.
Resetting Policy
February 14, 2020
Prime Minister Imran Khan has invited the Turkish President, Recip Tayyip Erdogan, to address a joint session of Pakistan’s parliament. The opposition intends to honour President Erdogan by attending this session. But in 2016, when the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif invited President Erdogan to speak before a joint session of parliament, Imran Khan led his PTI parliamentarians out of the National Assembly. He said he didn’t accept the legitimacy of the Sharif government and parliamentary majority to accord it any respect. The irony is that the current opposition parties have also rejected the legitimacy of the selected prime minister but have not allowed it to sour relations with Turkey. What’s so special about Turkey and President Erdogan that so excites Pakistani prime ministers?
Nawaz Sharif’s motive was unconcealed. He wanted to do business with Turkish companies when Turkey’s economy was booming. That’s when Turkish companies were awarded contracts to clean up garbage in Punjab cities, supply offshore electricity, invest in the education sector, on “attractive” terms. Mr Sharif was also curious to learn some tricks and tips from Mr Erdogan on how to control the military, enhance his powers and prolong rule. But he was careful not to be drawn into a developing power grab in the Middle East between Saudi Arabia and Turkey after the Arab Spring changed many political equations in the region. Indeed, he stuck close to Saudi Arabia so that Pakistan could continue to avail its financial generosity in times of need.
But Imran Khan has wittingly squandered Saudi Arabia’s goodwill by seeming to favour a developing power bloc in the Islamic world led by Turkey. This is significant because it comes at a time when Turkey’s economy is reeling from the same acute disease of stagflation – meaning it can’t help us financially – and its relations with Saudi Arabia are downright hostile following the Khashoggi affair. Mr Khan has naively expressed the view that the Saudis have “misunderstood” the motive of the budding alliance in Kuala Lumpur in the same way that they “misunderstood” his “sincere” attempt to try and bridge the Saudi-Iran divide some months earlier. His reason for edging closer to Iran and Turkey and Malaysia is that they support the Kashmir cause verbally while Saudi Arabia and its OIC bloc don’t. But state realism demands a more rigorous cost-benefit analysis of such foreign policy moves.
President Erdogan has shifted Turkey’s historical interest in Europe to the Middle East by cultivating economic and political interests in the region at the expense of Saudi Arabia. It wants to become a regional power. This is evident in its policies relating to Libya, Sudan, Qatar, Egypt, etc., which are at odds with Saudi interests. The struggle between Turkey and Saudi Arabia has also spilled into the GCC after the latter’s rift with Qatar. All this doesn’t bode well for the unity of the “Islamic” world. But in Pakistan’s case, annoying Saudi Arabia and America could be suicidal. For all intents and purposes, Islamabad is tied into the US-Saudi axis. It is dependent on Saudi money to prop up its forex reserves, it is dependent on Saudi oil on deferred payment terms, it is dependent on several billion dollars of remittances sent by Pakistani workers in Saudi Arabia and it is wooing Saudi investments in Gwadar. Pakistan is also dependent on the US for support in mediating FATF requirements, helping to alleviate military tensions with India and nudging international finance institutions like the IMF and World Bank to assist its ailing economy.
Turkey and Malaysia, on the other hand, do not offer anything by way of a significant quid pro quo for Pakistan. Both countries’ private sectors are eyeing enhanced exports of goods and services to Pakistan and both leaders are posturing as global statesmen manipulating regional dynamics. Both seek to exploit Imran Khan’s naivete by pandering to his ego following his celebrated Kashmir speech at the UN last year.
Bilawal Bhutto is rightly demanding that Pakistan renegotiate terms with the IMF so that the masses are not further impoverished by rising prices, rising taxes and rising unemployment. Under the circumstances, state realism demands closer ties with America and Saudi Arabia so that economic and political concessions can flow from the former on FATF and IMF and from the latter on forex deposits, investment, remittances, oil facilities etc. Indeed, instead of positively resetting strained relations with America and consolidating traditional ties with Saudi Arabia, the Imran Khan regime is floundering dangerously on both fronts.
The US-Pak relationship has become one-dimensional. It is dependent on Pakistan’s ability to deliver American goals in Afghanistan. Under President Donald Trump, this is a precarious situation in an election year. If Pakistan is unable to bend the Taliban to accommodate US concerns, President Trump is quite capable of reverting to his capricious self when he accused Pakistan not so long ago of playing a double game and held out the threat of sanctions. Similarly, the Saudis under their Modern Prince, Muhammad bin Sultan, should not be taken for granted, let alone offended.
Silence speaking volumes?
February 21, 2020
Last month, the chairman of the FBR, Shabbar Zaidi, called it a day. Apparently the pressure of having to deliver unrealistic IMF targets agreed by the government laid him low. Yesterday, the Attorney General, Anwar Mansoor Khan, quit. The pressure of having to endorse indefensible government actions alienated the bar and bench, his constituency, and eroded his credibility. The knives are now out for the Finance Minister, Hafeez Sheikh, and the State Bank Governor, Raza Baqir. An ex-Commerce Minister and reputed IMF/World Bank consultant, Dr Zubair Khan, has petitioned the Supreme Court to stop the duo from drowning Pakistan in a sea of debt by their deeply hurtful economic policies at the behest of foreign agencies. The irony is that the IMF team has returned to Washington without sanctioning the next tranche of financial assistance, implying that it isn’t satisfied with the government’s substance and pace of “reform” as agreed.
If economic management is woefully lacking, the state of political mismanagement also shows. The Miltablishment weathercock, Sheikh Rashid, is alarmed by the stunning silence of the opposition parties, in particular the PMLN. He would much rather have a raucous and threatening opposition, he says, so that one can gauge its intentions and react to it than such a studied meekness that smacks of some sort of a dangerous and ominous conspiracy to unseat the government. He has in mind the undignified haste with which the opposition stamped approval of the army chief’s extension in comparison with the bumbling and stumbling manner in which the government approached the subject. The silence of Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz is particularly out of form, suggesting that some sort of “deal” with the Miltablishment is in the works. Such a deal, he fears, would inevitably be at the cost of his dear prime minister.
If truth be told, it is curious that the courts have suddenly become amenable to the pleas of opposition leaders. Asif Zardari and Faryal Talpur are being looked after in hospital, thank you; Rana Sanaullah, Fawad Hasan Fawad and Miftah Ismail are free; Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Ahsan Iqbal will probably be bailed out shortly; Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif are in London, the former’s conviction in a corruption case is suspended while the latter is on bail. For a government that sustains its anti-corruption agenda on hounding the opposition, this must be worrying. More significantly, a government that never tires of reminding everyone that it is on the same page as the Miltablishment on all issues – and hence has nothing to fear from it – must wonder whether its “stability” is more illusion than reality. Whether it is the ubiquitous but invisible hand of the Miltablishment or widespread public disgruntlement with the government’s lack of “performance” that is creating sympathy for the opposition and affording it some relief in the courts, one thing is for sure: the government’s economic and political narrative is bankrupt.
Amidst this developing crisis of confidence and runaway suspicions, Maulana Fazal ur Rahman has put the cat amongst the pigeons. He is threatening another long match next month to unseat the government, setting off alarm bells for Sheikh Rashid and Imran Khan. The good Sheikh has warned the Maulana that he will be bunged into prison if he ventures into Islamabad. The beleaguered prime minister wants Article 6 Treason charges to be brought against him for conspiring against the government last month. Pundits will, therefore, be drawing straws to predict what happens next.
The first signal to look out for is the pending case of Maryam Nawaz for permission to leave the country and be with her father during his illness. The judges have kept it pending, week after week. If she is granted permission, two perceptions will be created: something is definitely in the air; and, if the government challenges it in the Supreme Court, the prime minister intends to resist it, albeit unsuccessfully, confirming Sheikh Rashid’s fears. https://australiacasinoonline.com
The second signal will come if the opposition unites under one banner to march on Islamabad and the government pulls out all the stops to halt it in its tracks. With the public in a state of visible outrage at spiraling prices and joblessness and provincial governments tottering under the burden of disaffection amongst the ranks of the police and bureaucracy, Imran Khan will be hard put to block this surge of popular militancy. The Miltablishment is already smarting for spawning the disastrous PTI government. Certainly, it will have to think twice before it commits itself to overtly defending such an unpopular regime.
The final signal will come when the PTI’s “allies” in Punjab and Islamabad start forming forward blocks and jumping ship. Of course, the signals may be mixed and ambiguous. But, come what may, there is only one potential winner or loser in this scenario. That is Shahbaz Sharif. Either his pro-Miltablishment “narrative” will be dead as a dodo and Nawaz Sharif’s will be revived, or he will be bang in the game like never before.
Bar and Bench
February 28, 2020
Traditionally, the judiciary has been a loyal handmaiden to the executive. This is a hangover of colonial rule when the judiciary was in the service of the British Raj. But it is also a fact that repeated and long doses of civil-military authoritarianism since 1947 have bent the judiciary to the will of the executive. The Movement for the Restoration of the Judiciary (MRJ) in 2008-09 – aptly named – was aimed at achieving a state of autonomy for the superior judiciary. But its success so went to the head of its leading lights that nothing less than “independence” was finally acceptable. Under the circumstances, the judiciary acquired the power to self-appoint and self-regulate itself – unprecedented elsewhere – without even a fig leaf of parliamentary oversight or accountability. However, when the pendulum swung so far, such extraordinary power went to the head of a few judges leading to some highly erratic judicial activisms and interventions which made a mockery of justice.
In particular, former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who ruled the roost for eight years, will long be remembered for some of the most atrocious and damaging decisions to impact the economy – Steel Mills privatization, Reko Dik, Rental Power projects, etc. – no less than the disqualification of a prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, on contempt charges. Another CJP, Saquib Nisar, was veritably “a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more”. He confessed to fancying himself as Baba Rahmata (a fictitious character who abnegated reason and logic) and has left behind a litany of unaccountable, arrogant pronouncements on various subjects that encroached into the policy domain of the executive (like the Dam Fund, taxes on purified bottled water, private school fees, etc.). In particular, he was inclined to favour Imran Khan (regularization of Bani Gala) and his crony Zulfiqar Bukhari (dual nationality) even as he sought to apply the same yardsticks stringently to lesser mortals. A third CJP, Asif Saeed Khosa, betrayed his bias against another prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, when he quoted from the mafia novel, The Godfather, and disqualified him for life from becoming a member of parliament simply because he had not declared an insignificant income (asset?) that had not actually accrued to him!
But times may be changing. Instead of blatantly taking sides between elected political leaders or studiously ignoring the elephant in the room, a couple of judges have stood up to be counted. Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court is bravely contesting Miltablishment attempts to oust him from the SC because he held its functionaries culpable for objectionable political activity during the Faizabad Dharna in 2017 by the Tehreek Labaiq Pakistan. Now he has filed contempt charges against the President, Prime Minister, Law Minister and State Minister of Interior for illegal surveillance of judges. Another judge, Justice Athar Minallah, chief justice of the Islamabad High Court, has bravely ticked off NAB for misusing its powers to harass, intimidate and arrest political opponents of the government. The arbitrary charge of “sedition” on peaceful protestors is also strictly a no-no in his books. A third, Justice Waqar Seth, Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court, has awarded a death sentence to General (retd) Pervez Musharraf for Article 6 Treason, an unbelievable award considering the “sacred and exalted” office of the army chief. And now the new CJP, Gulzar Sheikh, has ordered that all “illegal” structures and encroachments, including those in Defence Housing Authority, should be razed and the pristine glory of the law restored. DHA, it should be noted, is a sacred cow of state elites. Indeed, some of the CJP’s remarks during hearings of the case are memorable for their brutal frankness: “At the rate the DHA is going, soon it will cross the border into India… or expand into the Indian ocean”; “it is not the business of soldiers to build marriage halls in Cantonments”, etc.). Whether the good CJP will be as good as his threat remains to be seen, but at least the elephant in the room has been duly chastised.
Of the four pillars of a democratic state – parliament, government, media and judiciary – three have bitten the dust. The first two are furiously passing laws and rules to curtail cherished constitutional freedoms in the name of “national security”, the catchall word to browbeat and intimidate. The media can only flex its muscle if the judiciary is able and willing to protect these rights. Indeed, by defending and protecting the media, the judiciary is actually strengthening itself as was evident in the role of the free media in supporting the MRJ.
Surely there are other brave judges in the rosters of the High Courts and Supreme Court who are committed to their oath of protecting the Constitution and the democratic order that should flow from it, as are the various associations of the bar that launched the struggle for MRJ. This is Pakistan’s hour of need. The bar and bench should rise to the occasion like never before.
Silence no option
March 6, 2020
Imran Khan is thundering in Islamabad as usual about nothing in particular and everything in general. Bilawal Bhutto has landed in the Punjab and is frenetically wooing every disgruntled group in sight. But the Sharifs are hibernating in London without a word of explanation. Meanwhile, Pakistanis are frustrated, alienated and angry. What’s going on?
We can understand the sullen mood of the people. Great hardship has been heaped upon them by the PTI government’s unprecedented mismanagement of the economy – galloping inflation, rising joblessness, increasing taxes and declining incomes.
We can also appreciate why Bilawal Bhutto thinks there are easy pickings to be had at the moment. Punjab province is logjammed because the Chief Minister doesn’t have a clue whether he’s coming or going, the bureaucracy is sulking and constituency demands aren’t being met because provincial purse strings are tightly held by cash-stricken Islamabad. So Bilawal is tapping into the discontent of women that has generated the Aurat March, he’s dipping into the anguish of Baloch and FATA families of “missing” persons, he’s trying to whip up the working classes by supporting trade union demands and opposing privatization of public assets, he’s empathizing with the media that is facing layoffs, bankruptcies and censorship, and extracting maximum mileage from blasting government U-turns. In short, he’s decided to flog the old “progressive” formula of his grandfather and mother.
Bilawal Bhutto’s job has been facilitated in no small measure by the stunning “silence” of the undisputed leader of PMLN, Nawaz Sharif, whose inaction has given rise to doubts and suspicions in the mind of its supporters and brought back dark fears of 2000 when the Sharifs fled to Saudi Arabia on the back of a “deal” with the Miltablishment instead of facing the music and fighting back.
People can understand that Nawaz Sharif’s failing health precludes any forceful response simply because Imran Khan can bung him into prison on any number of concocted charges and the judiciary is too week to guarantee any quick relief. But then they want to know why Shahbaz Sharif isn’t playing the aggressive role of the Leader of the Opposition and why Maryam Nawaz is a pale shadow of her fiery self today. PMLN supporters were visibly dismayed, and critics naturally overjoyed, when the PMLN meekly submitted to the tenurial extension of the army chief mooted by the PTI government. This was sorry capitulation by a leader committed to challenging the hegemony of the Miltablishment and losing prime ministerial power not once but three times on account of his views. And not a word of explanation, not even why the fig leaf of a parliamentary debate was abjectly surrendered.
To be sure, the Sharifs have been deliberately dealt a very bad hand. Miltablishment conspiracies were mounted against them from their second year in office – Imran’s record-breaking dharna, Dawnleaks, “Modi ka jo Yaar Hai, Ghaddar Hai, Ghaddar hai”, etc. – until the Supreme Court clutched at the opening provided by Panamagate and struck down Nawaz Sharif in the fourth year. Come 2018 and election day, the Election Commission of Pakistan was mysteriously afflicted by the RTS virus that knocked out the PMLN from any reckoning. Then NAB was unleashed to sic the leadership that had managed to scrape through. The cult shooter Bulletstorm 2 will still see the world! This information appeared in the famous international online magazine dedicated to gambling and e-sports. Read the original article here: https://logincasino.org/blog/what-is-the-exact-bulletstorm-2-release-date-and-what-are-the-developers-doing-today61029.html Also on the site, you can find out the exact release date of Bulletstorm 2, study the comments of fans and fans of the cult game. And so the trials and tribulations continue with no relief in sight.
PMLN leaders are now demanding mid-term elections preceded by a new “Charter of the Constitution” signed by core stakeholders – Miltablishment, Judiciary, Parliament and Political Parties. The aim of this is to enshrine Truth and Reconciliation “rules of the game” that enable governments to be elected on the basis of free and fair elections, there are no dharnas, no Dawnleaks, no institutional encroachments into one another’s constitutional domains, no tenurial extensions, etc. But without a viable comeback strategy, it is anybody’s guess how and why such rules of the game will ever be accorded recognition and assent by those who wield de facto, independent or autonomous power, i.e, the self-righteous Miltablishment and Judiciary.
It is, of course, possible that the PMLN’s strategy is based on the “live-to-fight-another-day” assumption that sooner rather than later, the people of Pakistan who are suffering under the yoke of the PTI government will spontaneously rise and revolt against it, thereby opening up avenues and options for regime change. Or that Narendra Modi will initiate a military conflict with Pakistan resulting in a national calamity of unprecedented proportions like the 1971 debacle, leading to the demise of the PTI government and a chance to draw up the proposed “rules of the game” with the Miltablishment. Or even that the Miltablishment will finally wake up and draw the line on shouldering the burden of the PTI government’s continuing catastrophes and signal an end to its failed political experiment.
Whatever fate has in store for Pakistan’s core stakeholders, silence and inaction is not an option for the PMLN. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. And the old adage that nothing risked, nothing gained, still rings true, no less than the one that says power only recognizes countervailing power.
Wake up!
March 13, 2020
The UN has declared the infectious coronavirus crisis a pandemic – a disease that is spreading simultaneously in many countries at the same time. It is also spreading exponentially everywhere – almost doubling every ten days or so. At last count, over 150,000 cases had been tested globally, with over 4000 deaths reported at the mortality rate of over 3-8 percent, rising steeply with old age when the immune system is progressively weak. It is learnt that the virus can be contracted not only by physical contact with persons but also though the air and various types of surfaces. At this rate, scientists calculate that millions could be infected globally in a month or so. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine in the market to counter this threat and medics are not holding out any promise of a breakthrough in the near future.
Consequently, several countries have imposed various types of “lockdowns”: travel restrictions, ban on big gatherings, large scale quarantines, etc., to contain the disease. Italy, which is the worst affected after China, has quarantined all big cities in the north. The US has stopped entries from some EU and other countries and called out the National Guard in New York. Various airlines in the Middle East have curtailed flights to and from some destinations. Across the globe, stadium events hosting football, cricket, baseball matches, music extravaganzas, conferences, etc., where chances of infections are the greatest, are being cancelled. Saudi Arabia has stopped the Umrah pilgrimage of millions and there is serious consideration to deal with the Hajj event in July in a similar vein. Elsewhere, national emergencies have been declared or put on the anvil. Hospital and health services are shifting to red alert. Overnight, breathing masks, hand sanitizers, soaps, disinfectants, frozen food, etc., are disappearing off the shelves in supermarkets as citizens scramble to hoard up for impending hard times. Apart from China – the source of the virus and the most adversely affected country – Pakistan’s contiguous neighbours Iran and India are also moving swiftly to take serious large scale preventive measures to deal with the emergency at hand. But what is the PTI government in Pakistan doing to protect our citizens who are most vulnerable for a host of reasons?
It seems to be least bothered. The government claims there are less than a couple of dozen cases and only one or two patients have died so far. It says that borders and entry-exit are being monitored but admits that its facilities are fairly rudimentary and haphazard. Almost all the cases reported are of Pakistani citizens returning to Pakistan who “somehow” managed to escape detection on arrival and are likely to have infected many others in contact with them subsequently. Our lack of concern for our own citizens is evidenced by the fact that the government has allowed all our domestic supply of breathing masks to be exported gratis to China and imported supplies have dried up because of a global shortage in the face of steeply rising panic-demand.
Two big threat-events are continuing apace. The first is the annual moot at Raiwind near Lahore of the Tablighi Jamaat which attracts nearly a million of the Faithful from all over the country, including from virus-vulnerable areas on Pakistan’s borders with China and Iran. For three days these Believers will breathe and live in a collective embrace, thereby exposing themselves freely to the lurking infections in their midst. They will then carry the virus to their homes and boost it exponentially in weeks. The government sat back and did nothing to persuade them to postpone their moot. Much the same sort of cavalier mindset is manifest in the approach to the matches of the PSL5 attended by tens of thousands every week, the four national stadiums becoming veritable hotspots of corona incubation. The government cannot be unaware of the dangers inherent in such big gatherings but seems to lack the will and ability to do anything about it. What would happen if, ironically, star foreign players from core countries were to be recalled by their cricket boards midway through the tournament, leaving PSL5 high and dry?
The situation can be summed up as follows. Willful ignorance, denial, even dereliction of duty and callousness are evident in PTI corridors in Islamabad. Prime Minister Imran Khan is more concerned about imposing a “uniform” education system in the country next year – “so that the sort of culturally diverse opinions expressed during the Aurat March are stifled” — while propagating the virtues of passion over education and professionalism. He is expending all his energies in grinding the media and political opposition to the ground instead coming to grips with a health emergency that is staring him in the face. Indeed, this is the very moment that a charismatic leader like him can wake up and rouse the administration and masses to gird their loins to combat the most deadly disease to ever attack the country.
What was Nero doing while Rome was burning?
Whom the gods wish to destroy ….
March 20, 2020
The arrest of Mir Shakil ur Rahman, owner-editor of the Jang/Geo Media Group, by NAB is a shocking development because it confirms our worst suspicions that NAB has become a willing tool in the hands of the government to victimize and punish all those who dare to criticize the PM and government policies. A second comment that we are compelled to make is that the Chairman NAB, Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, is being blackmailed by the government to do its bidding. The evidence for these conclusions is overwhelming.
MSR has been charged with an alleged “crime” he committed in 1986, in cahoots with the then chief minister of Punjab, Mian Nawaz Sharif. It is extraordinary that NAB has been motivated to dig so far in history to try and nail him. The charge is that CM Sharif illegally allotted 56 kanals of land to MSR at below market price. But MSR has provided evidence that he bought the land – as a business transaction – from an individual who was then its owner as shown in LDA records. In other words, there is no direct exchange-nexus between MSR and MNS.
Equally, the charge that MNS illegally allotted any plots of land to anyone, let alone MSR, is not maintainable because the law at that time allowed the CM wide “discretionary” powers to make such allotments.
MSR’s arrest at a preliminary stage of the inquiry or investigation is also highly “irregular” in NAB’s own book of rules. The recent amendments in NAB rules and laws relating to inquiries against “businessmen” preclude such swift action. What is most significant is the fate of the Accountability Court judge hearing MSR’s case who expressed surprise and reservations about NAB’s conduct and was expected in the next hearing to remand MSR to judicial custody: he has been abruptly shunted. There are echoes in this of a similar fate of various Accountability Court judges trying MNS and other PMLN leaders in assorted cases who weren’t quite ready to blindly tow NAB’s line.
Contrary to NAB assertions that it is an independent institution, various government spokesmen have time and again publicly claimed they have “proof” of corruption against PMLN leaders which they are sending to NAB. Indeed, before NAB swung into action against MSR, the prime minister himself went on record to say how he intended to fix him.
Unfortunately, too, the circumstantial evidence of the government blackmailing the NAB Chairman is irresistible. Shortly after he gave an interview to a journalist outlining his intention to proceed against certain PTI leaders like Pervez Khattak, Zulfiqar Bukhari etc., a video mysteriously appeared on the PM’s “help line” that severely incriminated the NAB Chairman. Soon thereafter, a media channel owner-advisor to the PM hosted the incriminating video that sent the NAB reeling. The video was withdrawn and the case hushed up by leaning on the media. But NAB has now abandoned all pretext of neutrality and is roundly going after the government’s opponents and critics. Wait for it: a petition against the NAB Chairman pending in the Supreme Judicial Council is now likely to see the light of day and bipartisan demands for his resignation are also going to grow louder.
MSR has applied for bail in the Lahore High Court. The mainstream political parties led by the PMLN have petitioned the Islamabad High Court to restrain NAB. The Jang-Geo Group has approached the Islamabad High Court to stop PEMRA from blocking GEO channel in various ways. At home, every media and civil society organ has condemned the government’s repressive and vindictive ways. Abroad, every human rights and media organization of repute has voiced serious concerns. The US State Department has made a telling statement while senior diplomats of other Western countries are expressing their views directly to their Pakistani counterparts in no uncertain manner.
Chief Justice Athar Minallah of the IHC has repeatedly censured NAB for its arbitrary and discriminatory ways. It’s a no-brainer that he will sooner than later order “Enough is Enough”. Therefore it is a foregone conclusion that MSR will be out on bail soon. But it is by no means certain that the vindictive government and NAB won’t drum up another false case to keep him in chains.
This is the most media-repressive regime since 1988 when a hybrid “democracy” was ushered into Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto learnt to live with the “din of democracy”; MNS learnt the error of his ways later; Gen Musharraf was long the darling of the media. But it is Imran Khan who admits that his political success was owed in large measure to a supportive media and it is Imran Khan who is now bent on silencing it.
In opposition, Imran Khan used to say that media crackdowns are a sign of unpopular and tottering regimes. In government, he should recall that when MNS and Gen Musharraf cracked down on the media, it wasn’t long before their rule came to an end. “Whom the gods wish to destroy …”
Inescapable conclusion
March 27, 2020
One third of the globe – comprising over 100 countries and 2.6 billion people – is in various stages of “lockdown” against the spreading Corona virus. If justification for “lockdown” – isolating people to protect them from being infected – is needed, one only has to learn from the experience of China and Italy, the two worst hit countries, that have finally managed to flatten and then turn the exponential curve of infection via managed “lockdowns” of areas, cities and people. Even US President Donald Trump and UK Premier Boris Johnson, two reluctant “lockdowners”, have bitten the bullet and embarked on progressive lockdowns.
Yet Pakistan’s PM, Imran Khan, is still, after all the evidence has piled up, resisting any effective lockdown in the country, thereby nourishing the conditions in which the virus acquires exponential proportions and overwhelms the state system. The terrible confusion in the mind of the Leader of Pakistan is compounded by the fact that, in effect, different parts of the provinces and country are “locking” down on their own in a haphazard and uncoordinated manner, which makes their initiatives relatively ineffective. Ominously enough, the Miltablishment is so alarmed at this lack of leadership and clarity of action when it is urgently needed that it has autonomously readied for “aiding civil power”. Conservative estimates suggest that within a couple of weeks, if there is no swift, concerted and coordinated lockdown in the entire country, the infection will hit over 100,000 Pakistanis and many will die.
Imran Khan worries that an effective lockdown will halt economic activity and push millions of factory workers and daily wage earners below the “poverty line” and make their lives a living hell. But he doesn’t want to consider what would happen not just to the working class but to all Pakistanis if the virus disables the working population and locks down the system amidst fear, chaos and anarchy. The PM’s “confusion” is now being attributed to close advisors and confidantes from the business community of “haves” who don’t want to close factories and businesses or pay wages if closures are enforced.
Imran Khan’s lack of serious concern – “this too shall pass” philosophy – is also attributed to the current low scale of the infection in Pakistan compared to other many other countries. But the evidence shows that this slow starting point is because of the low level of physical contact and travel between the origin of the virus in Wuhan, China, and Pakistan – Pakistanis in Wuhan were quarantined immediately and flights suspended soon thereafter. But as the NDMA Chairman has pointed out, 85% of the infections come from infected Pakistanis returning to Pakistan, most notably from Iran via Balochistan, who have escaped into the populace at large without being tested and quarantined, never mind that Mr Khan has heaped praise on the Balochistan CM for effective action! But latest independent projections are that the curve will rise steeply in the next two weeks and keep rising exponentially if the current policy impasse continues.
Forget about national lockdowns. The federal government has even been loath to restrict religious gatherings which are potential dens of infection and incubation. One report claims that many of the Faithful have infected their home countries upon return after attending large religious events in Pakistan. Incredibly enough, most Muslim countries have stopped Muslims from even praying in mosques until the threat lasts but in Pakistan we are still trying to “convince” the worthy ulema to agree to implement the Fatwa from Al Azhar in Cairo against Friday prayers in mosques!
Imran Khan claims his government doesn’t have the economic resources and manpower to stem the infection via a national lockdown. The so-called “relief package” is pathetically lacking for the poor and most vulnerable. Yet international donors have committed several billion dollars to Corona-assistance and put demands for harsh economic adjustments in cold storage. The political leadership of at least one province – Sindh – has marshalled its resources and shown the way forward. And the Pakistan Army has signaled its will and ability to shoulder the burden of lockdown and supply chain logistics for which it is trained.
The quality and caliber of a true leader is tested in times of national crisis. That is when clarity of thought is translated into decisive action. For such action to be effective, it must be underpinned by a national consensus so that the nation rises collectively to the challenge. Yet in five recent media addresses to the nation, Imran Khan has demonstrated a confused and rigid mind that refuses to acknowledge credible, evidential realities. Worse, his attitude to the opposition parties remains petulantly vindictive – he wants to eliminate them all rather than hold a constructive dialogue with them in the national interest.
The conclusion is inescapable. Imran Khan has singularly disqualified himself from being able to make swift, decisive, effective national consensus policy in Pakistan’s perilous hour of need.
Fallout
April 3, 2020
As the globe reels from the COVID-19 attack, economists and political scientists are already weighing in with projections of adverse socio-economic consequences far and wide. The most common refrain is that “the world will change forever” in so many unimagined ways. The impact of prolonged worldwide lockdowns on rich and poor societies will devastate the global economy by disrupting manufacturing, diminishing trade, travel and tourism, and overwhelm health facilities. Indeed, even if the virus is “controlled” in due course, quite apart from diminished disposable incomes, consumer demand for a variety of goods and services available in shopping malls, stadiums, cinemas, theatres, hotels, restaurants, holiday resorts, airplanes and such like will not pick up for some time because of a lingering fear of catching an infection in crowded places.
In short, the world economy will shrink significantly in the next year or so, with consequent steep rises in unemployment, poverty and inequality in developed and less developed countries alike. In some cases, this could spill over into mass discontent, triggering regime change or revival of narrow nationalisms, racisms or radical reform of political systems veering towards authoritarianism. The new world could be, in the short term at least, more fearful, more circumspect, more distrusting of the “other”.
The outlook for Pakistan is definitely depressing. In the midst of this unprecedented crisis which requires a national will and ability to overcome, the country remains bitterly divided. The Civil-Military Establishment, that includes the judiciary and organs of “accountability” like NAB, Election Commission, etc., have abandoned all pretext of political neutrality; the “selected” prime minister and ruling party are still focused more on hounding the opposition than tackling the challenge of COVID-19; the rich are demanding new perks and privileges to offset their “losses” through lockdowns even as the poor multitudes are scrambling to eke out two bare meals a day. The philosophy of poverty that defines the health of a nation is abysmally lost in the poverty of philosophy of the ruling classes.
Imran Khan admits that 25% of the population, or over 50 million Pakistanis, barely survives below the “poverty line” of Rs 300 per day per person. Yet, in the last budget, he was only willing to allocate a pittance to their welfare – his government’s various poverty alleviation and employment generation schemes didn’t practically amount to more than Rs 200 billion (less than 3% of total projected tax revenues) – while he was happy to fork over as much as 40% for “national security” (which doesn’t include health, education and social welfare), “because we live in a tough neighborhood”, never mind the mass squalor and deprivation across the country that challenge old notions of “national security”.
Now Mr Khan has rustled up a “relief package” to offset the hardships triggered by COVID-19: an additional Rs 250b or so for the lockdown unemployed and an equal amount in refunds, incentives, drawbacks and soft loans to the fat cats of business and industry who have been compelled to shut shop. Indeed, he remains opposed to any significant national lockdown to protect the populace from spreading the infection only because, he says, it will hurt industry and daily wage earners, never mind that a Lockdown Strategy is a globally accepted preventive measure precisely to ensure that people, rich and poor, industrialists and workers, can go back to “business as usual” as early as possible after “containing” the virus!
To be sure, Imran Khan’s misplaced concreteness is all too evident in other policies too. He now expects expatriate Pakistanis to donate hundreds of billions to the COVID-19 Fund, quite ignoring the fact that they too are now so disillusioned with his leadership that they didn’t even cough up more than a few billion to his much vaunted Dam Fund. Worse, he seems to disregard the mounting plight of hundreds of thousands of Pakistani workers in the Middle East – the primary source of over USD20B in annual home remittances – who are facing layoffs and deportations and are in no position to give donations for his causes.
A national leader of substance would have risen to the challenge by formulating a strategy of national sacrifice and survival. He would have abandoned the path of political victimization of opponents and invited them to share a platform for a national consensus on the way forward. He would have sat down with provincial administrations to chalk out a robust and coordinated effort to deal with the situation. Together with these political representatives, he would have invited other stakeholders of the state – religious, judicial and military – to make appropriate “adjustments” in their institutional outlooks, concerns and financial demands in line with the urgent requirements of the situation. Finally, together with all these state organs and stakeholders, he would have leveraged national power to exhort the rich to dig into their pockets for the sake of the poor, not just for now but for the future.
Alas. We can go on wishing but nothing, it seems, will change the fallout from Mr Khan’s ego-driven, rigid and severely limited vision.
The Pied Piper
April 10, 2020
Imran Khan may be prime minister of Pakistan and supreme leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf but he is not in effective control of his various governments or party organs at the center and in the provinces.
Punjab is being administered by two bureaucrats nominated by the Miltablishment after eighteen months of hither and thither by Mr Khan and assorted cronies, point-men or allies, while Chief Minister Usman Buzdar answers interchangebly to Mr or Mrs Khan on matters of personal privilege or power. The latest sugar and wheat crisis is a classic illustration of this point.
The federal cabinet (read the PM) decided to approve the export of wheat and sugar in cloudy circumstances; they also formally decided not to give any subsidy to sugar exporters. But then the Punjab CM received an informal nod from Islamabad to surreptitiously approve a budget of Rs 3b for the same, despite the objections of his own cabinet colleagues. When the details were revealed – after wheat and sugar shortages led to rising prices and consequent media outrage – Mr Khan came under pressure to order an inquiry, which he did, but by the same organization that has been tripping over itself to turn the screws on his opponents and do his bidding. The inquiry was ordered on 20 February. A report was submitted to the cabinet on 9 March, outlining general, preliminary findings and requesting an enlargement of the departmental committee into a formal full-fledged commission to enable it to conduct a forensic analysis by 25 April so that responsibility could be properly apportioned. For two weeks there was no news. Then suddenly all hell broke loose.
Senior PTI stalwarts, including Nadeem Afzal Chan on record, have revealed that an anti-Jehangir Khan Tareen group in the PTI and cabinet leaked the preliminary report to the media to nail JKT just in case the full report later implicated others closer to home and muddied the waters. The PM was then hurriedly advised to make virtue out of necessity by claiming that he ordered the report released in the “public interest”. “It is unprecedented”, shrieked the PM’s spokesman, Shahbaz Gill, “for a sitting PM to reveal misdemeanor in his own ranks!”
The original sin for which the FIA inquiry was ordered – shortages and price hikes in wheat and sugar despite adequate supplies in private and public hands – was lost in the din of targeting JKT who was one of a clutch of sugar barons who majorly benefited from the subsidy on export of sugar. This, notwithstanding the fact that a subsidy on sugar export has always been part and parcel of every government’s policy to date when domestic supply has outstripped demand and JKT has always been a major beneficiary because he is the single largest producer of sugar in the country.
JKT claims that the Principal Secretary to PM, Azam Khan, has been gunning for him since he (JKT) advised Mr Khan to keep a tight political grip on his reformist agenda decisions (through, we may surmise, JKT no less) and not let conservative “rules-oriented” bureaucrats (like Mr Azam Khan, we may presume) call the shots and sabotage the party’s commitment to reform. JKT, it is also known, never hid his contempt for PTI ideologues/aspirants like Asad Umar and Co, who now seem to have ganged up with Azam Khan against him and got the PM’s ear. JKT’s considerable influence on Imran Khan and the PTI’s fortunes – from fund raising, horse-trading and cabinet and government formation —has been steadily on the wane since he was disqualified from being a member of parliament and restrained from sitting in cabinet meetings and formally wielding power.
The PM is expected to focus on the war on COVID-19 but is now seriously distracted by the war within the PTI which promises to wash the party’s mounting heap of dirty linen in public. JKT has already knocked out a central plank of the PTI’s propaganda machine – that the 2013 elections were rigged via “35 punctures” in Punjab – and we can expect more disgusting claims and counter charges to follow that will provide cannon fodder to the media and opposition.
If Islamabad and Punjab are in free fall, the less said the better of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where tens of billions of rupees are being gobbled up by inefficient and corrupt PTI politicians and allies and there is not even a pretense of accountability by NAB and FIA. Quetta is not on anyone’s radar – the mishandling of the Corona crisis is evidence of that — while Peshawar is being run directly from Bani Gala like Lahore. The PM is wont to step into internal squabbles and power struggles and take “exemplary” disciplinary measures, only to reverse them later. And so everyone is making merry and infighting at the same time while COVID-19 exploits the policy U-Turns, confusion and lack of enlightened, firm leadership in Islamabad to spread its deadly tentacles across the land.
Pakistan needs a decisive leader who commands a national consensus. But it is lumped with the Pied Piper of Islamabad.
IK’s gambit
April 17, 2020
The policy confusion in Islamabad is now exacting another toll. First, it was whether or not Pakistan should go to the IMF, with Asad Umar saying no and then Hafeez Sheikh saying yes. Then it was whether or not we should privatise state enterprises, with Asad Umar saying no, yes, maybe and Hafeez Sheikh putting many units on the block but doing nothing about it. Meanwhile, PM Imran Khan has made a virtue out of U- Turns as the hallmark of great leadership. His COVID-19 “Lockdown” policy beats them all: now we have a lockdown, now we don’t; now Islamabad and the provinces are locked into a consensual policy, now each province is free to make its own policies, now the ulema have agreed to abide by the rules, now they are striking out on their own; and so on, ad infinitum.
Despite global best practices, from Day-One Imran Khan was against a “lockdown” policy for two reasons: his government didn’t have the money or the means to pay millions of households “below the poverty line” whose breadwinners would be out of jobs during the lockdown; and he couldn’t afford to choke the economy when it was already drowning in a sea of debt. So he clutched at straws to justify his view: the “official” Pakistan data showed that COVID-19 wasn’t taking dangerous exponential leaps; the “evidence” (1-2 per cent fatalities) suggested that infected people, especially the young, could easily fight off the virus; the hot summer would take the sting out of it; there was every chance that a vaccine would be developed in the near future to save us all. For two months the virus germinated and spread among the populace. It couldn’t be monitored because a sufficient number of testing kits or protective gear for doctors were unavailable. Mr Khan hemmed and hawed, wringing his hands and feebly trying to fend off a rising chorus of pro-lockdown media and opposition critics.
Last week, Imran Khan finally seemed to give in, juggling the budget to marshal a new “relief package” of a couple of hundred billion rupees for the jobless during a half-hearted, uneven lockdown that mocks the very notion of “lockdown” and makes nonsense of economic-revival policy. Interprovincial travel is banned, intercity isn’t; any business enterprise with “labour” may remain open – which means all manufacturing units and many retail shops – but self-operated small general merchant shops (which most need to stay afloat) may not; the construction industry – supplier of housing – may get special incentives and not disclose the source of its investment (black money) but the buyer of housing (demand for housing) is left out in the cold; tailors and bookshops may open but cloth merchants, schools, printers and publishers who are recipients of their services are locked down; it is all right for most to get back to “business as usual” behind the fig leaf of a “lockdown”. Meanwhile, the moral factor at the heart of his decision remains unspoken: it is ok to keep the economy going even as tens of thousands of Pakistanis could die in the “bargain”!
Worse, at a time when the nation desperately needs a leader who can inspire and unify the people behind one solid policy decision, there is bitter discord between Islamabad and Sindh and between the ruling PTI and the combined opposition parties whose leaders are being relentlessly hounded. The personalized “attack” on the Sindh Chief Minister, Murad Ali Shah, who has earned popular kudos for his heartfelt handling of the crisis in his province, by the usual pack of PTI louts, is particularly jarring. In fact, the PM has now jumped into the fray and tried to hog the limelight in Sindh as the “true” benefactor of the people. Even a national health crisis is not reason enough to stop such petty politicking!
A strong body of expert opinion holds contrary views. It is argued that the true extent of the COVID-19 infection is grossly underreported: people with symptoms are either not reporting them because of cultural factors or because they are not life threatening enough or because they are being denied hospitalization because of lack of testing kits and trained doctors. People who are dying at home because of the infection are being quietly buried and not registered as virus victims. Despite this, the curve is acquiring threatening proportions as the months collapse into weeks and weeks into days, suggesting that we are on the cusp of an explosion.
US President Donald Trump and UK PM Boris Johnson have demonstrated much the same policy inclinations as Imran Khan. Mr Trump thought the virus could be stopped in its tracks by a combination of international travel restrictions and untested vaccines, but he was so wrong that the US is now the most dangerously infected nation on earth. Mr Johnson nearly died in an ICU before abandoning his “herd immunity” policy and following other European nations in locking down the country.
For the sake of Pakistan, we hope Imran Khan’s gambit will succeed, otherwise there will be hell to pay.
COVID game changer
April 24, 2020
Sheikh Rashid, the inveterate chief of his own one-man political party, represents both the Miltablishment and the ruling Pakistan Tereek-e-Insaf (PTI). But when these two are not on the same page – which is increasingly the case these days – he demonstrates a unique ability to speak with a forked tongue to please both masters. Thus we were justified in wondering about the truth behind his recent statement that he would meet Prime Minister Imran Khan and advise him to improve relations with the media and the opposition because “national unity” was the need of the hour in the battle against COVID-19 (Miltablishment’s position) even as he, in the same breath, advised NAB to “drag Shahbaz Sharif to the Accountability Court because he would not voluntarily attend its proceedings” (PM’s position).
In the event, the Sheikh’s noble “mission” has foundered on the rock of Imran Khan’s stubborn vindictiveness against both the opposition and the media. Mr Khan’s hounds are baying for the blood of the Sindh Chief Minister, Murad Ali Shah, because the media has praised Mr Shah’s swift and decisive moves to combat COVID-19 in his province while criticizing the PM’s confusion and double-speak regarding national anti-COVID-19 policy. The PM won’t allow the National Assembly to meet so that the opposition can challenge the wisdom of his policy. Now the opposition has accused the PM of leaning on NAB to take the top opposition leaders into custody and shut their mouths.
More ominously, we gather that the electronic media is up for the big stick from PEMRA. Apparently the stage is set to give the PEMRA Chairman suo motu powers to suspend the license of any TV channel. Such power would violate the letter and spirit of PEMRA rules that stipulate that action against any channel can only be ordered after a complaint has been received and after the respondent has been given a chance to explain and defend his position, and only after the Chairman has formally consulted and received the approval of the other members of PEMRA. Under the proposed amendment, as one insider put it, “the PEMRA Chairman would be able to order the suspension of any channel without consulting anyone, copy orders to SUPARCO that operates PAKSAT to take the channel off air, followed by notices to PTCL and cable operators to follow suit, all in the space of a few hours”. If such an order is passed on a Friday, the offending channel won’t be able to approach any High Court to “stay” the action before the following Monday at the earliest. In any case, even if relief is granted, PAKSAT and Cable Operators are not likely to restore the status quo ante for another couple of weeks, thus plunging the channel into financial loss and bringing it to its knees.
Imran Khan insists the Pakistani media is not just the “freest” in the world, it is anarchic and completely unaccountable. Yet there isn’t a single media watchdog, or independent newspaper or channel, at home or abroad that hasn’t documented the terrible plight of the media on Imran Khan’s watch. At last count, international references to highlight the tight and unprecedented censorship in “democratic” Pakistan had exceeded two dozen respected voices, including from the EU. The detention of Mir Shakil ur Rahman, the owner-editor of Jang-GEO the largest media group in the country, is a pointer in that direction. NAB has dug up a case from 1986 to frame him. Even if he gets bail from the Islamabad High Court in due course, he won’t be allowed to leave the country and resume residence in the UAE where his family resides. If this sort of treatment can be meted out to the mightly Jang-Geo Group, imagine the alarming plight of smaller fry. As things stand, the few independent journalists left in the country have either been gagged or kicked out of their channels and survive only on crumbs from YouTube.
Three months ago, the media was rife with speculation that the clock was ticking for Imran Khan because the Miltablishment had seen the error of its “selection” and was looking to redeem the situation via a national unity government excluding Imran Khan. The sticking point was Nawaz Sharif’s refusal to strike any deal short of a free and fair election immediately and an explicit understanding that the Miltablishment would henceforth pledge to stay out of politics. But the sudden arrival of COVID-19 put paid to all that. With hostile neighbours bristling east and west necessitating a state of military focus, COVID-19 has engulfed state and society in fear and sent the economy into a tailspin, putting the brakes on any halfway-house option.
Pundits say that COVID-19 could tip the scales either way. If Imran Khan’s anti-lockdown strategy works, he will live to fight another day. But if it doesn’t – if hunger, joblessness, strikes, riots and anarchy break out, or the economy sends out an SOS – it will be back to the drawing board for the Miltablishment again.
Help us, Darwin!
May 01, 2020
In an extraordinary statement in front of a youthful, middle-class audience at a state university, Prime Minister Imran Khan has claimed that “the elite locked down the country” bemoaning the plight of tens of millions below the “poverty line”, especially daily wage earners. But the facts tell a contrary story.
Gallup Polls prove that an overwhelming majority of the propertied business classes (the elites) remain opposed to lockdowns and over 85% even continue to pay salaries to their workers during partial lockdowns. In fact, it is the PM himself and the four provincial chief ministers (three of whom answer to the PM) who have taken all decisions in this matter. Is he saying he is not in control of national COVID policy – including the nature, extent and scope of lockdowns? Is he saying he was pressured to set up the National Command and Operations Centre and a three star general to head it was thrust upon him by some “elites”?
The truth is that the PM and his 50 federal ministers, state ministers, advisors and special assistants, aided and abetted by three chief ministers and their similarly bloated armies of ministers, state ministers, advisors and special assistants have collectively botched the war against COVID and plunged Pakistan into unprecedented confusion and hardship. Starting from the crisis at the Taftan border last February that was bungled by the Balochistan government in consultation with the federal government – as testified by a letter from Dr Zafar Mirza, the PM’s major domo, to the provincial authorities laying down the course to follow – to the Tablighi Jamaat Ijtimah in Raiwind authorized by the Punjab government in March and the 20 non-enforceable SOPs for hundreds of thousands of mosques sanctioned by PTI President Arif Alvi, it has been a tale of wanton, continuing disregard of established best practices in such emergencies.
From the outset, the confusion – to lockdown or not — lay in the mind of Prime Minister Imran Khan. He was infected with the same bug as President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Boris Johnson. No leader wanted to lock down the country (read economy, stupid) not because they were worried about what would happen to the poor but because they were worried what would happen to their business elites and their profits and what consequent burden would be put on government finances and budgets to look after the poor.
Thus Imran Khan remained immobilized. This compelled the Miltablishment to step in, take charge, announce a lockdown policy, set up NCOC and lean on the PM to sanction a COVID relief package for the needy.
Still, the PM refused to fully get on board. The “relief” for the poor was cunningly packaged by juggling with approved budget allocations for the BISP and Ehsaas Programs and throwing in some peanuts for Utility Stores. To date, only half of the Rs 200B earmarked for this purpose has been doled out. The relief for the elites, however, was more manifest in the form of unprecedented and objectionable incentives for the construction industry and soft loans and deferred debt payments for the rest. Consequently, three months down the line, there is no national lockdown to speak of and there is no palpable relief for the needy.
A decisive and intelligent leader would have enforced a national emergency lockdown at the very outset in February and quickly delivered a relief package for the poor. By end-March he would have flattened the curve at a low level. Or, like Trump and Johnson after making the initial mistake, swiftly U-turned in March when the error was apparent. That would have slowed down the infection and enabled the government to find the time and tools to start the return journey back to normal by end-April, as demonstrated by several countries like China, South Korea, Hongkong, Norway etc. Instead, prevarication and confusion by its leaders have led Pakistan into the worst of all possible worlds in which late and incomplete lockdowns are now being further eased in May precisely when the infection is threatening to break all barriers.
The big lie is in the statistics bandied about by Islamabad and the provinces. Only a fraction of infected people has been properly tested, partly because not every infected person is reporting the infection because of cultural or religious factors and partly because there aren’t enough proper testing kits to cater for every suspicious case. Nor are all COVID deaths being properly notified or recorded. Unfortunately, this false and concocted data is being used by local and international experts to extrapolate Pakistan’s recovery much sooner than may be the case. Meanwhile, the PM is assuring everyone that the demographic youth bulge will protect Pakistanis until the summer heat along with a new vaccine finally put paid to COVID.
Adding insult to injury, Imran Khan has now invited Maulana Tariq Jamil to explain how the dastardly media is to blame for spreading panic while sinful women demanding social freedoms have incurred the wrath of Allah. So help us, Darwin!
May Day! May Day!
May 8, 2020
Last November, pundits were counting the weeks for regime change. Six months later, they fear we are stuck with Imran Khan for a long time. What’s happened to radically change their perspective, especially since the popular motive for wanting to get rid of him – indecision, crisis mismanagement, vindictiveness, policy confusion – has progressively strengthened in the meanwhile?
Everyone knows that regime change in Pakistan cannot happen without the active involvement of the Miltablishment. In November it was a foregone conclusion that the matter of an extension was settled, so there was nothing to stop it from blocking regime change in the following months. That’s why the long march to Islamabad by Maulana Fazal ur Rahman appeared as a dramatic first step in that direction. It was inconceivable, they argued, that the good Maulana would have dared undertake such an enterprise without a wink from the Miltablishment. But then the unthinkable happened: the Supreme Court stepped in and slapped a six month question mark on the extension issue. That meant that the Plan, if there was one, had to be postponed until this matter was finally resolved.
We are nearing the end of that period now. It is anybody’s guess whether or not the SC will open the case this month and seek confirmation from the government that the law has been suitably amended to legitimize the extension. Until then, the Miltablishment can take no chances and must remain unequivocally on the right side of Imran Khan, regardless of any provocations, frustrations, delinquencies, transgressions, offenses, infringements or lapses on the part of the PM and his team.
If this is not an Einsteinian deduction, then we may presume that Imran Khan and his political advisors are also aware of it. So this may explain why they are still pushing their agendas even at the risk of annoying the Miltablishment. An ironic comfort for the government is provided by the unexpected COVID-19 crisis: regime change in the midst of a war – and this COVID-19 is a deadly national opponent – is strictly no-no. Continuing hostilities on the eastern border with India that could precipitate a national crisis at any time, depending on the need of Narendra Modi to distract attention from his domestic woes, has made the Miltablishment even more wary of regime change in such circumstances.
Thus Imran Khan has been making his own counter moves on the chessboard. When there was talk of some sort of “deal” in the offing between the Miltablishment and the Sharifs for regime change, he put a spoke in the wheel by stopping Maryam Nawaz from joining her father abroad, arresting party stalwarts, and launching corruption cases against Shahbaz Sharif and his sons. When the Sindh Chief Minister, Murad Ali Shah, was earning kudos for following the Miltablishment’s lockdown advice, the PM sent in his hounds to sic him and derail his policies. When the Miltablishment nudged the PM to reconcile with and manage the media better in the national interest, he ordered the arrest of Mir Shakil ur Rahman and beefed up PEMRA to do his bidding. Now he has made bold to turn his guns on the Chaudhries of Gujrat even though they hold the balance of the PTI government in the Punjab. Why is that?
Everyone knows the inspiration behind Usman Buzdar’s appointment as CM Punjab. Everyone also knows that the PM has resisted advice from the Miltablishment to change him for the sake of better governance in the core province. Indeed, when the Miltablishment toyed with Aleem Khan for the position, Imran Khan swiftly put him into prison. The Miltablishment changed tack, agreeing instead to key bureaucratic changes to run the province. But when Aleem Khan returned to the Provincial Assembly to stake his claim, Imran Khan sent the Miltablishment’s blue eyed bureaucrats – CS and IGP –packing and installed his own pro-Buzdar “team”. At every stage, the Chaudhries have jockeyed for more power in the Punjab, even flirting with the opposition outside the Assembly and being soft on them inside it. Now the pressure to change CM Buzdar has increased. So Imran Khan has decided to dangle the sword of Damocles on the head of the Chaudhries by digging up a dead case from 2000 so that they should stop conspiring for the coveted position. This is killing two birds with one stone. He is stopping them in their tracks while sending out a message to his loyal followers that he is also holding the corrupt within his ranks accountable rather than only victimizing the opposition. This is gamesmanship.
To be sure, the Miltablishment’s political options for regime change have been severely circumscribed by the refusal of the PMLN to do a “deal” with it that shuts the door irrevocably on Nawaz and Maryam Sharif and allows Shahbaz Sharif to “work” with the Miltablishment “in the national interest”. Equally, though, we may be sure that once the Rubicon has been crossed in May, all the political players in the country will become more alive to the necessity for change one way or another.
Nature of problem
May 15, 2020
The curse of interesting times is upon Pakistan once again. A brief review of history is necessary to understand the nature of the problem.
Independent Pakistan inherited a developed civil-military oligarchy in relation to a weak political class. This oligarchy ruled for two decades until the 1971 debacle which discredited it completely. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto of the Pakistan People’s Party exploited the occasion to push back the military and harness the civil service to do his political bidding. But the military hit back through Gen Zia ul Haq’s martial law regime in the 1980s by seizing the commanding heights of politics, the economy and society. Gen Zia established a nursery for pro-military politicians through the installation of local governments and a nominated Majlis-e-Shura. Then he institutionalized a military service quota in the civil bureaucracy and “Islamised” state and society by amending the Constitution. Meanwhile, the Deep State was empowered and legitimized during the decade-long jihad in Afghanistan. Thus the Miltablishment came into being.
After Zia’s accidental death, Benazir Bhutto tried to regain control of state and society in 1988 but the Miltablishment hit back in 1990 by removing her from office and hoisting a “nursery” politician, Nawaz Sharif, in her place. However, when PM Nawaz sought political autonomy by refusing to take “dictation”, he was also removed from office in 1993. Suitably chastened, Benazir was given a second chance. When she ran afoul, she was sacked again in 1996. Nawaz was also given a second chance. But when he tried to give dictation instead of taking it by sacking Gen Pervez Musharraf, he provoked the Miltablishment to oust, imprison and exile him. In the mid 2000s, when Gen Musharraf tried to “settle” Kashmir with India under American and British pressure, he was persuaded to strengthen his hands by opening up political space for a popular politician like Benazir Bhutto who stood for the same things. But then a maverick judge, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who had been made CJP courtesy the Miltablishment, decided he wouldn’t take “dictation” either. Thus the popular Movement for the Restoration of the Judiciary was born.
This provided Benazir an opportunity to redress the equation. She reneged on her agreement with Musharraf to stay back during the elections and returned home to a tumultuous welcome. Nawaz saw this as a referendum against Musharraf and a reaffirmation of the civilian impulse for civilian rule and democracy. So he too reneged on his exile agreement and returned home. In the sea of uncertainty for the future of the Miltablishment, General Musharraf retired as COAS in November, Gen Ashfaq Kayani became new COAS and Benazir was assassinated in December 2007. The stage was now set for the Miltablishment to ease out Musharraf who had become a losing proposition.
With the help of Nawaz Sharif, Gen Kayani leaned on President Asif Zardari to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry and Co. Despite Miltablishment reservations, however, Zardari passed the 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010 to dilute the political economy of a strong center and restrict the federal revenue pool for defense expenditures. Wounded by the fall from popular grace after the US raid to extract and kill Osama bin Laden, the Miltablishment sought distraction by nudging Nawaz and Chaudhry to destabilize and weaken the PPP regime. Memogate followed and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was ousted. Nawaz was given a third chance in 2013 only because the Miltablishment had not secured any political options. Once again, however, he ran afoul by insisting on prosecuting Musharraf for treason because the Miltablishment saw this as both as an affront and as an attempt to institutionalize civilian supremacy. So “Dawnleaks” followed Imran Khan’s allegations of rigged elections in 2013 and dharna in 2014, to oust Nawaz. PanamaLeaks enabled the Miltablishment to call in its earlier support of the judiciary to convict and disqualify Nawaz. The 2018 elections were then “managed” by a mysterious disruption of the RTS system to catapult Imran Khan into office. When the injured PPP and PMNL parties and leaders protested, NAB was let loose against them.
But public sentiment has turned against Imran Khan who has been shown up as an incompetent, blundering partner, exactly when state circumstances require a political leader of substance. The Miltablishment is being blamed for this mess. Ominously, Imran, too, is inclined to spread his wings from time to time. The problem is that it is in the nature of the office of a popularly elected or popularly selected prime minister to demand a degree of autonomy from the powerful Miltablishment which is loath to surrender it.
Imran Khan and the Miltablishment are seemingly on the same page because neither has the option of going it alone or choosing another partner. Also, by virtue of his official powers, the PM controls the personal fate or destiny of the two top men in the Miltablishment. So we may expect the Miltablishment to watch and wait until such issues have been resolved. Or until a popular storm is kicked up exogenously on any big issue and a scapegoat is required “in the national interest”.
Selected “civilian” pressure
May 22, 2020
Sheikh Rashid, the self-confessed Pindi-man, has warned that Tarzan will return after Eid to liquidate man and beast. Since the opposition is already getting the big stick from NAB, is he saying that Chairman NAB is now ready to fulfil his earlier pledge to also catch the ruling party’s big fish?
It is true that NAB’s credibility has plunged to new depths by its one sided “accountability”. So we may expect inquiries against a couple of PTI big fish too. But will these lead to arrests and denial of bail as in the case of the opposition? For example, will NAB seriously approach the Peshawar High Court and Supreme Court to defreeze inquiries in the Malam Jabba and BRT cases that are currently “stayed” because of connivance between the KP government and NAB, and then proceed against the crooks? We are not sanguine. Even sharpshooters can run out of ammo if they are blackmailed for personal indiscretions.
It isn’t just NAB whose record is muddy. The Election Commission of Pakistan has also come in for some stick. A case in point refers to the “malfunctioning” RT system during the 2018 elections that enabled a “selected” PM to come to office. NADRA was given a shut up call when it insisted that there had been no malfunction. The ex-CEC dragged on the inquiry for over a year and eventually, just before retirement, submitted a report to the PTI government that hasn’t seen the light of day, even though the opposition has cried itself hoarse for months for a parliamentary debate on the subject. Much the same sort of inaction has been witnessed in the notorious PTI Foreign Funding Case for five years so that the PTI and Imran Khan cannot be hooked. The ex-CEC flapped about a bit but didn’t risk incurring the wrath of the powers-that-be that have handpicked the PM. The new CEC may make some noises about it but let’s not expect any heroics from retired or even serving judges.
The agencies’ record isn’t laudatory either. The JIT’s great achievement lies in unearthing the UAE “iqama” to knock out Nawaz Sharif. Now the same agencies have been tasked to investigate the sugar and wheat scandals. Is it conceivable that they will find the PM and cabinet culpable at any level for a series of bad decisions that led to exports in times of potential shortages or subsidies to favourites? Instead, the sugar report has concluded that all businessmen in politics are crooks, that the sugar industrialists, including allies and ministers of the government, have taken the farmers, public and government for a ride, and that a proper regulatory framework is needed to stop all this. Asad Umar, Razzak Dawood and Khusrau Bakhtiar will be uncomfortable with some remarks, but not much more. Jehangir Tareen will pick big holes in it. And then what? For the sake of cheap publicity, NAB may summon some mill owners and ask them to fill in long questionaires. But will anyone in the PTI or its allies be arrested and denied bail for months?
Now another Presidential Ordinance points to some hanky-panky underway. The Companies Act of 2017 has been amended whereby Pakistani nationals and dual nationals who own less than 10% stakes in any offshore company will not be required to disclose their assets to the authorities. This means that such a person’s family may jointly own 100% shares of an offshore company but a declaration is not needed if no single member owns 10% or more. We may therefore expect some timely paper partitioning to hide offshore holdings by some vulnerable individuals who have until now not declared their offshore assets but may soon come under pressure to do so. These cannot possibly be Pakistani businessmen whose details have been released in the Panama Papers because they have all taken advantage of two Amnesty schemes to legitimize their ill-gotten gains. Nor can these be MNAs, MPAs and other public servants who, as required by law, have already revealed their wealth. But SAPMs and Advisors who have not been required until now to declare their assets will fall into this category if the cabinet is compelled by public pressure that they too should, in the interest of probity, follow the SOPs applicable to their peers in government. Since that might conceivably embarrass the PM, why not change the law before that happens to let them go scot free?
Then there is the matter of those SAPMs and Advisors who are appointed to high decision-making bodies which are adjudging big cases, as for example in the energy sector or commerce ministry, in which there is certain conflict between their personal business stakes and the public interest. Under the circumstances, the Commission investigating the IPP deals, for example, will have a hard time pointing fingers at the PM’s chosen ones.
Except during direct military rule, we have never seen such blatant and cruel misuse of authority in the name of accountability. The mock-irony is that civil institutions are crumbling under selected “civilian” pressure!
Political Economy of Sugar
May 29, 2020
The Commission of Inquiry Reports into the sugar and energy industries have educated us in the wanton ways of crony capitalism and selected or guided democracy in Pakistan. Therefore this is the right time to ask some hard questions about the way the ruling elites (“ashrafia”) of politicians, bureaucrats, generals and even judges have abused the economy to serve personal or political interests.
The Independent Power Producer (IPP) policies of the 1990s and 2000s were rigged by ruling politicians and crony capitalists to extract substantial profits, kickbacks and commissions that pushed up the rates at which energy was bought by the government. And electric power was subsequently sold to the public at the highest cost in the South Asian region. When some attempts were made to redress the balance, the judiciary stepped in, sometimes to protect the IPPs and sometimes to censure them with disastrous results as in the Karkey case — but never to convict the criminals in private and public life who had pocketed the commissions and defrauded the public. This is one major reason why the circular debt of the power sector has sky rocketed.
The sugar industry better illustrates the powerful nexus between the ruling elites who quickly recognized its potential for state largesse and private profit to secure political advantage. Starting in the late 1950s and continuing until 1990, 28 sugar mills were sanctioned by the civil-military oligarchy to the old landed aristocracy that was always on its right side or to its new urban political allies under Generals Ayub Khan and Zia ul Haq. The objective was to harness the various Muslim Leagues (Convention, Qayyum, Pakistan, etc) to do its bidding against the secular NAP and then the PPP opposition/regimes of the times. During this period, the Saifullahs, the Ittefaq Group, the Chaudhries, etc., and similar political allies were thus endowed. From 1990 to 1998, the PML and PPP helped themselves directly to the cake by sanctioning 31 new mills. Subsequently, the Jehangir Tareen “model” was introduced by General Musharraf who went one better and added Khusrau Bakhtiar, etc., to his cartel of cronies, both coming good in recent times to select the Imran Khan regime.
In this model, the government sets the cane price for the farmer, then allows the sugar mills to set the sugar price calculated by the cartel on the basis of jacked-up production costs and politically manipulated export subsidies for the federal and/or provincial government. The model is so rigged that, on average, the total tax paid by the industry (on the basis of fudged accounts and out of book cash transactions) is often only a fraction of the subsidy received from the government. Indeed, this industry is probably the single largest source of money laundering in the country while the sugar barons openly pull political strings and operate ATMs at the behest of their subsidizing political masters.
The truth also is that this is one industry that Pakistan does not need at all. The sugarcane crop guzzles scarce water resources that could be more profitably exploited by cotton and wheat for genuine export forex purposes. The international price of sugar is invariably lower than the Pakistan price too, which means the public and national exchequer is being ripped off on both counts.
It may be instructive to note the salient points of the sugar inquiry report to further understand the economics and politics of the issue. The report highlights the crooked economic manipulations of the cartels and indicts them for forensic audit by regulatory bodies. But it doesn’t squarely pin federal responsibility for sanctioning export at a time of impending scarcity, nor the granting of a hefty subsidy by the Punjab government when exchange rate depreciation had already enabled windfall profits to exporters. At best, the FBR will huff and puff before a battery of high powered lawyers employed by the cartel to thwart the tax collectors and regulators. Meanwhile, the Miltablishment will protect its own Tareens, Khusraus, Chaudhries, etc. for political manipulation in the future, and Imran Khan and his cabinet colleagues who share responsibility for the recent crisis will shrug their shoulders and move on under its umbrella.
Of course, the sugar “crisis” shouldn’t end this way. If Imran Khan were a man of his word – unfortunately, the record on that front isn’t good – he should seize this opportunity of public outrage and set things right. He should immediately move a Bill in parliament or a Presidential Ordinance to indefinitely outlaw federal or provincial subsidies to domestic sugar manufacturers; allow free imports of sugar in the private sector without protectionist duties; and let the market decide which crops are to be cultivated by farmers and which finished goods or raw materials are to be exported by businessmen on the basis of competitive international trade and commerce. This will end cartelization, hoarding, artificial shortages, price hikes and money laundering. It will also lead to a more efficient and productive use of land and water. That is the only way to end the hegemony of sugar barons who have devastated the political economy of Pakistan.
A single spark
June 5, 2020
Writing on January 5, 1930, Mao Tse Tung wrote that “a single spark can light a prairie fire” to motivate his comrades in their revolutionary struggle in the face of depressing political odds. On December 17, 2010, a Tunisian street-fruit vendor set himself on fire, sparking the democratic Tunisian Revolution that triggered the Arab Spring against autocratic regimes. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an unarmed African-American, was wantonly murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, sparking unprecedented, mass protests across America that are cutting across region, class, party, race and ethnic lines, challenging the established capitalist order in a Presidential election year.
In overtly subjective terms, there was no new clear cause for sparking a prairie fire in each incident. Mao’s Chinese Revolution didn’t succeed until 1948; Tunisia was firmly in the 24 year autocratic grip of President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali. Police brutality and race riots were common enough in America since the 1960s. Yet, clearly, the underlying objective conditions were ripe for sweeping change at each juncture. How, then, can we juxtapose subjective and objective conditions to ask whether and when some spark somewhere in Pakistan will light a prairie fire?
The objective conditions are well established. Covid-19 has laid bare the bankruptcy of the ruling civil-military elites that have progressively drowned the economy in debt, impoverished the masses, spawned regional inequalities, exacerbated ethnic tensions and constantly undermined notions of trust, rights and justice. These were embedded in a democratic Constitution reflecting a rare social contract achieved consensually in 1973 after losing half the country. But subjective conditions have been rare and, even when forthcoming, been dissipated at the altar of corruption and political opportunism. For example, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto seized the moment in 1971-72 to proclaim a “New Pakistan” based on principles of democracy and socialism. But his autocratic ways enabled the defenders of the ancien regime to overthrow and murder him. In 2007, a judge, Iftikhar Chaudhry, revolted against a military dictator and sparked elements of civil society to wage a prolonged struggle to oust him. However, the same judge was later possessed by megalomania to become larger than the Constitution, sack a prime minister and start playing to the tune of the same vested interests against whom he had led the original revolt. In 2013, a democratically elected, born-again, Nawaz Sharif showed signs of revolting against the old Establishment, only to be ousted by another Messiah judge tilting at the windmills of The Godfather. Finally, a “Naya Pakistan” against the corruption of the rapacious elites and unaccountable Establishment was pledged by Imran Khan in 2018, only to become a willing pawn in their hands and stifle dissent by subverting democratic norms and political freedoms.
The two political parties, the PPP and PMLN, that have offered any semblance of resistance to the Establishment in one form or another at any point of time have done so only on account of the whimsical personalities of their leaders and not organically since the leaders were born from the womb of the Establishment and succumbed to corrupt institutional practices and mismanagement on a big scale. The same is true of the PTI leaders. That would account for the missing subjective conditions to exploit the objective situation today. Much the same can be said of the judiciary that cannot conjure up the integrity or courage to defend the Constitution against the raids of the Establishment.
The subjective conditions are characterised by the political castration of these two parties and leaders by NAB and the judiciary under pressure of the Establishment. Consequently, the political parties are immobilized and prevented from rousing the hearts and minds of the populace. Unfortunately, too, neither party’s aging and ailing leadership is ready to hand over the reins to younger stalwarts, whether dynastic or otherwise, who may be ready to pay the price of incarceration for challenging the established order. Indeed, backroom negotiations aimed at survival have made them impotent.
If everyone is waiting for someone else to ignite the spark somewhere so that the people can spring into action and “save” the situation, we should not make the mistake of condemning the political situation as “unsalvageable”. At every existential moment of overwhelming economic or political crisis, Pakistan’s Establishment has been propped up and “saved” by imperialist foreign powers, most notably the US in pursuit of strategic adventures, with large dollops of money. But that era is coming to an end as Western capitalism faces its greatest challenge since WW2. This challenge is expressed internally by rising voices across established party affiliations for addressing issues of inequality, racism, climate change, health and personal freedoms. It is expressed externally by the breakdown of globalization supply chains, re-imposition of trade and travel barriers and an economy spiraling into acute recession.
If Pakistan is to fend for itself, the Establishment will have to relinquish power and unbounded avarice. It’s only a matter of time before a single spark during the time of Corona and after the hardship budget will light a prairie fire.
For whom the bell tolls
June 12, 2020
“Naya Pakistan” is a constant reminder of two wise sayings.
“He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool; shun him.”
“In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve”.
Unfortunately, there is no Democracy in Pakistan, only a Selectocracy which the people don’t deserve. The problem is the people cannot shun the fools who preside over this Selectocracy because the people are disempowered, divided and helpless.
But the Miltablishment has stopped repeating the “same page” mantra because it is sounding embarrassingly hollow. Indeed, things are so bad that it has also stepped in to take direct charge of sensitive policy areas. Not just Pakistanis but the international community too has noted that Pakistan’s finance advisor, interior minister, interior secretary, national security advisor, heads of NDMA, NCOC, CPEC, etc., are all Selectocrats. In the latest twist, the Foreign Minister has been excluded from Foreign Policy making: he was conspicuous by his absence when the COAS, DGISI and Special Envoy made a strategic trip to Kabul last week for facilitating talks between the Taliban and Afghan regime aimed at smoothing the American exit from Afghanistan.
Not to be left out, our gallant PM has tweeted his readiness to help the Indian PM in alleviating poverty-related COVID issues with his brilliant cash transfer program. Never mind that the ownership of the program rests squarely with Benazir Bhutto. Never mind also that only half the cash pledged by the PM to the poor and needy at home has actually been transferred in two agonising months and the proposed budgetary outlay of Rs 71 billion for the next twelve months is peanuts for catering to 40 million in need.
It is unprecedented for any government to create or mismanage a sugar, wheat and petrol crisis in the country simultaneously, especially since there are adequate stocks of each commodity at hand. It is unbelievable for a PM to first claim that there is no life threatening COVID19 risk to the people (ghabraana nahin) because it is no more than a common flu and then to turn around and warn the same people to follow impossible SOPs in the face of the most dangerous infection spike in June and July. Worse, when the WHO points out persistent errors in government policy and recommends an urgent course of action, the PTI’s federal and provincial health ministers and advisors are quick to line up and drown out its sane advice.
Not to be left out, the PM proudly proclaims his Islamic credentials by taunting the leaders of the Muslim World that he allowed mosques to remain open when they were shutting them down to stop COVID19 from infecting the masses. It is incredible that the irony was lost on the PM that the opening of the mosques during a general lockdown was one of the main reasons why that lockdown was unsuccessful. In the same vein, the PM has speeded up the repatriation of Pakistanis in foreign lands, despite the fact that over 50% of them are infected when they land and can’t be effectively tested or quarantined, thus spreading the infection far and wide. Best international practices of banning incoming flights during lockdowns were blithely ignored. Unforgivably, the PM has managed to throttle the economy and infected the populace at the same time even as he has constantly portrayed himself as a savior of both. For four months the PM and his cabinet members have beamed before cameras without masks sending out the message of “all is well” when all is definitely not well. Now we are increasingly paying the price for their ignorance, recklessness and callousness.
The situation is fraught with peril because the people are squarely pinning responsibility for the chaos in their lives not just on the government but increasingly on the Miltablishment that has brought it to power. This is leading to two developments: members of the cabinet are blaming one another for the various problems that have erupted and leaking their dissatisfactions to the media; and Miltablishment Big Wigs are silently distancing themselves from the disastrous decisions of the government and scratching their heads for honourable exit strategies.
It is time for them to admit that their latest experiment in governing Pakistan has gone awry. It is taking an unprecedented toll of state and society. Propping it up much longer risks irreparably damaging the permanent institutions of the state like NAB, FIA, Judiciary and Bureaucracy, all of which have been railroaded into doing its illegal biddings. Meanwhile, there is no silver lining on the horizon. The outlook for the economy and COVID19 is so bad that it is only a matter of time before the people erupt to demand an end to this unaccountable disaster of a government. On top of it, if India creates a conflict on Pakistan’s borders that we cannot win, the price of failure will trigger the tolling of the bell for many in Pakistan.
Peasants with pitchforks
June 19, 2020
The decade-long theorizing of the disastrous consequences of rising relative inequality and poverty in the global capitalist system by concerned intellectuals like Thomas Piketty, Joseph Stiglitz, et al hasn’t been able to drive the point home as much as COVID-19 has done in the span of a few months. The poorest nations, classes and races have been hit the hardest by COVID-19, overwhelming health facilities, social security systems and national budgets, pointing to the fatal flaws of accumulation and distribution in the capitalist system that have brought it to the edge of the worst humanitarian disaster and economic recession in 150 years. The guns vs butter debate pooh pooed by neo-liberal apologists can no longer be shrugged away at the altar of cold or hot wars in the interest of “national security”.
The revival and reconstruction of the post-COVID-19 world order will therefore depend very much on the willingness and ability of the leading capitalist powers to address, as Noam Chomsky, the greatest living public intellectual of our times, puts it, the central issue facing humankind: inequality. A measure of how this message has been soaked up in the public imagination can be ascertained by the riots that have rocked leading capitals of the world, encompassing protests against inequalities of race, gender, class, ethnicity, and incomes in the global capitalist system.
In Pakistan we have been imperiled by a blundering, incompetent and hypocritical government backed by grubby, uncaring organs of the state. This is manifest in the lack of an effective and grounded anti-COVID national strategy that is expressing itself, four agonizing months after the first outbreak last February, in the steeply rising curve of infections, fatalities and unemployment amid shortages of life saving medicines and hospital facilities.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has veered dangerously between full lockdowns, semi-lockdowns, hot spot lockdowns and no lockdowns, between announcing budgetary relief to alleviate the hardships of the worst affected and inability or unwillingness to spread it around quickly and efficiently. By his own admission, no more than PKR 200 B has so far been spent on COVID-19 income relief via the Ehsaas/Benazir Income Support Program and Utility Stores and only a paltry sum of PKR 70B has been allocated for the same in the new budget for 2020-21. Indeed, the federal government has palmed off necessary expenditures on health to the provinces which, true to their equally profound limitations, have scarcely bothered to increase them significantly. On top of it, artificial shortages and resultant price hikes in sugar and flour owing to lack of government planning and regulation have eaten into whatever incomes were afforded to the poor and needy by the miserly “relief packages”.
Meanwhile, the poor and unemployed are daily assaulted by the rising burden of defense expenditures on national security. That is reflected in the singular expenditure item in the national budget that has risen in the midst of a plunging economy, a ballooning fiscal deficit and looming balance of payments crisis. All such items put together, this amounts to nearly PKR 2000B, which is 40% of the total budgeted tax revenue measures of PKR 5000B. After accounting for external and internal debt service payments and handouts to provincial governments under the National Finance Commission award, the federal government is obliged to borrow more debt for administration and development. And thus the vicious cycle continues. The national debt in 2008 stood at PKR 6500B; it rose under the PPP regime to PKR 13,000B in 2013, to PKR 24,000B in 2018 under the PMLN government and is now, two years later, about to peak under the PTI government at over PKR 42,000B. Meanwhile, the burden of subsidizing loss making state enterprises has increased to nearly PKR 2000B and the government is still dragging its feet over whether to privatise and cut losses or retain the white elephants that are sucking the nation dry.
Debt, by itself, isn’t a bad thing. Indeed, it is the very engine that spurs economic growth in capitalism. But for that to happen it must be used for productive investment purposes to achieve high GDP growths. In Pakistan, unfortunately, the rising debt has mainly been consumed by unproductive priorities, wasteful projects and corruption. Worse, the prospects ahead for economic growth are negative or zero, which means that we will incur even greater indebtedness, poverty and inequality just to keep our head above water.
The lesson of COVID-19 is ringing loud and clear in Pakistan. The ruling elites of state and society must relinquish their stranglehold over civil society and give it a chance to breathe, grow and replenish the nation. Priorities in borrowing, spending and budget making must radically change. It is criminal for state and government functionaries to blame the people for not following anti-COVID-19 SOPs when they are ill-educated, unemployed, depressed and alienated from their rulers. The alternative is to prepare, as Noam Chomsky reminds us, for the approaching storm of the peasants with pitchforks.
Trust and Confidence
June 26, 2020
Pakistan’s ruling party, the PTI, is riven with bitter personal and political discord. Its alliance partners are on the verge of jumping ship. The economy is locked into a crash dive, with resultant jumps in poverty and unemployment. The health system is overwhelmed by soaring Covid-19 infections and deaths. The federal system is groaning under the weight of constitutional encroachments by Islamabad. The judiciary is increasingly wary and assertive. The opposition is looking for an opportunity to plunge the knife. India is gearing up to create mischief. Donald Trump’s support is evaporating as the Afghan conflict shows no signs of resolution and his own fortunes take a fateful dip. Predictably, our “national security” establishment is openly being blamed for this state failure because it fathered this dispensation.
Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Minister for Science and Technology, has spilled the beans. He says Imran Khan is a leader without a team, that’s why governance is a big zero. The PTI’s elected MNAs are split between the old ideologues and the new lotas. Both resent the horde of unelected Advisors, Special Assistants and bureaucrats who have the leader’s ear and rule the roost. Personal rivalries and ambitions among the top dogs, each of whom fancies himself as a PM in-waiting, have destroyed the stability and unity of the cabinet. No team, no delivery.
The PTI’s alliance partners are thinning dangerously. It requires 172 MNAs to rule. Prime Minister Imran Khan is now left with 178 after the BNP quit. The PMLQ, MQM, BAP, GDA and JWP are bristling, just waiting for a signal to bolt.
The economy started diving as soon as the PTI seized the reins. Now it is in free fall. For the first time since independence, it is primed for negative growth this year and the next. There is no money and there are no ideas or management to kick start it.
The higher courts are desperately trying to reclaim their lost credibility at the hands of ex-Chief Justices, Saquib Nisar and Asif Khosa, who whimsically triggered the demise of the old democratically elected order and cleared the path for the present selected one. The attempt to disqualify Justice Qazi Faez Isa, because he stood up to the establishment, has backfired. The attempt to browbeat a revision in the National Finance Commission Award has been effectively challenged.
Covid-19 misappraisal and mismanagement is resulting in dire consequences. While the rest of the world is preparing to rise and shine, we are faced with a surge of unimaginable proportions – reliable estimates put potential infections at several million in the next month or two. Those very PTI leaders who said it was a common flu, nothing to worry about, are now blaming the people for their own misery, adding insult to injury.
The border situation is precipitous. Pakistan’s inability to influence the Taliban to accept Donald Trump’s peace and power-sharing plan is not without adverse consequences. Similarly, Narendra Modi’s desperation to distract attention from his own problems (failing economy, covid-19 casualties and China-humiliation) by adventuring across the LOC doesn’t augur well for a politically divided and bankrupt country.
Most significantly, an increasing number of potent voices are now openly criticizing the fathers of the current failed system. This is evident on social, electronic and print media, despite disappearances, censorship and clampdown. This denunciation is echoing in decision-making chambers in powerful foreign countries. And it has spilled over into parliament itself. Hounded and harassed, the opposition is increasingly pointing the finger in the direction of the original sin and finding resonance among lay folks and state institutions. A little bird quotes one founding father as saying that “we bet on the wrong horse, now we don’t know how to get off it”!
That’s only partly true. There are any number of ways to do so. One precondition for course correction, however, requires the Founding Fathers to elevate institutional interest above personal ambition, to allow the political system of parliamentary democracy to filter out its impurities and straighten out its imperfections. A second is to accept the elementary principle of a constitutional democracy that each organ of state and government must commit to remaining within its respective constitutional limits.
The first step in this direction is a “national” or “interim” civilian government for a year or so to restore confidence and trust in its ability to stop the dangerous slide into anarchy and breakdown. The second is to fashion a constitutional consensus on key parameters of state and society for restoration of the freely elected civilian order. The necessary condition for economic revival will depend on sustaining political consensus and stability. The sufficient condition will be subject to the harsh lessons that institutions of the state and government in general and the leaders of political parties in particular should have learnt from their mistakes or misplaced policies and priorities in the past.
A country can survive loss of confidence in government. That is what periodic free elections are all about. But it can’t survive loss of trust and belief in its state institutions because that is the bedrock of the modern nation state.
The Abyss
September 11, 2020
Nawaz Sharif has crossed the Rubicon and proclaimed the loudest whispers in the land. He says the ISI is “a state above the state”, the NAB Chairman is victimizing the opposition, the Election Commission of Pakistan rigged the 2018 elections, judges high and low have succumbed to threats and blackmail; FIA, SECP, and other government agencies are abusing their powers.
Some people say this is a suicidal move. Others contend it’s a do or die situation because Mr Sharif was unfairly ousted from office and dragged to prison, leaving him with no option but to stand up and fight for his life. Many believe that, whether he succeeds or not in winning back some political space for his party and himself personally, this is a historic moment in the political evolution of Pakistan because the elephant in the room has finally been identified for being part of the problem rather than its solution.
The opposition parties in the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) have announced plans to agitate for the removal of the PTI government, which has reacted predictably by arresting Shahbaz Sharif and is poised to swoop down on Maryam Nawaz and other leaders. But with Nawaz Sharif constantly thundering on the media from the safety of London and Maulana Fazal ur Rahman flexing his million-man muscle, the stage is set for political instability and uncertainty. With the economy in the dumps, the IMF packing its bags, Narendra Modi breathing fire and venom on our eastern border and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan increasingly foraying into FATA, this doesn’t augur well for Pakistan.
Much of this developing scenario is not new to Pakistanis. Elected governments are periodically and unfairly ousted, elections are more often rigged than fair, and long marches and movements for the restoration of democracy are par for the course. What is dramatically new is the discrediting of the Miltablishment as the “baddest” player on the block. Since the sacred cow has been the most powerful anchor of the national consensus for the last seventy years of Independent Pakistan, this is nothing less than a hard blow to National Power. Unfortunately, a nagging suspicion that a civil-military coterie has defamed a national institution for opportunist reasons has made matters more controversial, prompting ex-Miltablishment voices to raise the alarm. The perverse irony is that when unaccountable state institutions and their unelected bosses are unmasked, the elected “corrupt” politicians they hunt begin to recoup their lost legitimacy and relevance.
The Miltablishment leaders have only themselves to blame for degrading the ubiquitous mystique and power of the sacred cow. It all started some years ago with brazen official Tweets and “Dawn Leaks” criticizing PMLN government policies. It has now degenerated into Sheikh Rashid exposing secret meetings between opposition politicians and brass bosses, quite forgetting that it takes two to tango. Matters have deteriorated since official spokesmen jumped into the fray, provoking tagged politicians to defend themselves by revealing hitherto veiled conversations, promises and grudges. Everybody is in the same “hammam”, their dirty linen is on scorching display, there are no sacred cows anymore.
Self-righteous PTI spokesmen are condemning Nawaz Sharif for breaking his pledge to return to Pakistan. The Miltablishment is sending carrot and stick messages to him. Their loyal followers in the media are taunting him to return to Pakistan and fight like a man. His supporters say that the judges and government sent him away; the Miltablishment has reneged on its promises to him; now there’s nothing left for him but to encash the loyalty and support of tens of millions of his voters who passionately believe that he has been wronged. Why then shouldn’t he exploit the safety of exile to reach out to his supporters as so many political leaders have successfully done in history?
Of course, it will be difficult for the PDM to mount a forceful movement to oust Imran Khan because all state organs are arrayed behind him. It is also clear that there are weak personal, political and organizational links in its chain of command based on distrust and differing vested interests. But Nawaz Sharif’s alliance with Maulana Fazal ur Rahman cannot be shrugged away. Indeed, the Maulana has been far more outspoken against the Miltablishment than even Nawaz Sharif. In fact the JUI has the capacity to single handedly shut down major towns across the country. And if it cannot be cowed down, the demonstration effect of its resistance is bound to galvanize leaderless parties and swell the ranks of agitators. Clashes are inevitable with unforeseen consequences, unless the threat of it stops it from coming true.
In the coming months, the Miltablishment can either open up political space or close it further. In the past, when it has opted for closure through direct intervention, it has been propped up by dollops of American economic and military support, backed by Saudi Arabia. That is not going to happen now. To hope China can fill the vacuum is wishful thinking. The die is cast.
Extraordinary developments
In an extraordinary development, ex DG-FIA Bashir Memon has publicly revealed how the “selected” prime minister, Imran khan, personally summoned and ordered him to fix top opposition leaders by embroiling them in rigged cases of treason and corruption. When he refused, he was eased out. That “order” is today being implemented by NAB and Mr Memon’s successors at the FIA while the courts are dutifully lining up as handmaidens.
In another extraordinary development, Babar Rashid, a PTI member with avowed links to Punjab Governor Mohammad Sarwar and Federal Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid, has had the audacity to lodge treason cases against 42 opposition leaders, including Nawaz and Maryam Sharif and a clutch of ex-prime ministers and retired three star generals, at Shahdara Police Station in Lahore. Since the list of “traitors” in Pakistan’s history is long – the most prominent being A.K. Fazlul Haq, Hussein Shaheed Suharwardi, Fatima Jinnah, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and now Nawaz Sharif – this might have passed muster if he hadn’t also included the sitting prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Raja Farooq Haider, whose inclusion in the latest list of Pakistani “traitors” or “Indian agents” jolted the Indian media into frenzied attacks on Pakistan and scrambled the Pakistan Foreign Office into the trenches, compelling the selected prime minister to disclaim any prior knowledge of, or responsibility for, Babar Rashid’s FIR. As if on cue, Governor Sarwar, Sheikh Rashid and others who had earlier happily posed for selfies and pics with Babar Rashid stampeded to deny any links with him while the usual suspects led by the federal and Punjab provincial information ministers went into epileptic fits to shake off any connection with him.
Instead of quashing the FIR to establish credibility, however, the Punjab information minister, Fayyaz Chohan, has ordered the police to strike out the name of the AJK PM but leave the others in, raising fresh questions. How could Mr Rashid, against whom several criminal cases are already lodged at the same police station, wake up the SHO in the middle of the night and persuade him to write out such an extraordinary accusation without a green light from the SHO’s superiors all the way up the decision making ladder? To further muddy the waters, the government says it has ordered an inquiry and threatened to make heads roll for this “embarrassment” but actually done nothing.
On the opposite side, another extraordinary development has taken place. The diverse parties in the opposition have finally welded together under the banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement. What is extraordinary is their unqualified acceptance of the anti-Miltablishment narrative of Nawaz Sharif, Maulana Fazal ur Rahman and Maryam Nawaz Sharif even as a majority of them were earlier in favour of only targeting the selected prime minister and leaving the Miltablishment well alone. This implies that the “other” narrative of Shahbaz Sharif and Asif Zardari of “working” with the Miltablishment to secure personal and political concessions has been sidelined, at least for the time being. The significance of this development lies in the fact that it was engineered by the selected prime minister and not the Miltablishment when he drove a wedge in the budding “understanding” by unleashing the full might of the non-Miltablishment organs of the state directly under his command and influence (NAB, FIA, IB, SECP, etc.) against the opposition.
One extraordinary consequence of this development is the unflattering and unprecedented spotlight on the Miltablishment as the main culprit of the spectacle – “the state above the state” as Nawaz Sharif put it bluntly. The “same page” alliance narrative of the Miltablishment with the selected prime minister has been transformed into a great embarrassment for the former, thanks to the wily tactics of the latter. Indeed, as government spokesmen proudly explain, Nawaz Sharif’s anti-Miltablishment speech was allowed to be aired precisely so that he could attack the Miltablishment without restraint.
But the law of unintended consequences is now injecting extraordinary infections into the bowels of the state. When Nawaz Sharif explains that his struggle is against a coterie of the Miltablishment rather than the brave soldiers of the nation who are martyred every day on the borders in defense of the Motherland, he makes a chilling call to defend the sanctity of institutions at the altar of misplaced personal interests or political policies.
The most extraordinary development in this sequence of events is the unintended consequence of formally catapulting Maryam Nawaz Sharif as the most popular leader of the country on the ground. Another is the unprecedented transformation of Maulana Fazal ur Rahman from being the timid leader of an electorally small regional religious party that has historically allied with the Miltablishment into the fiery anti-Miltablishment leader of the grand democratic alliance of today.
The conclusion is inescapable. Unless the leaders of the Miltablishment quickly change tack, we are headed into the most turbulent period in modern times with seriously adverse consequences for state, civil society and economy in Pakistan.
Political Economy Woes
A cursory glance at front page news tells a worrying tale of economic and political woes.
The Economic Coordination Committee of the federal cabinet has deferred a decision to increase the support price of wheat for the next crop because it will definitely fuel food inflation at a time when curbing inflation is possibly the biggest item on its agenda. It’s so worrying that Imran Khan is desperately exhorting his rag tag Tiger Force to lend a hand in monitoring and controlling prices. One manifestation of this is the occupation of D Chowk in Islamabad by thousands of lower grade government employees agitating for salary increases and by health workers protesting price hikes of essential commodities. It’s only a matter of time when other sectors and groups erupt on the streets across the country. Unfortunately, however, the problem is going to get worse in the coming months.
The IMF has not given a penny this year to the government because its conditions for a third tranche of the three year $6b structural adjustment program remain unfulfilled. Come January 2021, if the government hasn’t significantly raised gas, petrol and electricity prices, if it hasn’t significantly increased tax collection, if it hasn’t managed significantly to reduce the circular debt, it may simply walk out of Pakistan, as it has done on all except one occasion in the last twenty years. But if the IMF exits, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and other international finance institutions will follows suit. Indeed, the government’s bid to float Euro/Sukuk bonds to raise forex from the international market would have to be shelved, putting pressure on its depleting forex reserves and effectively devaluing the rupee further. With GDP growth forecast at below 1%, unemployment will exceed 30m, joining hands with inflation to besiege the government like never before.
As if the internal situation wasn’t bad enough, we have unprecedented external pressures. NSA Moeed Yusuf has revealed a dastardly Indian hand behind increasing acts of TTP terrorism, Baloch insurgency, Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict, hybrid warfare and border clashes in which Pakistani soldiers are martyred every day. Relations with Saudi Arabia, an old friend with cash and oil handouts, and OIC countries are at rock bottom. And America and the Western world with whom Pakistan’s trade and aid is predominantly tied are at odds with Pakistan’s increasing ties with China against whom they are formidably arrayed.
To take advantage of this rapidly developing crisis-situation, the combined opposition parties have finally banded together to try and oust the PTI governments in Islamabad, Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The Pakistan Democratic Movement is led by anti-Miltablishment hawks Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazal ur Rahman, who have their fingers on the pulse of the enraged public, after the failure of the pro-Miltablishment doves led by Asif Zardari and Shahbaz Sharif to effect change. The PDM has chalked out a four month plan to progressively up the ante until the Miltablishment is compelled to stop propping up the PTI government and abandon it to its fate. The strategy is to start with big “jalsas” across the length and breadth of the country for the next two months, gearing up to rallies and street protests by December, climaxing with a long march to D-Chowk to lay siege to parliament, possibly with mass resignations from federal and provincial parliaments to trigger constitutional lockdown. Ominously, the PDM’s leadership is in the hands of Maulana Fazal who can field tens of thousands of fearless, religiously motivated warriors who, if push comes to shove, will not be cowed down by the organs of the state.
Despite outward bravado, the government is, pardon the cliché, excreting bricks. It intends to use a demoralized civilian bureaucracy and police to stop the PDM by a variety of methods – containers to block traffic, arrests of key leaders, water cannons and tear gas to disperse agitating crowds. But the probability of state repression triggering violence with unintended consequences is very high, a factor that will feed into the anti-government rage on the street. At some stage, the Miltablishment will be compelled to step in to bail out the government or throw it overboard. If it does the former, it will be further discredited and abused; if the latter it will have to compromise with erstwhile “hostile” political leaders by opening up political space and stepping back into the shadows.
Imran Khan’s strategy of exerting all his government’s energies into hounding the opposition to the wall has backfired on several fronts. First, it has distracted from the main job of government to deliver sound and stable economic policies to the people. Second, it has divided the nation for internal and external reasons precisely at a time when it should be most united. Third, it has alienated the Miltablishment from a majority of voters and eroded its “sanctity” whence it derives its ubiquitous power. By association-default, the judiciary, NAB, government-controlled or managed media and other state organs and agencies are unable to check the gathering storm.
The sooner wiser heads prevail in charting the political economy of Pakistan, the better.
Moment of reckoning
What next?
The Gujranwala Jalsa on 16th October went according to script – nearly 50,000 people inside and outside the stadium despite all the road blocks, arrests and police scuffles – until Nawaz Sharif came to the crease and hit every ball out of the park, launching an unprecedented anti-Miltablishment narrative targeting its two leading lights. This narrative is now echoing in the four corners of the country. Days later in Karachi, as if on cue, the leaders of regional sub-nationalist parties – Mohsin Dawar, Akhtar Mengal, Abdul Malik, Mahmood Khan Achakzai, Ameer Haider Hoti – with historical grievances against Islamabad, stood up to thunder against the Miltablishment, making the three original sinners, Bilawal Bhutto, Maryam Nawaz and Maulana Fazal ur Rahman, look tame in comparison.
This is an extraordinary situation for several reasons. Within the PMLN, it signals a back seat for the “rapprochement-with-Miltablishment” narrative of Shahbaz Sharif who is silently languishing in jail and a front seat for the “anti-state-above-state” narrative of Nawaz Sharif who is blasting away from exile in London. Among the mainstream big PDM alliance partners – right-wing religious JUI, leftist secular PPP and centrist conservative PMLN – it suggests a narrowing down of their ideological positions against the anti-democracy role of the Miltablishment in politics. Indeed, the PMLN and JUI were once solidly pro-Miltablishment parties. The PDM can also claim to represent nearly 65% of the votes cast in the last elections across the length and breadth of Pakistan, even if no account is taken of the rigging in about 70 national seats that eventually gave 31% of the votes to the PTI. In other words, the anti-Miltablishment narrative of grievances has come in from the cold periphery of Pakistan into its warm heartlands, most prominently in the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa whence the Miltablishment draws nearly 70% of its rank and file. The Karachi jalsa has also served notice on the Miltablishment in another dramatic manner.
When Miltablishment officers dragged the Sindh IGP and Additional IGP out of their homes in the dead of night after the Jalsa, took them to the headquarters of the Sector Commander and leaned on them to order the arrest of Captain (retd) Mohammad Safdar for sloganeering inside the Quaid-e-Azam’s Mausoleum, it triggered an unprecedented and stunning revolt by the Sindh police and compelled no less than the COAS to order an inquiry into the sordid affair. Turns out that the gent who filed the FIR is a PTI-ite, a registered “proclaimed offender” who wasn’t even present at the scene of the alleged crime.
Significantly, this episode has served to fuel the PDM’s anti-Miltablishment narrative sweeping across the country and could conceivably be the precursor of similar revolts or strikes or protests in other organs of the state, particularly in the civil bureaucracy and judiciary, that are labouring under similar “pressures”. It has been pointed out by political analysts, for example, that five chief secretaries and five IGPs in the Punjab have been summarily or arbitrarily shunted in the last two years despite a Supreme Court landmark judgment in the Anita Turab case frowning upon cavalier postings and transfers without due process or reason. The recent humiliation of the IGP by a rash new CCOP in the Punjab readily comes to mind, as does the ouster of a judge of the Islamabad High Court and the proceedings for ouster of a Supreme Court judge who have earned the ire of the Miltablishment on account of their judgments. Not so long ago, we were witness to the unaccountable police actions of an SP, a pro-Miltablishment officer who ran afoul of his superiors in the Sindh government.
The PDM now moves to Quetta. One may reasonably expect Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazal to join hands there with provincial opposition sub-nationalist leaders to focus on the historical political and economic discrimination of the region and a denial of constitutional provincial rights by the centralizing, “one-unit” endorsing, Miltablishment.
The consequences of this focus on the Miltablishment can be good or bad for the power-players, depending on how it and the PTI government react singly or jointly. Until now, the PTI government has been blithely shrugging away its abysmal misgovernance and corruption by relying on the unqualified support of the Miltablishment. Unfortunately, the Miltablishment hasn’t helped its own cause by publicly subscribing to the “same-page” policy prescriptions. Overnight, however, the Miltablishment rather than the PTI government is in the eye of the gathering storm. If it continues to play political partisanship, it will have to sanction renewed repression against the opposition. But this will further discredit it and make it lose the respect of Pakistanis which is the glue that binds state and society. If it doesn’t, it will have to seek accommodation with the PDM which means nothing less than cutting the root cause of its troubles, Imran Khan, adrift. This moment of crisis for the Miltablishment is a moment of reckoning for Pakistan.
Good Boys, Bad Boys
The three jalsas of the PDM at Gujranwala, Karachi and Quetta have been a resounding success. They were attended by large crowds. Parties across the ideological spectrum participated. There were no cracks in their joint narrative for “vote ko izzat do”. This is a demand not just for free and fair elections immediately but also for guarantees of Miltablishment non-interference in governance, the sole preserve of the elected representatives of the people.
The demand is justified. Time and again, elections have been stolen by the Miltablishment to seat and unseat politicians, parties and governments in its good or bad books. But the practice became problematic when the Miltablishment turned on its own good boys because they refused to toe the line on some issue or the other. Therefore, over time, even the good boys have become bad boys, the PPP, PMLN, JUI, etc. being prime examples of pro-Miltablishment good boys becoming bad boys. In a last ditch effort, the Miltablishment stole the 2018 elections to hoist Imran Khan to office. But the good boy’s bad policies have come a cropper and put the Miltablishment on the spot. The more he fails, the more the Miltablishment is blamed for propping him up. The more he hounds the opposition instead of concentrating on economic delivery, the more the opposition trains its gunsights on the Miltablishment. Unfortunately, the Miltablishment’s institutional case has been seriously eroded by the personal ambitions of its leading lights. Now the chickens have come home to roost.
Good boy-turned-bad boy Nawaz Sharif has struck a chord with Pakistanis by accusing Miltablishment head boy, COAS General Qamar Bajwa, and head spy DGISI Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, for being responsible for the mess in the country. In a country where periodic Miltablishment power grabs can only be discussed after the event, where martial laws are invalidated by the courts only after they are over, where coup-making and election-rigging generals are never brought to book, naming names and pointing fingers at generals in power has been strictly no-no. But now it’s the talk of the town.
Some explain Nawaz Sharif’s outburst as a “suicidal” gesture borne of rage and frustration progressively brought upon by three successive dismissals (1993, 1999, 2017) at the hands of the Miltablishment. Others insist that he has been egged on by disgruntled elements within the Miltablishment who have serious issues with the way in which their institutional interests are being compromised. One service extension has robbed a clutch of colleagues of the most coveted post in the Miltablishment and another linked appointment in the offing two years hence will put paid to dozens of others for years to come. And then there are those handmaidens of every prime minister and general in office who are happy to flog the “Indian agent” or “foreign hand” theories to discredit their opponents.
Regardless of the motive behind Nawaz Sharif’s outburst, the way forward has now become dark and ominous. Previously, there was one target. Now there are three. Previously, the opposition’s strategy revolved upon pressurizing the two to oust the one. Now, it’s not clear at all how the three are to be eased out. Nor is it clear that, even if such came to pass for one reason or another, the Miltablishment is ready to throw in the towel as the all-powerful political player in the country.
In the next three months, the struggle for power will feel like a roller coaster ride. The Miltablishment leaders in the spotlight will try to deflect it by a combination of inducements, promises, threats and arrests. The PPP is the weakest link in the PDM chain because, unlike the others, it has a provincial government to lose if the gambit fails. But as long as the PMLN remains united under Nawaz Sharif and the JUI can resist bribes – which seems to be the case so far – a fatal finale is in store. If it leads to a long march to besiege Islamabad, violence is inevitable with unscripted consequences. Otherwise, mass resignations from the Senate, Provincial and National Assembly are certainly on the cards, leaving the country without a national parliament (which comprises both houses). A lack of quorum in the Senate, where the opposition has a majority, renders it dysfunctional while Senate re-elections presuppose by-elections in the provincial assemblies to complete the roster. Dragging the Supreme Court into this political quagmire will either deepen the crisis or blot it forever without resolving it. If the Gilgit-Baltistan elections in November are rigged, the PDM will get a fillip.
The developing political crisis of democracy is seriously marred by a failing economy due to dreadful mismanagement by the PTI government coupled with the negative consequences of Covid-19. Neither is about to improve. The situation on our borders east and west is precipitous. Dharnas, strikes, long marches, terrorism, foreign intervention can only make matters worse. The sooner the Miltablishment corrects course by playing fairly with the opposition, the sooner we can all be good boys.
Judges, law, justice
Supreme Court Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Maqbool Baqar have followed Justice Yahya Khan Afridi in forcefully dissenting with important elements of the majority judgment of the 10 member Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial in the Presidential Reference against Justice Qazi Faez Isa, a fellow Supreme Court judge. Although the majority decision had quashed the Presidential Reference against Justice Isa for “misconduct” requiring a sacking, it had kept the original charge of non-disclosure of his wife’s assets against Justice Isa alive pending a final decision by the Supreme Judicial Council on a report by the FBR relating to the family’s income and assets. The majority judgment had also criticized the conduct and actions of President Arif Alvi, Law Minister Farogh Naseem, Attorney General Mansoor Khan and Assets Recovery Unit head Shahzad Akbar but without attributing any malice to their actions or sanctioning any penalties against them. The dissenting voices have now strongly held otherwise.
The allegations against Justice Isa were, according to Justice Baqar, “wholly unfounded, baseless, frivolous, misconceived and mala fide” … the [Presidential] reference was “a product of animosity, malice”… and “streams from the ill-will harboured by some functionaries of the executive”… which “misused government departments and resources in [an] unconstitutional and unlawful manner”… in “their desire to remove the petitioner [QFI] from his office whom they perceived as an obstacle in their riding this country roughshod and also to overawe the other judges of the superior courts … into subjugation”. Justice Shah added that “the petitioner judge [QFI] was deliberately targeted … the vengeance and resentment against him is more than visible”… the complaint is “vague” and “bogus”… before an “incompetent authority” [ARU] … the evidence was “illegally collected”. The two judges called the President and Prime Minister “rubber stamps”. Justice Shah also directed the concerned authorities to initiate criminal and disciplinary proceedings against the Chairman, Legal Experts and members of the ARU, and defaulting officials of NADRA and FBR for their illegal acts under the IFTA, ITO and NADRA Ordinance 2000.
It is rare in the annals of judicial history for a President, Prime Minister and heads of state institutions to be so brutally indicted. But it is common for them to get away scot-free. It now remains to be seen whether the SJC will have the courage of its convictions to defend the honour and integrity of not just a fellow judge but of the august institution of justice that it represents.
That’s not all. The SC is now being pushed into the eye of a more fearsome storm. This refers to the predicted last-ditch clash between the Government-Establishment and Pakistan Democratic Movement in the next two months. The PDM is doggedly on the path of mass protest culminating in a long march to besiege Islamabad. But the former is determined to leash the latter by all means. Violence, accidental or premeditated, cannot be ruled out, and writs and FIRs are bound to fly. More ominously, if the PDM decides to resign en masse from the Senate and National Assembly and provincial assemblies, the Senate elections in March will have to be postponed and by-elections on scores of NA and PA seats held, raising constitutional issues about the status of non-functioning parliaments for the SC to adjudge.
The role of the Bar in coming months will also be important. There is no doubt that its weight has been solidly behind Qazi Faez Isa so far. But one may expect more positive activism from the SCBA following the recent success of upright and independent minded lawyers Latif Afridi and Ahmed Shahzad Rana in its elections. The newly elected President and Secretary are both solidly pro-democracy and pro-rule-of-law figures who won’t be pushovers for the Government-Establishment.
The law, judges and justice are also likely to figure in another case of high political significance. Nawaz Sharif’s acquittal in the Avenfield case and conviction in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case are winding their way to the Supreme Court. In both cases, accountability Court judge Arshad Malik has since been thoroughly discredited by an incriminating video. If the conviction is overturned, the PDM’s narrative will get a fillip. The government’s attempt to extradite Mr Sharif will also face serious hurdles if he opts for political asylum on grounds of political victimization and persecution at the hands of the Government-Establishment, citing Arshad Malik’s videos as solid evidence in support of his claim. Indeed, if a British judge were to lend credence to subversion of justice by judge Arshad Malik and subsequent high court judgments, the cases against Mr Sharif in Pakistan would be seriously undermined. We are also informed that there is another video, as yet undisclosed, that may have a negative bearing on the conduct of judges and state of law and justice in Pakistan. The NAB chairman, a retired SC judge, is already under a cloud.
When judges bend the canons of law to serve the demands of naked and brutal politics, they do a great disservice to notions of trust and justice that underpin the modern nation-state.
Rabbits and Hats
The “Captain (retd) Safdar Case” is quite extraordinary. “Someone” took a decision “somewhere” to have Capt Safdar, husband of opposition leader Maryam Nawaz Sharif, arrested for raising slogans of “Vote ko Izzat Do” inside the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Karachi recently. Accordingly, after the IGP and Additional IGP Sindh demurred, they were “kidnapped” by paramilitary forces and pressured to lodge an FIR against the “errant” gent and order his arrest, which came after breaking down the door of the hotel room that he shared with his wife. When the officers of the Sindh police force went on “leave” to protest the maltreatment of their top officers, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari called upon COAS General Qamar Bajwa to order an inquiry and fix responsibility for this transgression of the law and constitution. With the Sindh police on strike, General Bajwa swiftly complied to make sure that the situation did not spin out of control.
Now the brief recommendations of the GHQ Inquiry Report are out: a couple of mid-level ISI and Rangers officials are alleged to have acted “over-zealously” in the “public interest” and ordered to report to GHQ.
Nawaz Sharif has “rejected” the report and accused GHQ of “scapegoating” the officers, implying that someone higher up in Islamabad took the decision and should be held responsible. This is very much in line with his earlier charge against General Bajwa and DGISI General Faiz Hameed of being ultimately responsible for hoisting a “selected” prime minister on the country whose wayward decisions and policies have laid Pakistan low.
If Nawaz Sharif is not pulling his punches, Bilawal Bhutto has welcomed the GHQ “solution” and seems keen to stay on the right side of the Miltablishment. He now says he doesn’t support Nawaz Sharif’s policy of targeting the COAS and DGISI by name even as he criticizes the Miltablishment for propping up the PTI government. This is a fine distinction for tactical reasons.
The PMLN and its leaders, in particular the Sharif family, have been so hounded to the wall by the PTI-Miltablishment that they have nothing left to lose and everything to win by trying to derail the latest “hybrid” dispensation by targeting its chief civil-military operatives. They are emboldened by the great public support in favour of their slogan of “vote ko izzat do”, which in turn is generated by the public outrage against the abysmal misgovernance of the PTI-Miltablishment ruling elite. Their “3 in 1” target is aimed at prying apart this “alliance” and opening up space for themselves. They are secure in their strategy as long as Maulana Fazal ur Rahman and his JUI, who similarly have nothing to lose and everything to gain by realising the same set of demands, remain on the same page with them with their disciplined and passionate mass of street power.
The PPP, however, has much to lose and not much to gain by irrevocably antagonizing the Miltablishment. The PPP Sindh government is a shrug away from being dismissed; Asif Zardari doesn’t fancy quick conviction and jail hardship; and a new round of elections may give him less, not more, seats in the province, such is the resurgence of anti-PPP parties and groups. It suits him to stay in the PDM as a moderating voice so that he has more leverage in dealing with the Miltablishment by only attacking the PTI and Imran Khan.
Meanwhile, the Miltablishment is gearing up to disperse the looming PDM long march/resignation threat. Its repressive apparatus is ready to nip the protest next month. It has also brought Jehangir Tareen back into the arena with three key objectives: to help resolve the sugar crisis by getting his cartel to start early crushing of sugar cane while dishoarding stocks; to liaise with disgruntled PTI allies in Punjab and Sindh and keep them from straying in times of PTI crisis; and/or to corral them in the event they are needed for Miltablishment guided in-house changes in provincial or national parliaments leading to non-PTI governments, or a new pro-Miltablishment coalition in case fresh elections are necessary to get out of the current log-jam. He is, after all, a ruthlessly ambitious man, and one for all seasons. Note how blithely the notorious gent has slipped back into the country without as much as a vindictive glance from the direction of Imran Khan.
The economy is bleeding. Our foreign policy is up the creek, old allies have abandoned us and new ones are hard to get. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and India are breathing down our neck east and west. Covid-19 has resurfaced with a vengeance. The masses are angry and restive. The PDM is readying for a grand heave-ho to get rid of Imran Khan. December and January threaten to be the cruelest months of all.
Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazal ur Rahman together may have the mass force to shake up Imran Khan. But it is not beyond Asif Zardari to do a deal with the Miltablishment and pull a rabbit out of the hat.
Losers All
The result of the elections in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) last Wednesday are a forerunner of what to expect from the PTI-Miltablishment regime going forward on the fate of democratic and constitutional rights. Consider.
Until now, for obvious reasons of incumbency, every such election in GB has returned the party in office in Islamabad. When the PPP was in office, it won a majority of seats in the GB elections. When the PMLN was in power, it likewise formed the government in GB. But now the PTI has managed only 9 out of 23 seats, far short of a majority. This is a poor show for a ruling party. But no matter, the Independents form the second big bloc with seven seats and it is a foregone conclusion that they will join the PTI after suitable inducements. But there are serious reservations about the way the whole exercise was conducted by Election Commission officials.
Contrary to election rules, the “prime minister”, Imran Khan, was allowed to enter the fray and sway voters with promises of delivering a separate province for them, a long agitated popular demand, despite the fact that no such constitutional amendment is on the cards, and all the political parties are on record as having pledged in the presence of no less than the most powerful man in Pakistan that any discussion on the complex subject will only take place after the GB elections are over. A clutch of federal ministers was also in action, violating election commission codes with impunity. In fact, the exercise started with the installation of an “interim government” to oversee the elections without any debate or discussion with the opposition – let alone a consensus – as required by law. In the same cavalier manner, the election commissioner was appointed unilaterally and the elections were postponed to gain more time to seal their outcome – at least eight PMLN “electables” were induced by the usual suspects to switch sides as happened with dozens of similar “electables” in the 2018 general elections – and after the elections almost all independents were cajoled to join the PTI and help it form governments in Punjab and Islamabad. Now the PMLN’s Ahsan Iqbal is threatening a march on the CEC’s office in Islamabad, and the PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto is insisting the election has been “stolen” because the PPP got more votes (25%) than the PTI (24%).
Elsewhere, the PTI-Miltablishment is preparing the ground to stamp out any possibility of opposition rallies and long marches to Islamabad in the next two months. The Punjab Anti-Corruption Department has suddenly woken up to approve “probes” against dozens of PMLN politicians, including sitting MNAs and MPAs, for alleged corruption during the tenure of the last PMLN regime. In other words, we can be sure that those who are readying to lend support to PMLN rallies in December and January may be arrested on the pretext of “accountability”. We are also informed that the “court has indicted Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Miftah Ismael et al” in the LNG case. The media campaign against Shahbaz Sharif is in full flow and it is only a matter of time before the biggest crowd puller of them all, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, is restricted in one way or another, leaving only Maulana Fazal ur Rahman to bear the brunt of the challenge.
The government’s latest move is to spread the fear of a gathering covid-19 (or covid-18) storm, leading it to suddenly impose bans on rallies and jalsas while leaving most other economic activity in bazaars and markets with throngs of shoppers unchanged. The farcical element in this bluff is the permission to go ahead with marriage ceremonies of less than 300 people, as if the local government is in any position to stop many more than 300 people from attending festivities in full swing, indeed as if Covid-19 only becomes an unstoppable menace beyond the red line of 300 guests!
In the midst of all this, Maryam Nawaz Sharif is being hauled over the coals by both fascist detractors and political liberals for suggesting that her party is open to talks with the Miltablishment to resolve the ongoing political crisis on the condition that it pledge not to stray beyond its defined constitutional boundaries and respect the sanctity of the vote and its implications for the rights of a freely elected government. The fascists were screaming blue murder when Nawaz Sharif targeted the two pillars of this government for selecting and sustaining the unpopular and incompetent PTI regime. Now they are incensed because Maryam is suspected of taking a leaf from their book on the exigencies of structural realism. The liberals said Nawaz Sharif was a fool to bait the Miltablishment. Now they say any attempt to negotiate with the same Miltablishment to regain democratic space is unacceptable. Never mind that these same liberals voted en masse for the Miltablishment’s latest blue-eyed selection.
Pride and prejudice, fear and loathing, prevail. We are all losers.
Foreign Policy Failures
Pakistan’s foreign policy is facing a huge challenge on several fronts. But we seem to be singularly inept at forging ahead.
Pak-US relations under US President Donald Trump were pegged exclusively to US-Afghan policy. In exchange for helping America pull out from Afghanistan in an “honourable” way, the Americans approved an IMF bailout for Pakistan and soft pedaled on FATF. President-Elect Joe Biden will probably demand greater Pakistani pressure on the Taliban to compromise on power-sharing with the Ghani regime – which is not likely to be delivered – and will keep a sharper lookout for political, human, media and minority rights violations which will be resisted by our “hybrid regime” that relies on repression for survival. The Democrats have also historically tilted toward India, which means fewer sympathetic listening posts in Washington. The challenge will be to define a stable strategic relationship that transcends uneven transactional leveraging. But no advance thinking is noticeable.
The Pak-India relationship is at its worst ever. The Indian “hand” is ever more discernable behind acts of terrorism inside Pakistan by sub-nationalist separatist groups and TTP infiltrators from Afghanistan – a dossier of evidence pertaining to India’s “Aggressive-Defensive” doctrine has duly been presented to the UN Secretary General. Thus the spectre of armed conflict looms on the horizon which will hurt Pakistan much more than India. Unfortunately, Imran Khan has boxed Pakistan in by his personal attacks on the person of Narendra Modi.
But Pakistan’s greatest failure lies in Imran Khan’s approach to the Middle East. In recent times, Pak-Saudi and Pak-Gulf States relations have nose-dived, hurting Pakistan significantly. Only two years ago, Prince Mohammad bin Salman was in Islamabad, pledging US$ 10 billion in investment in Gwadar and several billion in deferred oil payments and deposits to shore up our reserves. All that has been reduced to zero in the last six months by Imran Khan’s petulant attempt to build a rival anti-OIC bloc with Turkey, Iran and Malaysia, countries of no strategic or even transactional value to Pakistan with leaders hostile to MBS. Now the Gulf emirates, which are core allies of Saudi Arabia, are strangulating the supply of Pakistani labour upon whose forex remittances Pakistan’s State Bank is so dependent. Before long, we may expect a reverse flow of labour as Indians replace Pakistanis in the labour forces of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates exactly at a time when this region is poised for a spurt in growth through an opening up of its economies to foreign investment and softening of its cultural prohibitions. The biggest snub has come from the refusal of the OIC Foreign Ministers meeting in Niger to acknowledge, let alone admit, Pakistan’s request to put a discussion on Kashmir on its agenda.
Suddenly, there is furtive but significant activity between Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states that portends momentous events. By all accounts, the stage is set for Saudi Arabia to follow in the footsteps of the UAE and Bahrain in establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. It appears that all sides are now gearing up to consolidate their collective gains under the Trump administration relating to defense and economic clout. The common enemy is Iran under the Ayatollahs which is hoping for a reprieve from the Biden administration as opposed to a policy of sanctions and regime change in Iran under the Trump administration. Under the circumstances, if, in some sort of collaboration with the Saudis, the Israelis were to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations in order to preempt a change in US-Iran policy after Biden becomes President, all hell will break loose, putting Pakistan in a very difficult situation because public opinion in the country will be against the aggressors, making relations worse.
The pressure on Pakistan to start a dialogue with Israel with a view to establishing diplomatic relations comes from the changing matrix of power in this part of the globe. Although no Pakistani politician can dare think of establishing some sort of relations with Israel until the Palestinians get a satisfactory two state solution, the Pakistani Miltablishment has had a more structurally realistic position on the matter. It seeks to leverage diplomatic relations with Israel against Israeli support to India in matters of military technology, training and intelligence sharing aimed at upsetting the military balance with India. It also thinks that such a move will bring dividends in shifting the powerful Jewish lobby in the US away from blind support to India, eventually opening up a more productive route to a settlement with India over Kashmir through international pressure.
But the problem lies in the umbilical link between Pakistan-Kashmir and Israel-Palestine. How can Pakistan abandon the cause of Palestine while insisting on the cause of Kashmir? In 2005, General Pervez Musharraf opened a dialogue with India and Israel to move the cause of both Kashmir and Palestine forward. Unfortunately, his initiatives for regional peace with economic dividends were lost in the political upheavals in Pakistan and India subsequently. Today, we are heading into a storm at our weakest moment ever without any idea of how we will come out of it.
Desperately seeking U-Turn
Pakistan is at a dangerous impasse, the manifestations of which
are plain.
The economy has crumbled. This is partly due to blundering government policies and anti-Covid U-Turns. But it is also because of political uncertainty following the engineered ouster of Nawaz Sharif, a popular PMLN prime minister, and the planned selection of Imran Khan, who has fast become unpopular.
The PTI government is immovable. It refuses to recognize one critical fact: a pre-election strategy of accusing rival political leaders and parties of corruption in government cannot be substituted for a post-election strategy of delivering manifesto pledges to improve the lives of citizens.
The PDM opposition is irresistible. The two mainstream parties, PPP and PMLN, have eschewed their adversarial roles to band together in the face of a relentless drive by the PTI to wipe them off the face of the political landscape and create one-party rule. Unprecedentedly too, the JUI has joined hands with them to create a solid mass of left, centre and right wing forces to resist the PTI.
An irresistible force is going to clash with an immovable object.
Meanwhile, the organs of the state that are supposed to avow political neutrality are fast losing their credibility in the eyes of the people. The Miltablishment leadership is rightly accused of manipulating elections and putting personal considerations above national interests. The judiciary, which promised a revolutionary transformation of the justice system during the Lawyers Movement a decade ago, has, thanks to miscarriage by ex-CJPs Saqib Nisar and Asif Khosa, reduced itself to a servile handmaiden of the very Miltablishment against which it originally revolted. The civil bureaucracy, which once proudly billed itself as the steel frame holding together state and society, is a pale shadow of itself. It trembles at the prospect of taking decisions and is administratively impotent.
Sub-nationalisms are on the rise. Religion inspired terrorism has not abated. The threat from Modi’s India is more real than ever before. Pakistan’s foreign friends are few and far between, those like Saudi Arabia are sulking.
In this state of existential national crisis, what is the way forward?
A common refrain is that no party or group is talking about finding solutions; that each is wont to blame the other for all our woes; that each wants to be in office for the sake of it and no one has a plan of action to forge a dynamic and sustainable way ahead out of these crises.
The problem with this hand wringing is that it is both self-serving and self-deceiving. It puts a premium on some sort of national consensus about solutions even as it refuses to recognize the necessary conditions for such a consensus. The Miltablishment has ruled directly for over half the life of independent Pakistan and indirectly for the rest of the time. It has “managed” elections and selected prime ministers, then sabotaged and overthrown them. It has experimented with one unit, five units, four units and is now toying with the idea of six units. Time and again, it has subverted the notion of a constitutional democracy with an independent judiciary and free media. It has diagnosed “corruption” of politicians as Pakistan’s main malady even as it has refused to be accountable for its own corruptions and misdemeanors. Thus distorted, the garrison state remains alien from and hostile to civil society. Under the circumstances, the only national consensus possible is one in which all organs and stakeholders of state and society perform their roles and functions strictly as defined and laid out in the consensual constitution of 1973.
In recognition of the present situational dilemma, voices are being raised for a national dialogue in search of the way forward by ending the politics of victimization and elimination of political leaders and parties. One such voice is that of Shahbaz Sharif. But Imran Khan has vowed to grind such “crooks” into the ground instead of dialoguing with them. The notion of a loyal opposition-government in waiting via free and fair elections as decreed by the Constitution is alien to him. Another idea is to get the superior judiciary involved in such an exercise. But this is a non-starter since the institution is perceived to be mired in electoral malpractices and politically partisan judgments.
This has left the opposition parties with no option but to band together and try to heave Imran Khan out of office. Generally speaking, any street movement should not pose serious problems to a fairly elected and popular government as demonstrated by the failed dharnas of Imran Khan against Nawaz Sharif’s government not so long ago. But the boot is on the other foot today: the PTI government and its Miltablishment props are hugely unpopular while the opposition leaders are getting more strident by the day.
The PTI government is resorting to repressive measures. This is inflaming the opposition. A clash of passions is inevitable. Unless the Miltablishment, which consciously steered the country into this cul de sac, takes a timely U-Turn, we are doomed.
National Dialogue or Soft Coup?
In 2014, the veteran politician Javed Hashmi left the PTI claiming Imran Khan told him to get ready for a “soft coup” by the Miltablishment in the manner of Bangladesh 2007 to cleanse politics from corruption and incompetence and set a stable and productive course for Pakistan. The Bangladesh Model of 2007, it may be recalled, was based on an Interim Government headed by an ex- Supreme Court judge, selected and propped up by the military establishment, who imposed a State of Emergency, witch-hunted the two mainstream parties of Hasina Wajid and Khaleda Zia for corruption and postponed the general elections.
Imran Khan’s dharna in 2014, it may be recalled, sought to besiege and overthrow the Nawaz Sharif government and replace it with a Miltablishment-engineered and selected one, headed by him. But that conspiracy failed because Mr Sharif stood his ground and foiled the “soft coup”. However, the Miltablishment persisted, eventually succeeding in 2018 when it rigged the elections to select and install the designated puppet, Imran Khan, in office.
If this sounds ominously familiar political terrain, we may also recall the parting shot of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Asif Saeed Khosa, the same judge who disqualified a thrice elected prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, from holding office because he hadn’t declared a petty asset / income that he hadn’t received! Judge Khosa’s retirement package included a passionate plea for a “grand national dialogue of all stakeholders, including the judiciary”, to pull Pakistan out of its recurring crises. It may again be noted that in 2007 the Bangladesh constitution had stipulated that the last retiring Chief Justice should head the Interim Government designated to hold elections, confirming the departing Pakistani Chief Justice’s plea to be quite self-serving.
Now, as Pakistan heads into a political and constitutional deadlock following the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s threat to resign en masse from provincial and national parliaments, voices are being raised calling for a Grand National Dialogue to pull the country out of the developing crisis. There would have been no need to clutch at this straw IF the 2018 experiment by the Miltablishment had succeeded – IF Imran Khan had delivered good governance instead of obsessing about the opposition and constantly U-Turning; IF NAB had succeeded in convicting alleged crooks neutrally across the board; IF the Miltablishment had discreetly kept at arms-length from a blundering regime and retained its neutrality and credibility; IF the judiciary had not been so stained by its infirmities; IF, IF, IF. But barely two years down the line, the experiment has crashed. Now what?
Imran Khan’s bluster – that bye-elections will fill the void left by the resignations –lacks conviction. At the very least, there will be a constitutional crisis that will stay or derail any such project. No less, we can be sure that the PDM will up the agitation to include strikes, dharnas, marches, boycotts, gheraos, etc., to ensure than hundreds of bye-elections cannot possibly be held in a free and fair manner. If the PTI’s answer to that is to bung everyone into prison, it shouldn’t forget that any bye-elections without the mainstream parties, which among them won twice as many votes cast for the PTI in 2018 even after the rigging against them, will smell foul like the referenda of General Zia ul Haq and General Pervez Musharraf and lack both legitimacy and longevity. And if there is violence on the streets – which is probable – all bets will be off. In any case, given its unpopularity, the PTI will have a hard time finding strong candidates to contest such elections.
Viewed in this context, the Grand National Dialogue Idea, notwithstanding some sincere or idealistic proponents, smells like another plan for a backdoor entry or soft coup of the Miltablishment allied with the Judiciary. Indeed, there is talk of petitioning the Supreme Court to order such a Grand Dialogue of all stakeholders – which includes the Miltablishment – a proposal that will surely be rejected by the PDM whose main grouse is that the Miltablishment and Judiciary have become so overtly partisan and controversial that they are part of the problem rather than the solution.
In fact, the PDM is proposing quite the opposite sort of Grand National Dialogue. It wants one solely among civil society and party political stakeholders to make sure that Miltablishment-Judiciary interventions to encroach on the constitutional powers and rights of sovereign elected parliaments and governments are curtailed, a sort of new Charter of Democracy to forestall unconstitutional engineering again and again.
The current situation is dangerous. If the PDM is unable to close ranks and resist the repressive force of the PTI-Miltablishment regime, the gloomy status-quo outlook of economic stagnation and political uncertainty will persist, aggravating the national crisis. But if it succeeds in ousting Imran Khan in one way or another, it should still look out for a soft-coup ambush by some variant of the Bangladesh “interim” government model of 2007 that kicked off with a stifling State of Emergency and extended itself beyond its remit.
Democracy, Anarchy, Fascism
The first phase of the PDM’s agitation for fresh elections ended with a Jalsa in Lahore last Sunday. It has given Imran Khan until January 31st to resign as prime minister, failing which the second phase of the agitation will begin with an announcement of mass resignations of the eleven-party alliance from provincial and national parliaments and the third phase of a long march on Islamabad in March. How credible is the PDM’s threat to bring the government down?
After a month of good Jalsas across the four provinces, the PDM climaxed in Lahore. The government claims it was “a flop”. The PDM insists it was a resounding success. Most commentators are focused and divided over how “big” and “motivated” it was, linking these factors to the success or lack thereof in the PDM’s strategy because Lahore is supposed to be the throbbing heart of the PMLN, therefore a barometer of its support for the party’s narrative. But the significance of the Jalsas lies beyond the cold arithmetic of mere numbers, past the point where “good” is trumped by “great” or “stupendous”.
Several factors have served to curb the enthusiasm of the PDM’s supporters. In Multan the government put up so many obstacles that the Jalsa had to be improvised on the last day. In Lahore, it used a comprehensive strategy to dampen spirits. It forbade the installation of sound systems (by arresting DG “Soundman” Butt), watered parts of the ground, scared away people by a propaganda barrage about the resurgence of Covid-19, and banned caterers from installing chairs. The weather chipped in to dampen spirits (it was 6 degrees when Nawaz Sharif started to speak at night)!
But the most insidious and effective tactic to “fail” the Jalsa related to effective “media disinformation management” by the Miltablishment. Not a single TV channel was allowed to show the Jalsa and air the speeches in full flow. Media owners and News Directors were ordered to “fail” the show, which they duly did by various technical and political devices. After the long incarceration and victimization of Mir Shakil ur Rahman, the owner-editor of the biggest media group in the company, and the regular “disappearances” of dissenting journalists, few media businessmen are inclined to resist the ominous phone call or WhatsApp advice and fewer still journalists ready to lose their jobs in the recession by disobeying orders. Indeed, barring honourable exceptions, an army of anchors, analysts and reporters “close to the government” or simply prejudiced, tripped over themselves to belittle the PDM’s strategy and criticize its leaders, confirming the wholesale capitulation of the media. Comparisons with Imran Khan’s Jalsa in 2011 are odious—he was backed to the hilt by the Miltablishment and the PPP government of the day gave him a free hand to organize it, in milder weather without Covid-19 in the air.
The truer significance of the PDM campaign lies in several unprecedented facts. First, it includes Pakistan’s main left, centre, right, secular, conservative and religious parties. Two, all are focused on targeting the unaccountable Miltablishment instead of the government. Third, their protest is largely centered in the Punjab, the traditional power base of the Miltablishment. Fourth, the protest is drawing nourishment from the people’s anger at the hardships imposed by the incompetent management of the economy by the Miltablishment-supported PTI government. What next?
The PDM is beset with internal problems. For a year, its leading lights (PPP and PMLN) were not in favour of long marches, nor of targeting the Miltablishment as the main source of their troubles. But after Shahbaz Sharif’s incarceration, the main PMLN proponent of a deal with the Miltablishment, Nawaz and Maryam Sharif have emerged as popular proponents of a hard line, compelling the traditional pro-Miltablishment rank and file of the party to reluctantly fall in line, but with all their misgivings intact. Now the PPP has thrown a spanner in the works: it doesn’t want to antagonise the Miltablishment by joining in long marches or resigning from the Assemblies. It fears losing its last stronghold in Sindh in the here and now without guarantees of better national prospects later. By contrast, the other PDM partners have nothing to lose and everything to gain by a new round of elections.
The next few months are crucial to the PDM project. Either it will show a united and aggressive front and take the long march and resignation issue to its logical conclusion, including successfully sabotaging any possibility of bye-elections, thereby posing a serious threat to the stability of the Miltablishment-PTI Project, or it will stumble in a divided and confused manner, lose steam and succumb to the full repressive might of the status quo in power.
Maulana Fazal ur Rahman, the original mover and shaker of the PDM project, has warned of anarchy if the PDM charter of democracy is not fulfilled. A much worse prospect is to countenance the consolidation of the Miltablishment-PTI fascist project to disenfranchise the people of Pakistan.
2021: Bleak Outlook
The criminal mismanagement by the PTI government, coupled with the severe disruption in everyday life wrought by Covid-19, has made for a bleak economic and political outlook for 2021. Some urgent areas of concern may be noted.
Covid-19: Although various vaccines will become available later in the year, lack of sufficient government funding and private sector profiteering will put them out of reach of most Pakistanis. Therefore, the Covid infection is likely to persist in clusters and spikes, negatively impacting health, education, transport and economic services.
Economy: Since the global food chain has been disrupted by Covid-19 and trade with India will remain suspended, blocking quick imports to plug shortages, we should expect recurring shortfalls of select food items with resultant price hikes.
Despite government propaganda of signs of economic recovery, the general depressed state of the economy is not likely to improve sufficiently to make the lives of lay citizens more secure and better. GDP growth is forecast at about 2% under optimistic assumptions. This means that unimpeded population growth and rural-urban migration will feed into the pool of joblessness or disguised unemployment, aggravating social tensions, criminality and economic distress.
The government’s rising and costly indebtedness will also impose severe constraints on its willingness or ability to inject life into the economy. Owing to low GDP growth and persistence of a negative tax-collection and paying culture, the resource crunch will continue and manifest in revisions and shortfalls in tax collection. This will negatively impact public sector development spending and poverty alleviation programs.
IMF conditionalities will impose new hardships. Loss-making public sector enterprises will be forced to shed workers and government will have to handshake significant layoffs. Scores of tax exemptions and benefits to trade and industry will have to end, leading to closures and protests by business lobbies. Privatisation will not take off in any significant manner because of bureaucratic and legal hurdles in restructuring entities for sale, the fear of unbridled and unaccountable NAB scrutiny being a significant dampening factor. Indeed, except for short-term hot money attracted by significantly higher than average global interest rates, foreign investment is not likely to rush into the country and revive growth. Nor are overseas Pakistanis about to heed Imran Khan’s call to invest in the home country, lack of belief and trust in the PTI government’s longevity, efficiency, credibility and stability being important adverse factors. This means the circular debt will persist and mount, leading to periodic crises in various sectors where supply chains are liable to be disrupted, especially in the power sector. CPEC investments by China have already stalled and new ones are confined to ceremonial ribbon cuttings.
The much touted reduction in the current account deficit – owing largely to falling imports because of rupee devaluation and international supply chain disruptions rather than any significant increase in exports – will certainly be good for exchange rate stability and State Bank of Pakistan forex reserves. But this is a perverse windfall that has no positive bearing on the lives of ordinary citizens. If anything, it contributes to double digit inflationary pressures in the economy.
Pakistan’s Foreign Policy options will not improve next year. India will remain in a hostile posture and the threat of a sharp but limited conflict will hang over the sub-continent while Indian-inspired terrorism in Pakistan continues unabated. Afghanistan will also remain in the throes of civil conflict and there will be no peace dividend for Pakistan. Indeed, if the Taliban continue to slowly wrest power from the Ghani administration, as is likely, the flow of Afghan refugees into Pakistan may increase, aggravating conflict in the borderlands. A lingering interest in securing Pakistan’s assistance in negotiating an end-game in Afghanistan will not change the way America under President Biden will incline to see Pakistan through the prism of Washington’s strategic partnership with India aimed at securing access to the Indian market and its China-containment policy. Pakistan’s isolation in the Middle East because of a falling out with the leader of the OIC, Saudi Arabia, will diminish its access and economic prospects, notably in the export of manpower and resultant home remittances. The recent spurt in remittances is likely to be short lived because it is mainly due to increased pressure for more funds to sustain families back home crippled by the adverse consequences of Covid-19.
Political Instability: The coming clash between the government and opposition is not likely to be averted either because of state repression or because of differing opposition-parties’ interests. Even if the long march and resignations route to overthrowing the PTI government fails, there will be no political stability in the country. Since neither the economy nor the government’s U-Turn economic mismanagement is likely to improve, the popular groundswell for a change will persist, providing sufficient discontent to fuel the opposition’s agitation. Indeed, any continuation of the opposition policy of direct political targeting of the Miltablishment for the faults of the PTI government will likely effect a change of tack in its support of Imran Khan, thereby opening up political options for accommodating a broader national perspective.
Way Out
The arrest of PMLN loyalist Khawaja Asif by the government-controlled NAB has revealed Imran Khan’s frame of mind. He will foil any opposition attempt to wean the Miltablishment away from him. Khawaja Asif, it may be recalled, has been the PMLN’s point man for contacts with the generals for a road map out of the current political crisis. He was one of the leading PMLN proponents of facilitating the extension of the army chief’s tenure even though it went against the grain of Nawaz Sharif’s narrative. Earlier, Shahbaz Sharif was put behind bars by NAB because he was pursuing the same line of action. Indeed, it was Shahbaz Sharif who persuaded the generals to enable Nawaz Sharif to go to London while he negotiated possible regime change with them. Khawaja Asif’s recent arrest was precipitated by a sudden flurry of activity by Mahmud Ali Durrani, a Miltablishment asset, who openly admitted that he had called on Shahbaz Sharif in prison to try to convince him to diffuse the PMLN attack on the generals who are propping up Imran Khan in the face of rising public anger at the abysmal performance of the PTI regime. For much the same reasons, the government is actively pursuing the LNG case against Shahid Khaqan Abbasi: he too is seen as someone who can play the role of a PMLN intermediary between Nawaz Sharif and the generals.
But it isn’t just Imran Khan’s frame of mind that is clear. The generals first started talking to Shahbaz Sharif and Khawaja Asif when the matter of the army chief’s extension was hanging fire. Indeed, the speculation that Maulana Fazal ur Rahman’s long march in November 2019 was launched at their behest to pressurize Imran Khan to grant the extension is made credible by Maulana Fazal’s recent admission that he dispersed his followers from Islamabad on the understanding that Imran Khan would be ousted by March 2020. In fact, if Maulana Fazal’s ire is aimed at the generals who blithely went back on their word to him, both Shahbaz Sharif and Khawaja Asif are in a more problematic situation. Not only are they in prison for trying to keep lines of communication open with the generals, they are also responsible for the hard line against the generals taken by Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazal after being “betrayed” by them.
The opposition’s attacks against the generals are being painted by Imran Khan as “anti-army” treachery. Much more significantly, however, such attacks make the generals distinctly uncomfortable for being revealed as arch political manipulators. Indeed, the more the opposition trains it guns on them instead of Imran Khan, the more the Miltablishment is blackened as a party-partisan institution rather than a neutral national one. Inevitably, this builds internal pressure on it to pull back and stop the damage to its “sacred” image. Hence the generals’ attempt to reopen negotiations with the opposition.
So now we have three evident contradictions in play: between the selected PM, Imran Khan, and the popular Opposition; between the hounded Opposition and the targeted generals; and between Imran Khan who wants to reinforce the status quo and the generals who seek a solution to the continuing crisis at hand. Clearly, the opposition means to focus on deepening the first two conflicts in order to agravate the third.
A “strategy” for ousting Imran Khan has now been proposed by Asif Zardari. It says Pakistan Democratic Movement should collect resignations of its MNAs and MPAs and hold them until further notice. Instead the PDM should contest the Senate elections in March (so that the government cannot consolidate its power) even as it keeps the pot boiling on the streets and pressurizing the Generals to ditch Imran Khan. After that, it should weigh the pros and cons of a long march on Islamabad to submit resignations and deepen the crisis. Should the government try to hold by-elections, the PDM should actively thwart them by various means, including jalsas, street protests, strikes, sit-ins and gheraos. Given the level of militancy among JUI and PMLN cadres, this shouldn’t be too difficult even if more arrests are ordered. So long as acute political instability and uncertainty exist, the government will be incapacitated from reviving the economy and alleviating the hardship of the people. This will put the Miltablishment under greater pressure because rising national security budgets in a hostile neighbourhood depend on a growing and vibrant economy.
The urgency of finding a solution to the current impasse is two-fold. First, the PTI government has shown its incapacity to govern even with a modicum of sensibility. Indeed, it has so mismanaged the economy that its continuation has become an ordeal for stressed out Pakistanis. It has made its job even more difficult by witch-hunting the opposition and compelling it to desperate means and ends. Second, it has brought the Miltablishment into unprecedented censure for propping it up unreasonably. There was a time when even the word “establishment” was hesitatingly mentioned in everyday discourse. Now serving generals are being called out by name by old Miltablishment friends, allies and assets. Incredibly enough, the religious parties that were once staunch Miltablishment assets have now trained their guns on it. The brutal language used by the JUI’s Maulana Fazal, Maulana Haideri, Maulana Kifaitullah, etc.; the name shaming by Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer, Siraj ul Haq; the attacks on the generals by the late chief of the Labaik Ya Rasool Allah, Khadim Hussain Rizvi; etc.; all point to an ominous radicalization of the anti-Miltablishment sentiment across parties, regions and ideologies. In the face of this widespread public outrage, the rapidly expanding social media is increasingly speaking truth to power.
This “hybrid” system is an unmitigated disaster. The Miltablishment must make way for the popular sentiment to be accommodated in a purposeful way by better political and economic management in a more democratic and consensual environment.
Who’s the problem?
Is the PDM’s campaign against the PTI government “sputtering like a car with a broken gasket”? As evidence of this sharp rebuke, critics point to the “confusion” in PDM ranks about aims and objectives, tactics and strategy, miscommunications and miscalculations, and so on. Their conclusion: Imran Khan and the Miltablishment are solidly entrenched and the PDM is whistling in the dark.
To be sure, the PDM’s prospects would have been brighter if all 11 components had been on the same page on core issues, like the Long March, resignations from the National Assemblies or Provincial Assemblies or both, elections to the Senate, bye-elections to NA and PAs, and targets (Imran Khan, Miltablishment, COAS, DGISI, one or all by turns). But considering the Herculean task of breaking up the powerful Miltablishment edifice on which Imran Khan sits, and the vested personal interests of Miltablishment leaders, compared to the inherent weakness of the PDM in which its components are naturally inclined to pull in different directions owing to their ideological left, right, conservative, religious or pragmatic political leanings, we might reasonably look at the glass as half full and not half empty.
A year ago, Maulana Fazal ur Rahman went on a solo fight to Islamabad and didn’t achieve anything. Today, the PDM is alive and threatening to kick. Last year, the PMLN was led by Shahbaz Sharif and Co who believed in a soft rapprochement with the Miltablishment. Today, the failure of that strategy has created the conditions for the rise of Maryam Nawaz Sharif as a populist heroine under whose banner the PMLN Old Guard has hypnotically fallen in line. A year ago, the predominant narrative in the media was about the corruption of the opposition as laid down by Imran Khan. Today it is about the unaccountable arrogance of the NAB, the corruption and incompetence of the PTI government and the blatant partisanship of the Miltablishment. A year ago, the focus of the debate was on “No NRO for the opposition”. Today, it is “No NRO for Imran Khan”.
But something far more critical and significant has happened along the way that will have a profound bearing on state, democracy and civil society in the longer run. For decades, insignificant sections of disgruntled sub-nationalists on the periphery were known for their anti-Miltablishment views. Today, significant sections of mainstream Pakistan are openly critical of Miltablishment interventions in politics. Yesterday, all political parties were known as children of the Militablishment. Today, most are disavowing their umbilical links with the same Miltablishment. The essential dialectical point to note in this context is not that this factor hasn’t assumed transformational dimensions in the here and now (and hence is unimportant) but that it is inexorably growing after having broken through the “sacred cow” barrier (and is hence very important).
Indeed, those who say that the anti-Miltablishment narrative of Nawaz Sharif and his heir Maryam has hurt the cause of the PDM in general and the PMLN in particular are missing the wood for the trees. It’s true that Nawaz Sharif has paid the price for demanding constitutional rights from the Miltablishment. But it’s more true that taking on the Miltablishment in opposition today is a better bet than continuing to appease it when it has already decided to nurture a hybrid system to the exclusion of the mainstream parties and leaders. Far from diminishing the PMLN’s zero prospects, this policy has compelled the Miltablishment to try and revive the pro-Miltablishment lobby in the PMLN headed by Shahbaz Sharif even as it tries to restrain the anti-national consensus narrative of Imran Khan that has put the Miltablishment in the spotlight for the wrong reasons.
Then there are those cynical empiricists who are looking for data of a popular uprising among the unwashed classes no less than among the trading and professional ones against the government or Miltablishment. And, not finding any such, like the “transformational” Lawyers Movement (that was “transformational” in the opposite sense in the end), wonder how the PDM or PMLN can succeed in this sea of sullen apathy. Of course, they are right. But only until they are proven wrong. It may be recalled that no organized party led the student revolt in 1967 that brought down General Ayub Khan. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was sitting prettier in April 1977 (he was gone three months later) than Imran Khan in January 2021; and so on. On the global stage, to mention only the most dramatic, who trotted out any empirical data to forecast the sudden demise of the USSR in 1989, or who identified the hawker whose suicide in Tunisia sparked the Arab Spring, or who anticipated the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York that unleashed unprecedented death and destruction in Afghanistan and the Middle East?
In the final analysis, the PDM’s success or failure will not depend solely on whether it can pull off a mighty heave-ho movement backed by the Punjabi or Pashtun urban middle classes to oust Imran Khan. Nor will it depend only on swelling numbers in jalsas or Long Marches. More likely, it will depend on the nature of the attrition guerilla war against both Imran Khan on the streets and against the Miltablishment in the popular imagination that feeds into continuing political instability and economic uncertainty weakening the rationale of the hybrid regime. With or without the PPP, the most potent weapon in the PDM’s arsenal is to keep the political pot boiling with parliament in a state of constitutional disrepair through threats of resignation and disruption of bye-elections.
This would lead to the conclusion that sooner or later, the Miltablishment will see Imran Khan and the PTI as part of the problem and not the solution. That’s when a way out of this crisis will be found to salvage the eroding sanctity of the state and its organs.
Bespoke Optimism
The DGISPR says the military is totally apolitical, has no backdoor contacts with the opposition, didn’t rig the 2018 elections and is totally subordinate to the government. He also held out the promise of a hot cup of tea with biscuits should the PDM decide to protest in front of GHQ next week. The good general deserves to be commended for saying all this with a straight face. Lesser mortals might have been tempted to proclaim such outrageous falsehoods with a wicked smirk.
Not to be outdone, Maulana Fazal ur Rahman, who leads the PDM by the sheer weight of his political heft, has fired a salvo in the direction of ISPR. He says that there is “undeclared martial law in the country”. Moreover (as in Punjabi), he has expressed his displeasure at the miserly offerings for the PDM by the DG when Papa John pizzas are being wolfed down in GHQ, a reference to the enormous unexplained wealth of another good general.
If this exchange had lacked in irony and wit on both sides, it would have signaled a very dangerous impasse. Still, if the PDM can muster the courage to march towards GHQ , it is inconceivable that the military’s holier-than-thou mask will not drop, precipitating a wider conflict. Who wants that to happen?
We are also surprised by the timing of the DG ISPR’s press conference. What was the need for it? It has only given rise to a new round of anti-military memes. Indeed, it smacks of weakness rather than strength because its defense is so palpably weak. Nor do recent pictures of the top brass sunning with the selected PM in the lawns of his official residence instill any confidence in their “same-page” propaganda, not least since the two empty chairs behind the Prime Minister in the photographs are inexplicable unless they are reserved for invisible advisors or guards of the PM!
This leads one to recall the political fiasco following the brutal murders of 11 Hazara coalminers in Quetta last week when the PM refused to go and condole their tragedy unless they first buried the dead. The occasion became an affront to popular sensibilities when the PM said he would not be “blackmailed” to attend; then descended into a farce when one PM spokesman said the PM hadn’t gone for security reasons and he himself said he would only go after burial services were over, provoking the Twitterati to wonder whether the PM’s security was threatened by 11 corpses lying in open air.
Now the Broadsheet fire is raging across the country. Hired by NAB during the Musharraf regime in 2000 to uncover the “looted wealth” of the country, the CEO of Broadsheet, Kaveh Mousavi, has trained his guns twenty years later on his NAB client and a bevy of previous and current government officials and emissaries for corrupt practices, including seeking commissions, cuts and discounts from any recovered monies while protecting select individuals from investigation. These sensational disclosures follow a London High Court verdict awarding Mr Mousavi damages following an illegal termination of its contract by NAB in 2003. While the PM has scrambled to accuse the opposition of corruption, Mr Mousavi is pointing the finger at the PTI government for derailing the Broadsheet investigations. He is now threatening to make public the judgement of the London High Court which spells out the sordid machinations of NAB officials, aided and abetted by leading PTI government figures, to effect a grand cover up of the money trails of targeted politicians and civil-military officials. If this High Court judgment is made public, it may prove to be a bigger bombshell than the Panama papers and the shrapnel may wound NAB beyond repair. If that happens, Imran Khan’s prime weapon against the PDM may be disabled, with far reaching consequences. It may be noted that hardly a day goes by when some judge of the High Court or Supreme Court does not haul NAB over the coals for unaccountable, illegitimate actions and wonders why the government is loath to reform it.
In the midst of all this, Covid-19 and its mutants are rampaging; there is no end in sight to the misery of the populace; no vaccines have so far been ordered by the PTI government for 230 m Pakistanis in need; and there is no knowing when these will be available, at what cost and which chosen ones will get them first. But the PTI propaganda machines continue to churn out feel-good stories of economic recovery and political stability.
While political stability will be tested in the weeks ahead when the PDM gears up for an assault, notions of economic recovery will be subjected to stringent tests. For example, the World Bank says that GDP growth in FY 2021 will be 0.5%, the SBP says it will be 2%, Moody’s forecasts it at 1.5% and the IMF is waiting in the wings to know whether the government will return to its austerity program before making its prediction. More discerning critics ask whether a “recovery” from minus 2% to plus 2% in two years can be called a “recovery” when anything less than 6% growth is inadequate to stem the rising wave of unemployment in an inflationary environment. Meanwhile, tax revenues are not increasing but circular debt is; inflation is high but government expenditures are frozen. Here’s the dilemma: if indeed there is growth, imports will increase and the current account deficit will widen because exports are not increasing by as much, reducing forex reserves, diminishing the value of the rupee and increasing pressure to borrow more simply to keep afloat. It’s an unenviable situation.
To cap it all, Imran Khan has told his overflowing cabinet of ministers, advisors and SAPMs to tow the line or get out, confirming unease in his ranks about his government’s runaway policies. One good advisor has bolted; a few are squirming in their seats. How can we then believe the ISPR spokesman with faux gravitas, that everything is hunky dory?
Sordid Saga
The sordid saga of Broadsheet has come back after twenty years to bite NAB in the backside. Unfortunately, a tidy sum of taxpayers’ money has been forked over to repair the damage. A story of incompetence, opacity, deceit and corruption is worth telling.
General Pervez Musharraf set up NAB in 2000 with two main objectives: to witch hunt “corrupt” politicians opposed to him; and blackmail others into backing and providing him legitimacy. Gen Syed M Amjad, the first NAB Chairman, was immediately hooked by a known fraudster, Tariq Fawad, to tie up with another dubious character in the US, Jerry James, to set up Broadsheet in the Isle of Man and contract with it to go after a list of 200 corrupt Pakistanis alleged to have billions stashed abroad. No matter that neither James nor Broadsheet had any direct previous experience of doing such a job, which leads to the conclusion that either Gen Amjad was hoodwinked by Fawad and James or benefited from such an arrangement.
Problems arose in 2001-02 after Broadsheet identified some alleged crooks and unearthed their “corruption” funds. When NAB went after them, General Musharraf ordered some names on the list to be deleted for political reasons. Broadsheet objected to this unilateral deletion of targets since it stood to get 20% of the recovered funds from them. Further complications set in when NAB insisted that the contract referred only to foreign funds while Broadsheet insisted it also covered funds stashed in Pakistan. In 2003, NAB revoked the contract. Broadsheet argued it couldn’t do so without its consent, and sued for breach of contract and recovery of monies potentially due to it.
Meanwhile, Broadsheet went into liquidation. James set up a dummy “Broadsheet” company in the US and persuaded NAB, via Tariq Fawad, to award USD1.5m in damages to it. Enter Kaveh Moussavi, another dubious character tainted by a contempt of court conviction. Moussavi persuaded the Liquidators in the Isle of Man to make him a party to the proceedings so that he could continue to sue NAB for breach of contract. The contest dragged on until 2016 when a UK court held against NAB on all counts and appointed an Arbitrator by mutual consent of both parties to calculate and award damages.
Meanwhile, Moussavi claimed to discover a stash in three foreign banks of up to USD1billion in loot allegedly plundered by Nawaz Sharif. Through various shady intermediaries, he tried to hook the PTI government in late 2018 to contract with him to recover the money and also pay up damages for NAB’s earlier violations of the contract. The PTI government was tempted but decided not to bite. In mid 2020, the Arbitrator ordered NAB to cough up nearly USD28m to Broadsheet-in-Liquidation! In September, NAB transferred over USD27m to the Pakistan Embassy account in United National Bank LLC in London for eventual payment against the Award. Moussavi discovered this and obtained a court order on UBL to pay him his dues. Then he leaked his version of events to the media, accusing Imran Khan of not being committed to the anti-corruption crusade by refusing to hire him to go after Nawaz Sharif’s alleged USD1b in foreign accounts.
Now the GOP says it is going to sue UBL for unilaterally releasing the funds to Moussavi. This is ridiculous, considering that the funds were earlier transferred to UBL for precisely this reason. The GOP has no case because UBL cannot defy a court order under any circumstances. The PTI government is also spinning the story that the London Court adjudged Nawaz Sharif’s alleged wealth from corruption to be over USD800m, “proof” of his corruption! Yet the fact is that the GOP even challenged as excessive the final determination of Nawaz Sharif’s alleged wealth at USD100m by the Arbitrator out of which 20% were deemed payable to Broadsheet. The greater irony is that the figure of USD800m+ is not a figment of the London Court’s imagination or calculation but obtained on the basis of a JIT set up in 2017 in Pakistan and NAB court proceedings supervised by a supreme court judge, not a penny of which has been recovered by NAB from Nawaz Sharif.
Some clear conclusions can be drawn. First, the NAB Generals from 2000-2008 were unaccountable, inefficient and politically corrupt. The contract they drew up with Broadsheet was full of loopholes, their lawyers were nincompoops, their intermediaries were shady. Tariq Fawad, Jerry James and Kaveh Moussavi were sharp operators who extracted their pounds of flesh. The final award is also owed to the inexplicable calculations of the JIT ordered by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and not to any investigative unearthing by Broadsheet.
Now the PTI has determined to set up a commission of inquiry under a judge to ascertain the truth behind the Broadsheet affair. Since the facts are already well established after the release of all the documents related to this episode, followed by undenied stories of conversations between Moussavi and various intermediaries, we can reasonably surmise that the object of this exercise is to somehow put the spotlight on the PTI’s opponents. Imran Khan has already pointed an accusing finger at General Musharraf for giving an NRO to Nawaz Sharif and Co, along with many other targets on the list of 200 originally supplied to Broadsheet by NAB. There is also speculation that the ground will be prepared to assign the task of going after the hidden wealth of Nawaz Sharif and Co abroad to Moussavi or someone else. To be sure, there are a couple of credible international companies which would be happy to undertake such a project.
If we are alarmed by the level of incompetence and corruption of civil-military bureaucrats and lawyers in the Broadsheet case, get ready for a melt down when Pakistani assets abroad, including the Roosevelt hotel owned by PIA, are seized and encashed by Tethyan Copper Company in the Reko Diq case which has been awarded nearly USD7billion in damages for breach of contract.
In-House End Game
There are three ways to get rid of a government. First, martial law. Second, resignation by the prime minister. Third, a vote of no-confidence in the government.
Martial Law has no pre-determined mind of its own. There was no provocation in 1958, only the personal ambitions of General Ayub Khan who knew he could bank on the support of the United States. Nor were civil society and its institutions strong enough to resist it. Indeed, the judiciary upheld it. In 1977, however, ML was provoked by a combination of factors: a powerful, pro-Miltablishment civilian protest movement; an intransigent and autocratic prime minister unwilling to negotiate timely terms for a new election; and a wily and ambitious general in the wings. There was no prospect of US support at the time. In 1999, however, neither the conditions were ripe, nor was the army chief ambitious; the civilian prime minister sacked the army chief, triggering an institutional coup against himself. Once again, there was no assurance of US support for the incoming regime. Today, there are powerful factors arrayed against martial law. First, there is a popular anti-Miltablishment sentiment fueling an opposition movement against a government selected and propped up by the military; second, following the Restoration of Judiciary Movement a decade ago, the current bar and bench are not likely to cave in before another coup-making general (the Musharraf trial and the Qazi Faez Isa are cases in point); third, no general would be stupid enough to lay a hand on the country in its parlous economic state today and risk personal and institutional failure. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons for opting for indirect rule though a puppet hybrid regime.
It is also inconceivable that Imran Khan is the sort of person who can be compelled to resign under any circumstances as long as his parliamentary majority is intact. He has dug his heels in under the most adverse circumstances when his popularity has plunged and the prospects of improvement in the economic and political outlook are grim. Nawaz Sharif didn’t budge when Imran and the Miltablishment were jointly engaged in pressurizing him to resign. Why should Imran do so now especially when the Miltablishment is supporting him and targeting the opposition?
A vote of no-confidence is the third option. But history suggests that certain conditions are necessary for its success. First, the numbers and alliances in parliament must be conducive to a revolt. Second, the government must be sufficiently unpopular for the opposition to harvest support for it inside and outside parliament. Third, the Miltablishment must not be actively opposed to it. In the developing scenario, the first two conditions can be sufficiently met provided the Miltablishment signals its readiness to support such a move.
This is the gist of Asif Zardari’s calculations. Instead of anti-Miltablishment forces led by Nawaz Sharif trying to manoeuver Imran Khan’s ouster, Mr Zardari is proposing a deal with the Miltablishment that brings in a “friendly national government” via a vote of no-confidence against the PTI government supported by the Miltablishment. The Miltablishment might be persuaded to buy into this provided (1) Nawaz and Mariam Sharif are not part of the proposed government (2) fresh elections are not held until due date in 2023 so that the PMLN doesn’t sweep into power and upset this arrangement (3) COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa is guaranteed completion of his extended tenure without hiccups. The problem is not that Nawaz Sharif is opposed to an in-house change per se. He is opposed to one that pre-empts and thwarts a quick election that enables the PMLN to sweep into office. Nor does he want the PMLN to be part of a “national” coalition government for any length of time that incurs the wrath of the masses by the constant infighting of coalition partners and bad governance that damages its electoral prospects. Of course, the formula suits the PPP. It hopes to retain its government in Sindh while becoming a central part of a national government in Islamabad, possibly headed by Bilawal Bhutto.
This is the core dispute within the PDM. The PPP wants an in-house change to usher in a pro-Miltablishment national government led by the PPP until 2023. The PMLN wants an in-house change or forced resignation of Imran Khan to yield an immediate, free and fair general election which it is sure of winning. Asif Zardari wants a done deal straight away to get the better of it. Nawaz Sharif wants to go all the way for a long march and resignations from parliament to trigger a bigger crisis so that he doesn’t get a bad hand in the end.
Mr Zardari’s formula has immediately received the big stick from Imran Khan. The new Commission of Inquiry against the Broadsheet affair entrusted to Justice (Retd) Azmat Saeed, whose conflict of interest is established, is tasked to reopen various cases against the PPP, including the Surrey Palace case. That is one consequence of any weakening of the PDM alliance. Mr Sharif’s formula has a better chance of success: mass resignations in March-April will delegitimize the hybrid regime and bring government to a halt: bye-elections on over 100 seats can either be blocked by the PDM or won (followed by resignations again). This will compel the Miltablishment to rethink its strategy of backing a loser like Imran Khan. At that time, the Miltablishment may be ready to clutch at a less anti-Nawaz-Maryam formula, and they in turn ready to accept a less anti-Qamar Bajwa stance, to break the deadlock and move ahead.
There is thus no prospect of any quick breakthrough in the political stalemate. Asif Zardari can’t persuade his PDM partners to abandon the long march and resignations route even if the PPP doesn’t become part of it. But when that stage arrives after the Senate elections in March, both the Miltablishment and PPP may be compelled to abandon their respective tactics and strategy. The End Game will still begin with an In-House change.
Hold! Enough!
After six hours of intense deliberations, the 10 party Pakistan Democratic Movement has finally agreed on two agenda items. First, the stakeholders will fashion a joint election strategy for the Senate elections next March in order to maximize their collective strength. Second, they will jointly embark on a Long March from the four corners of the country to Islamabad on 26th March to besiege the government. They have also decided not to take any immediate decision regarding the contentious issue of launching a vote of no-confidence against the PTI government in the National Assembly, as advocated by the PPP leader Asif Zardari, versus mass resignations from national and provincial parliaments as advocated by the PMLN leader Nawaz Sharif, as a means of ousting Imran Khan from office. It is assumed that this issue will be decided after the Long March which, it is hoped, will clear the fog of disagreement among its leading components regarding such issues.
The PTI government will struggle to hide its disappointment that the PDM has not collapsed under the weight of its internal disagreement on a core issue. Sheikh Rashid, the interior minister who has been specially roped in to try and throw a spanner in the PDM works by praising Mr Zardari’s option of going for a vote of no confidence as the proper “democratic” route of getting rid of a government as opposed to resigning from parliaments and rendering the “democratic” system dysfunctional, will now have to clutch at some other fork to pitch the PDM into disarray. Indeed, the PDM has artfully kept both options open without betraying any tilt one way or the other. Its thinking goes like this.
The most important thing right now is to demonstrate unity of thought and action when the government and media have succeeded in creating a perception that the various PDM jalsas and rallies have not combined to create any decisive impact or momentum, not least the “hard” anti-Miltablishment stance of Mr Sharif. This objective has now been achieved by putting these differences on the back burner to be debated and discussed at an opportune moment after March 26th when all sides will know how their strengths and weaknesses tally up. Until then, both options can be kept alive and kicking. If the Long March fails to create the political conditions for a crisis of the hybrid system that leads to a successful vote of no-confidence and regime change, then the resignations issue can come into play to create a different sort of deadlock to achieve the same objective. In this way, Mr Zardari can have an opportunity in the next two months to persuade the Miltablishment to abandon Imran Khan and switch to an interim arrangement without loss of face. If he fails, then he will have no reason not to support Mr Sharif’s hard line as a fall-back position.
There is another aspect of a potential regime change formula that is quite problematic and is best left to later for resolution. Mr Zardari wants a key role in forming a coalition government if Imran Khan is knocked out. Since his strategy is dependent on mutual back-scratching with the Miltablishment – without whom the PTI alliance will not break up and a vote of no-confidence against it cannot be successfully drummed up — he will seek a government that lasts until the next scheduled general elections, partly to consolidate his personal and party gains, and partly to guarantee safe passage to the leaders of the Miltablishment targeted by Mr Sharif. But that is not what Mr Sharif wants. He seeks a quick election that sweeps the PMLN to power for five years, rather than a lame-duck coalition government for a couple of years that discredits and diminishes the PMLN’s prospects of going it alone with full powers. Trying to resolve it now is putting the cart before the horse.
If the PDM has managed to stick together and show resolve, the same cannot be said about the PTI government which is thrashing about in a stormy sea. The economic recovery on which Imran Khan has banked for smoother sailing isn’t on the horizon. His MNAs, MPAs and alliance partners are restive about his ability to redeem pledges and apprehensive of cracks in his “partnership” with the brass. Every day brings fresh disclosures of corruption and incompetence in government and strident censures from an increasingly frustrated higher judiciary and aggressive social media that is rapidly increasing its public footprint and asserting its independence. To top it all, Pakistan’s relations with foreign friends and foes aren’t good under this PTI regime. India could take advantage of the disunity and disability in the Pakistan to strike and divert attention from its own internal woes. The Saudi-led OIC is alienated and unhelpful. Qatar is bristling with anger at the PTI government’s allegations of hanky-panky in the gas deal signed by the previous PMLN. There is no sign of any stable arrangement in Kabul that will protect Pakistan’s interests in the future. China is frustrated by a go-slow on the CPEC front and the status and control of Gwador is becoming a thorny issue. Any thread can snap and hasten the PTI government’s day of reckoning.
It is also obvious that Nawaz Sharif and Co are looking and sounding more confident today while Imran Khan and Co are looking and sounding more flaky than at any time in the last two years. Clearly, too, the Miltablishment is decidedly wary of proclaiming its “same page” support to its selected prime minister. Indeed, there are loud whispers about impending postings and transfers that might not auger well for the beleaguered prime minister.
The pending bye-elections and Senate elections will provide the first litmus test for both government and opposition to try and gain advantage. The Long March will be a second test of stamina and endurance for both. After that will start a period of strife and turmoil in and out of parliament. Damned will be he who first cries “Hold! Enough!”
Game On Hai!
On the eve of the Senate elections next month, Imran Khan has reminded the PPP and PMLN of their pledge in the Charter of Democracy many years ago to support open and transparent electoral practices. He wants an end to secret voting in the Senate elections. In riposte, the PPP’s ex-Senate chairman, Raza Rabbani, has reminded him of his refusal to support an earlier resolution of the Senate as a Whole in 2016 wherein reform of electoral practices was proposed. Indeed, when the PMLN demanded that the Senate Chairman’s election in 2018 be through open ballot, there were no buyers and the Establishment’s man, Sadiq Sanjrani, romped home with ballots to spare, despite the fact that the PPP and PMLN commanded a respectable majority between themselves. Much the same thing happened in 2019 when he survived a vote of no-confidence moved by 2/3 majority which evaporated on voting day!
Imran Khan has also advised the opposition parties to support open balloting in their own interest “because the government has more power, influence and money” to buy votes. To drive home his point, he has formally announced “development funds” of PKR 500m to each PTI parliamentarian to ensure that they don’t stray. His worry originates from the buying and selling of PTI MPAs in the KPK assembly for the Senate elections in 2018, twenty of whom were subsequently sacked from the party, only for many to be reinstated later with full honours! Curiously, incriminating videoevidence of those PTI MPAs has surfaced just when the issue is hanging fire both in the Supreme Court and in the public’s imagination, reminding us of other incriminating videos that mysteriously popped up to sway a judge and a NAB chairman to do the bidding of the “selectors” and “selected”.
Imran Khan’s slip is showing. He tried to move a constitutional amendment in Parliament to achieve his goal but was blocked in the Senate. He then applied to the Supreme Court for a favourable ruling without such a constitutional amendment. When the judges began asking embarrassing questions, he quickly promulgated a Presidential Ordinance to forestall any mishap. What’s the fuss about?
Since being selected for office in 2018, the PTI government has been frustrated in the PPP-PMLN dominated Senate from passing party-political legislation to consolidate power and wipe out all resistance. Now an opportunity has arisen for the PTI to become the biggest party in the Senate and, with the support of smaller parties, be in position to railroad laws and constitutional amendments. But, by the same token, the opposition parties are determined to block this path. Indeed, the Senate has become a pivotal battleground for them. In the event that the PDM’s option of overthrowing the PTI government via a vote of no-confidence in the National Assembly is adopted, its success in the Senate elections will empower it with greater leverage and authority to woo disgruntled PTI MNAs. Equally, if the PDM carries out its threat to resign from the National Assembly, it wants to make sure that a full-throated opposition in the Senate can still foil the PTI’s legislative agenda in the depleted National Assembly.
In the meanwhile, the action has moved to the Supreme Court. In one case, the judges are seized with determining the constitutional validity of open balloting in the Senate. In another, the judges are trying to stop the PTI from dishing out tens of billions of rupees to its parliamentarians in a bid to retain their loyalties on the eve of the Senate elections. But the PTI government is in deep trouble for other reasons too.
The Supreme Court has finally ordered all provincial governments and the Election Commission of Pakistan to hold local bodies elections this year. Should these elections be fairly and freely held, the opposition parties will sweep them in all provinces because of public rage against the PTI’s abysmal performance so far. A strong popular base at the local level will also give greater muscle to the PDM to launch and sustain agitation against the PTI governments in the provinces and in Islamabad as well as canvass support in a new round of general elections. Without the bribe of billions in “development funds”, the likelihood of PTI candidates and “hopefuls” switching loyalties in such a situation is very high.
In the midst of all this desperate sound and fury from all corners comes a pious statement from the DGISPR saying that the Military is neutral and apolitical and shouldn’t be dragged into politics. What, sputters Maulana Fazal ur Rahman, citing chapter and verse of history and current affairs to give it the lie. Not to be left behind, Nawaz Sharif continues to lambast the “selectors” and “selected” in the same breath for the country’s ills. The fact that the public perceives a rise in the corruption and fall in the democracy index during this Military-PTI rule can only be a source of great discomfort to the ISPR.
Some pundits are inclined to believe that this statement is not so much aimed at the PDM as it is at the PTI. Is the Miltablishment washing its hands of Imran Khan? Probably not as yet. But there is, at the very least, increasing disquiet within the Miltablishment at the failure of this Imran Khan-led “hybrid” system that has flopped and discredited the “selectors”. Further turmoil and instability, including loss of support in the superior courts, could spell doom for it by compelling the “selectors” to opt out.
Under the circumstances, far from looking weak and disorganized and confused, the PDM is gearing up to bowl on a wicket that is fast crumbling. Its strategy of fighting tooth and nail in the Senate elections is giving Imran Khan, the selected prime minister, and Sheikh Rashid, the perennial Pindi punter, sleepless nights. The former is telling the PDM to accept open voting in the Senate while the latter is advising against resignations from the National Assembly. The irony is lost on both of what might happen in the event that the PDM chooses to ignore the former and abide by the latter! Game on hai!
Choices
The Senate Election has suddenly become a battleground where the opposition has banded together under the flag of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and the government and its small party-allies under the banner of the PTI. Lurking in the shadows along the flanks of the PTI – because they are not supposed to be party-political – are a range of state institutions ready to ambush the PDM and its constituents. Prominent among these are NAB, FIA, FBR and IB, all of which have been roped in to victimize the opposition and knock it down. More ominously, despite avowals of “neutrality”, the master Selector-Miltablishment is still pulling all the strings to ensure “suitable” results, like it did after successfully blackmailing the PPP when the election of the Senate Chairman was held three years ago and like it did when a vote of no-confidence against the same Senate Chairman was defeated last year by 14 “defecting” opposition Senators. It may be recalled that when the Senate elections were held in 2018, Imran Khan accused nearly two dozen PTI MPAs from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa of taking money to sell their votes either to the opposition or to their own party colleagues against the decisions of the PTI leader.
Why, the question has been asked, is there such an outcry today by the government and its allies against the buying and selling of Senate votes when yesterday exactly the opposite sentiment was lauded by them? Indeed, Shibli Faraz, the loudest PTI mouthpiece, was delirious with happiness after the vote of no-confidence against the Senate Chairman was defeated last year because the Senators “with a conscience” had broken opposition party lines to do the government’s bidding.
It seems routine mundane reasons are behind such double-speak: it is kosher to buy and sell votes or rig elections if it suits the established powers, and criminal if it doesn’t. There’s not a shred of doubt that the RT system was deliberately “broken down” on the night of vote counting in the general elections in 2018 so that the PMLN could be cut down to size. Yet not a leaf stirred in the Election Commission of Pakistan to object or rectify the situation. Much the same ostrich attitude was adopted by the ECP during other electoral exercises since then.
But now there’s added urgency and priority in the developing situation in the Senate. If the PTI and its allies lose a few seats to the opposition beyond its proportional due, the government won’t be able to marshal a majority in the upper house to confirm legislation in the lower house where it has a majority, leading to loss of confidence in its ability to govern. This is a distinct possibility for two reasons: the PTI ranks are fomenting revolt against their leadership for a variety of reasons; and the opposition is keen to demonstrate its united prowess as a prelude to the Long March which in turn is billed as a prelude to an in-house change (where loyalties will once again be available for transfer). But that’s not all. At stake is the very viability of the Hybrid Political System hoisted by the Miltablishment which depends critically on its control of parliament and legitimizing organs of the state.
Enter the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Although the constitution is crystal clear about the necessity of secret balloting in the Senate elections, the government has petitioned the apex court to opine whether or not the conditionality can be waived without a constitutional amendment requiring a 2/3 majority of both houses of parliament (which it cannot muster). Two developments ring alarm bells in this regard. First, the President has promulgated an Ordinance to require open voting in the Senate elections even before the SCP has given any final opinion in this regard. Second, with only a couple of weeks or so to go before D-Day, the SCP is posing leading questions and making interpretations that seem to challenge the clear intent of the constitutional clauses that stipulate secret balloting. An overwhelming body of opinion in the bar and civil society claims that either way – by eventually holding against the constitution or delaying its judgment in upholding it – the net effect of the SCP’s “hearings” so far is to restrain Senators from straying too far from their masters, their “conscience” that so warmed the cockles of Shibli Faraz’s heart not so long ago be damned.
The role of the Attorney General of Pakistan and the Election Commission of Pakistan also merits comment. The former is supposed to assist the SCP in making just and independent decisions. In this case, however, he is doing exactly the opposite. But the ECP seems to be showing spine in resisting the notion of open balloting. Is that why, ask critics, the CEC and his legal eagles are on the ropes, receiving a hammering from the bench?
History recalls the Lawyers Movement for the Restoration of the Judiciary with some pride because it paved the way for the ouster of a military dictator. It also empowered the judges to be independent of the executive. Unfortunately, however, that “independence” soon thereafter degenerated into an unaccountable tyranny. CJP Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry used his sweeping powers to oust an elected prime minister from office for “contempt of court”, an unprecedented decision in the annals of justice. A subsequent CJP, Asif Saeed Khosa, was more outrageous, knocking out another popular prime minister on the pretext of an unreceived, piddling, salary. A third CJP, Saquib Nisar, was a small man who deluded himself that he was a towering Baba Rehmataya, slashing all who came before him like The Joker in the Hollywood hit movie. Recently, ex-SC judge, Sheikh Azmat Saeed, has brazenly confirmed his anti-opposition and pro PTI-Miltablishment bias.
The current leaders of the SCP have choices to make. If they bend before the Miltablishment and reaffirm the Hybrid Political System that is based on lies, deception and despotism, they will have the unique “honour” of finally burying the glorious Lawyers Movement in the dustbin of history.
No Pawry
Hamza Shahbaz Sharif has finally obtained bail. Since the money laundering case is really about him rather than Shahbaz Sharif, it is only a matter of weeks before Shahbaz Sharif will also be a free man. Verily, claim conspiracy theorists, the ubiquitous hand of the Miltablishment can be discerned. After all, if Hamza couldn’t be freed on the merits of his case for twenty long months – it took NAB 17 months to frame charges for an indictment – there’s no reason why he couldn’t have been kept in the clink for longer if the Miltablishment had not willed otherwise. Does this mean that some sort “deal” has been brokered between the Miltablishment and the PMLN?
This “deal” theory has, almost simultaneously, been bolstered by some unique decisions by the Election Commission of Pakistan, an organ of the state that isn’t exactly renowned for much self-determination. The CEC’s bold stance in the Supreme Court about the necessity for a constitutional amendment for open balloting – against the position of the PTI government – in the Senate elections is a case in point. On the heels of that comes a second jolt from the ECP. It has ordered a new election for NA-75, accepting the position of the PDM and rejecting that of the PTI which was only ready to concede repolling in the 20 polling stations. More significantly – and also unprecedentedly – the ECP has sought suspension of the involved DC, DPO, AC, SDPO etc. and sought the removal of the Commissioner and RPO forthwith while the Punjab Chief Secretary and IGP have been summoned for explanation. The “missing” Presiding Officers are to face trial which may lead to imprisonment for up to 3 years. So the question is apt: could the ECP have dared to make such judgments if the Miltablishment hadn’t assiduously refrained from intervention on the side of the government?
As if to prove this conspiracy theory come statements from core PDM stakeholders that absolve the Miltablishment of actively siding with the PTI government now. Maryam Nawaz says that agencies and administrations reporting to the PM like the IB and Special Branch were the culprits. Bilawal Bhutto, Yousaf Raza Gilani and even Rana Sanaullah say the Establishment seems not to have tilted in favour of the PTI. Nawaz Sharif, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Ahsan Iqbal are conspicuous by their silence on this issue despite the fact that until recently they were all blasting the Miltablishment.
The final “proof” of an open and shut case of “Miltablishment turning” is expected next week in the Senate elections. Should the PDM succeed in getting Yousaf Raza Gilani elected as a Senator from Islamabad and deny a majority to the PTI, the conspiracy theory will be validated. “That will amount to a vote of no-confidence in the PTI government which cannot survive long after that”, say our pundits.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
After five years of delays and obfuscations protecting Imran Khan in the foreign funding case, the ECP continues to let him off the hook. It has now given an opportunity to Faisal Vawda to get elected to the Senate before being disqualified from remaining a member of the National Assembly even as it has overnight disqualified Pervez Rashid for not clearing his Punjab House bills! As for Hamza Sharif, it is forgotten that when he earlier approached the Supreme Court for relief after the Lahore High Court refused him bail, the SC sent him back to the LHC with the advice that he should challenge the HC order on the basis of the fact that he had been indicted only after 17 months, failing which he could approach the SC afresh. In other words, the legal stage had already been set for his release many months ago.
We may also consider some other countervailing factors related to the critical position of the Miltablishment. When Nawaz Sharif blasted the Miltablishment and its two leaders in Gujranwala a couple of months ago, some pundits were quick to wonder how anyone could target the Miltablishment by naming names and live to tell the tale. Instead, the opposite seems to have happened because it is a popular Punjabi leader who is making the allegations and not a forlorn and marginal Baloch, Sindhi or Pakhtun leader whose patriotism is suspect. The Miltablishment is rattled not only because it is being openly targeted in its home base for bad political engineering but also because its leaders are giving the institution a bad name for purely mundane personal ambitions. So if there is a deal, it is only “don’t target us institutionally and definitely not personally and we will adopt a neutral position in your struggle against Imran Khan and the PTI”. Thus the organs of the state, like the ECP and SCP, can now make relatively autonomous judgments so long as core Miltablishment interests are not violated.
But for how long? What if the SC holds in favour of the PTI position in the open balloting case, thereby depriving the PDM of a core plank in its strategy to capture the Senate and block the PTI? What if Imran Khan arrests Maryam Nawaz Sharif and spikes the “deal”? What if the Long March fails to push Imran Khan over the edge? What if the threat of resignations from the National and Provincial Assemblies is sabotaged by the PPP? What if Asif Zardari is unable to poach a dozen or so MNAs from the PTI for a successful vote of no-confidence? What if the PPP and PMLN are unable to agree on the way forward with elections even if they are able to oust Imran Khan?
So many questions, so few certain answers. It is not enough for the Miltablishment to feign neutrality in minor issues while continuing to abhor the PDM. Nor is it possible for the PDM to succeed so long as the PMLN and PPP do not agree on how to deal with the Miltablishment and stake their respective claims.
Until these issues are resolved, the fog will stay and there will be no pawry.
Sab pe bhaari, Asif Zardari
Yousaf Raza Gilani’s win in the senate elections against the odds favouring Hafeez Sheikh, has given a resounding fillip to “Sab pe bhaari, Asif Zardari”. Not only has Mr Zardari increased the PPP’s tally in the Senate to 20 seats and the PDM’s to 53, including the Chairmanship if required, he now has the upper hand within the PDM in devising a strategy to oust Imran Khan because he has proved his mettle. As opposed to Nawaz Sharif’s strategy of Long March followed by resignations from Parliament to log jam government and compel Imran Khan to quit, followed by immediate general elections, Mr Zardari has always favoured an In-House change to oust Imran Khan and bring in a PPP-led government headed by Bilawal Bhutto until the next scheduled general elections in 2023. Now his prowess at wheeling-dealing has brought him within striking range of his objective.
In the run-up to the Senate elections, the PTI’s worry was writ large on Imran Khan’s face. Bruised by the PDM’s frontal attack, especially on its leaders by Nawaz Sharif, the Miltablishment decided to loosen its embrace of Imran Khan to protect its eroding credibility. This led to a rout of the PTI by the PMLN in the recent by-elections and emboldened the Election Commission of Pakistan not only to stand its ground but also condemn the PTI administration in the Punjab for electoral fraud and malpractice. Alarmed, the PTI then hurried to stem the tide by petitioning the Supreme Court to disallow secret balloting in the Senate elections. But, suitably chastened by a popular wave lauding the CEC’s neutrality, and relieved of direct Miltablishment pressure, the SC didn’t oblige. When the Miltablishment further refrained from any forceful and direct intervention to prop up the PTI’s crumbling defences, Imran Khan was forced to eat humble pie. He tried to rally his party, called on the Chaudhries in Lahore while his saintly better half went to pray at Data Darbar, but to no avail.
Mr Zardari took full advantage of the visible disgruntlement within the PTI to stitch up a dozen or so MPAs from Sindh to get an extra seat in the Senate, likewise by adding critical MNA votes in Islamabad to edge Yousaf Raza Gilani past the post. He also suggested that, under desperate SOS pressure from Imran Khan, some last minute discreet phone calls by the Miltablishment to errant MNAs may have served to reduce his candidate’s winning lead. What next?
All stakeholders are retreating into a huddle. The Miltablishment has to decide two fundamental issues: Has the time come to ditch Imran Khan? If so, is it ready to ally with Asif Zardari against Nawaz Sharif in quest of some “solution”? Nawaz Sharif has also to decide two critical issues: Is he ready to take a back seat for the next two years and allow Mr Zardari to rule the roost with the help of the Miltablishment? Or is he going to insist on his anti-Miltablishment-Immediate Election strategy and risk losing his timid or opportunist party members to the new power brokers in the offing?
The Miltablishment has invested heavily in the current hybrid system under Imran Khan. In particular, two of its leaders have personal stakes in its longevity. But Imran Khan’s dismal performance has left the Miltablishment gasping for breath to salvage its pride and credibility after Nawaz Sharif’s stinging attacks on its leadership. If it sticks to Imran, it will be targeted and degraded by the PDM, which is against its longer-term institutional interests. If it doesn’t, it will have to seek out options to keep both Imran and Nawaz at bay. That won’t be easy, considering that between the two of them they control an overwhelming majority of the popular vote. But it’s not impossible either. The Miltablishment has a well-trodden history of both seizing power when the moment is ripe and retreating when there is a popular upsurge against it.
March and April are going to be decisive months. Imran Khan is licking his wounds, wondering how and when to redeem his right to rule unfettered. He says he is going to rouse parliament to give him a vote of confidence. But he doesn’t say when he is going to do that because he is no longer sure what definite and concrete assistance he can expect from the Miltablishment without which he is a goner. Since his MNAs and MPAs know that there’s no such thing as “neutrality”, they will slip out of the corral if the Miltablishment doesn’t come out with resounding support. Recent developments will then be seen as a trailer of the real movie to come.
Unlike the PTI and Miltablishment, the PDM’s next steps can be anticipated. These will include consolidation in the Senate, possibly by electing Mr Gilani as Chairman, and preparations for the Long March as a follow-up show of popular force. Behind the scenes, Mr Zardari will be busy trying to stitch up deals with the Miltablishment and its PMLQ, MQM, GDA and Baloch allied parties to launch a successful vote of no confidence against Imran Khan in the National Assembly or to thwart his bid for a vote of confidence. Since every PTI MNA and MPA knows that he/she doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of winning in the next elections on a PTI ticket whenever these are held, each will be constantly weighing prospects of switching to the future winning side, and the last thing on his/her mind will be disqualification from parliament if a has-been PTI accuses them of floor crossing.
A hybrid political system based on rigged elections and headed by an arrogant, incompetent, authoritarian and reckless prime minister like Imran Khan can last only so long as the gun-toting Miltablishment’s resolve to support it is firm, open and unequivocal and the performance of its government is above par. Recent events have shown that neither condition prevails right now. It is to Nawaz Sharif’s credit that he has pushed the Miltablishment back to the wings and to Asif Zardari’s for pulling it to the drawing board again.
No reprieve
Shibli Faraz, the PTI spokesman, has lost the script. He cried himself hoarse defending the secret vote of “conscience” by opposition senators that enabled the government to defeat the PDM’s vote of “no-confidence” against Sajid Sanjrani, the Senate Chairman, a few months ago. Now he is crying foul when the boot is on the other foot in the case of Yusuf Raza Gilani’s election to the Senate when some PTI MNAs voted secretly against their party’s candidate Hafeez Sheikh. “Conscience” has been replaced by “corruption”, and “secret” ballot by “open” ballot. Indeed, Mr Faraz has suddenly discovered the virtues of blatant political opportunism when he says the government will use “all methods” to defeat the opposition like it did the government. In another ironic twist to this sordid electoral tale, he has woken up to own his illustrious father’s moral high ground. “My father would have disinherited me if I had acted like Yusuf Raza Gilani’s son”, he says self-righteously, never mind the countless times the opposition and independent media have accused him of dishonouring Ahmed Faraz’s life-long, progressive, ant-Establishment stance by becoming His Master’s Voice!
Imran Khan is no better. He says he knows the names of the MNAs who sold their votes to Asif Zardari. But, far from taking action against them for corruption, he has forgiven them their “conscientious” indiscretion and welcomed them back into the fold so that they could give him a vote of confidence in the National Assembly. Sheikh Rashid, the Pindi Punter, says Imran Khan knows their names and will take action, but Fawad Chaudhry, the Soldier of Fortune, says his leader doesn’t, so no action can be taken against them. The PTI’s stance in the sting operation against Ali Haider Gilani is another case in point. The PTI has petitioned the ECP to disqualify both Gilani Sr and Jr for corrupt practices because they were trying to buy votes, but let the PTI MNAs off the hook for trying to sell their votes, a plea that has been swiftly rejected by the ECP. Indeed, the ECP was deemed independent by Imran Khan when it dragged its feet for five years and didn’t disqualify him in the Foreign Funding Case but has suddenly become the object of a blistering attack for upholding the Constitution regarding secret balloting in the Senate elections as advised by the Supreme Court of Pakistan!
In this murky battle royale, the PDM is clearly being played by the Miltablishment. The “deal” or “understanding” was that it would remain “neutral” in the current struggle between the PDM and PTI so long as PDM leaders didn’t attack it or its leaders by name. Until the by-elections the PDM kept its word even when there was suspicion that the Miltablishment hadn’t. But now the PDM is saying it has “evidence” of Miltablishment interference in the forthcoming elections to the Senate Chairman and Deputy Chairman on Friday 12th March. Should the PDM candidates be defeated with 53 votes in their bag as opposed to 47 by the PTI & Co, we can be sure that the chambers will resound with anti-Miltablishment sentiments all over again. The Miltablishment betrayed Shahbaz Sharif and had him sidelined in the PMLN. Now it will be accused of betraying Asif Zardari and sidelining him in the PDM. Therefore, under the circumstances, the anti-Miltablishment “narrative” of Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazal ur Rahman is poised to re-emerge stronger than ever before and we can be sure that they will marshal their forces to create more instability to destablise the PTI government.
There are two serious consequences of the Miltablishment’s stubborn refusal to rethink options. By sticking like glue to Imran Khan’s incompetent and corrupt government, it has wittingly strayed into the firing line of a majority of Pakistanis, especially in its home base of Punjab, who are increasingly sick and tired of the PTI. The suspicion that personal ambitions have undermined institutional interests is also inescapable. That is why when Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazal ur Rahman target both individuals and institutions by name they are assured of a sympathetic echo in society at large. This developing trend doesn’t augur well for state and society.
The second serious consequence of the Miltablishment’s misplaced concreteness is on the economy. Political instability leads to economic uncertainty which undermines investment and growth. Despite tall and constant claims of a “recovery” in the offing, the facts are worrying. Exports are stagnant despite a massive devaluation. Revenues are below targets second year running. Debt is crippling the budget. The IMF is back, with rising inflation, joblessness and interest rates. Indeed, the gross mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis by the PTI government – which is preoccupied with saving its political skin – as evidenced by a third spike in infections and new lockdowns of schools and businesses, and distribution of vaccines at snail’s pace, has found mention in the latest forecast by the IMF as an additional factor fueling insecurity and instability, compelling it to forecast a growth of only 1.1% in FY21. The wild swings in the stock market reflect this instability and are not conducive to confidence in the economy.
In the midst of all this, the Miltablishment has to contend with a significant resurgence of terrorism and pressure from America to get the Taliban to “do more” to facilitate a US pullout from Kabul without leaving the Ghani administration in the lurch. The Miltablishment’s angst is underscored by America’s insistence on bringing India into the Afghan loop while dangling the FATF sword over Islamabad.
All these domestic and external pressures on economy and politics are going to increase manifold in the coming months. At times like these, a national consensus and political stability is the need of the hour. Instead, we have running battles between an unpopular government and a strident opposition and between this opposition and an increasingly discredited Miltablishment. If the economy had been strong, we would have weathered such political storms. But now the economy is itself a prisoner of politics. Thus without changing the political dialectic there will be no reprieve.
Game On Hai, still!
The PTI is crowing. The media agrees that the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) is on the rocks. Asif Zardari has had a serious falling out with the rest of the nine PDM leaders, especially Nawaz Sharif, over several issues, compelling an indefinite “postponement” of the Long March, forget the mass resignations from parliament.
Messrs Sharif & Rehman want the PDM to resign enmasse from the national and provincial assemblies and plunge the hybrid system into a crisis of legitimacy. They believe that the government cannot possibly hold free, fair and peaceful by-elections in over 450 constituencies whatever method it uses, and sooner rather than later, it will be compelled to seek a fresh mandate from the people, a general election the PDM component parties, led by the PMLN, will sweep because the PTI has irrevocably lost its sheen. They also believe that the Establishment cannot be trusted to stay “neutral” in any such upheaval, pointing to several betrayals down the line relating to “deals” with Shahbaz Sharif and even Mr Zardari himself.
Mr Zardari’s argument is that the nine components of the PDM have nothing to lose if this strategy doesn’t work – because they are all out in the cold — and much to gain if it does, especially the PMLN which expects to win the next elections if these are held now. But the PPP has a solid government in Sindh, it has just secured the largest number of seats in the Senate and is poised to capture its chairmanship too. If it burns its boats now, it can at best only win back the Sindh government and not much more than its current share in the national and provincial assemblies in the next elections. But if the strategy fails, it will lose whatever it has now. So there’s nothing in it for the PPP, unless Mr Sharif can fork over some additional political incentives in the next dispensation. What might these be?
Mr Zardari says he can lure a sufficient number of PTI MNAs and MPAs in the Punjab into deserting the PTI and helping the PDM form governments to run until 2023. But for this Mr Sharif will need to give these deserters guarantees that they will be allowed to freely contest the next national and provincial elections – possibly as independents or on a PPP ticket — without competition from the PMLN. However, this deal doesn’t cut it for Mr Sharif because it means he will not be able to field solid majorities in the Punjab or Islamabad and will have to share power with Mr Zardari. Nor is Mr Sharif amenable to the idea of joining Mr Zardari in coalition governments today that will face the full brunt of the people’s wrath if they are unable to deliver in these impossible circumstances in such a short span of time.
Mr Zardari would like to lead the PDM into waging guerilla war against the Establishment-propped PTI government, chipping away at its edges and weakening its defenses, like it has done successfully in the recent by-elections and senate elections. This would involve launching votes of no-confidence first in the Punjab and then in Islamabad, capturing one after the other. But his strategy runs afoul of Mr Sharif who doesn’t want to partake of any ineffectual coalitions that rob the PMLN of its goodwill in the next elections. Above all, neither Nawaz Sharif nor Mariam, the two vote pullers, stand to get any benefits from such interim arrangements. Mr Zardari, on the other hand, can expect Bilawal and the PPP to take full advantage of any such interregnum.
The two sides have also fallen out on how to divide the spoils of the recent victory in the Senate. If the PPP’s Yusuf Raza Gilani doesn’t win the Senate Chairman’s seat, the PPP wants him to be the Leader of the Opposition by virtue of the fact that it has more seats than any other party. But the PMLN says this was pledged to it in the original plan and wont relent. The PPP says Mr Gilani would make a more forceful opposition leader than either of the two PMLN candidates, Azam Tarrar and Sadia Abbasi. It also has a particular distaste for Mr Tarrar, the Sharif family lawyer, who is defending the policemen accused of the murder of Benazir Bhutto. This is hardly a conducive environment in which to negotiate coalitions in the Punjab or Islamabad.
Under the circumstances, one may expect both sides to retreat and rethink. But one thing is clear: unless the PDM decides to go ahead without the PPP, there is no getting back to the Long March and Resignations for some months. Covid is spiking. Ramzan is round the corner. The Eid holidays will follow. Then the hot and rainy season will swamp all until next September or October. Will Messrs Sharif & Maulana still see advantage in quitting parliaments soon?
It isn’t inconceivable. They can remain in parliament for as long as the concerned Speakers refuse to accept their resignations and create a ruckus and logjam, while enjoying the high moral ground of having “resigned” on “principle”! They can also join hands with the PPP to destablise the PTI government or embarrass the PPP if it tries to cosy up to it, as the situation so demands. After all, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. In this situation, however, the PPP will find itself in no-man’s land: the PTI will continue to try and strangulate it, the Establishment will continue to play treacherous games with it, and the public will roundly disavow its opportunism.
Clearly, there is much to rethink in every quarter. If the PMLN relaunches its attacks on the Establishment and its leaders by name, there is bound to be hand-wringing and soul searching. At the least, the Establishment will increase pressure on Imran Khan to focus on delivering good governance instead of screwing the opposition. This will aggravate fissures. Mr Zardari too cannot possibly relish the prospect of alienation from allies and hostility from opponents.
Despite the current PDM setback, Game On Hai, still!
Houses in Disorder
The recent peace overtures between Pakistan and India have caught hawks and doves on both sides by surprise. Since 2016 when India claimed to have carried out “surgical” strikes against Pakistani border posts “harbouring terrorists” across the Line of Control, the Indians had heated up the LoC in a very aggressive manner. In early 2019 they upped the ante by launching “air strikes” against alleged “terrorist camps” in Balakot, AJK. After Pakistan hit back by downing two Indian jets and capturing an Indian pilot, both sides backed off from further physical aggression. However, India renewed its aggressive designs last August when the BJP government announced the abrogation of Constitutional Article 370 and annexed Jammu & Kashmir. This provoked Imran Khan to launch a blistering personal attack on Narendra Modi, calling him a fascist and racist. BJP leaders retaliated by threatening to attack and “liberate” AJK, all the time arming, training and funding anti-Pakistan Baloch secessionists and Tehrik-e-Taliban terrorists to bomb targets in Balochistan and FATA. Both sides withdrew their respective High Commissioners and ruptured all links, including trade and people-to-people contacts. Then, while analysts were worrying themselves sick thinking of an impending war between the two countries, it was suddenly announced last month that the two military leaderships had signed a ceasefire agreement on the LoC to renew the last one in 2003. Some serious head scratching followed. Why and how did this come about? What or who was the secret back-channel that clinched it? Which country benefited most from it? Was this a one-off development? No one paid any attention to a passing hint from Moeed Yusuf, the Pakistani NSA, to the Indian journalist Karan Thapar in October last year, that Pakistan had received some “messages” from India, suggesting a desire for a “conversation”. The Indian Foreign Office immediately denied any such messages had been sent.
But movement was definitely afoot. Last month, on February 3rd, speaking at the Pak Air Force Academy, the Pakistani army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, broached the subject of regional peace. “It is time to extend a hand of peace in all directions”, he said, “Pakistan and India must resolve the long-standing issue of Jammu and Kashmir in a dignified and peaceful manner in line with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people and bring this human tragedy to its logical conclusion”. To this overture, India responded by a routine statement that for such talks to begin Pakistan must first end “cross border terrorism”. Undaunted, on March 24, General Bajwa went further. “We feel it is time to bury the past and move forward,” he said, adding that the onus for meaningful dialogue rested with India. “Our neighbour will have to create a conducive environment, particularly in occupied Kashmir… we are ready to improve our environment by resolving all our outstanding issues with our neighbours through dialogue in a dignified and peaceful manner”. A day later, India responded via a letter from Narendra Modi to Imran Khan facilitating Pakistan’s National Day!
Suddenly, the media in both countries is rife with expectations of an “Indo-Pak spring” in the offing. Speculation is focused on a forthcoming meeting between the two Foreign Ministers in Dushanbe; on the revival of trade, sporting and people-to-people links; on the selection and return of High Commissioners; on holding the SAARC Summit in Islamabad, and so on. It is now revealed that the UAE and Saudi Arabia played a key role in facilitating back-channel diplomacy to break the ice. Analysts are also jumping in with reasons explaining the compulsions on both sides to walk the talk of “peace”.
Mr Modi is not in a particularly happy situation at home and abroad. Kashmir remains a bloody sore with unprecedented human rights abuse that has seriously dented India’s soft power in the international arena – the EU recently threatened trade sanctions if such abuse continues – no less than violent majoritarian Hinduism that has suffocated liberal secularism and gagged media freedoms. The militant and continuing farmers protest follows widespread outrage at the CAA anti-citizens, anti-Muslim bills. India’s bruising at the hands of China up in the LAC in the Ladakh corridor in recent months hasn’t done its hard power much good either. The surging Covid-19 casualties, lockdowns and resultant joblessness have laid vast populations low. Economic recovery is still far away. An unwinnable war with Pakistan, under the circumstances, has lost its tactical appeal. Prodding by the US to patch up with Pakistan and concentrate on the common QUAD strategy to contain China must also have played an important role.
On the Pakistani side, General Bajwa now seems to think that without “putting our own house in order first”, there isn’t much to gain by beating the war drums against the old arch-enemy. How he intends to do that has escaped even his hard core supporters, forget the hounded political opposition in the country that has now embarked on a plan to erode his credibility and destabilise the PTI government that the Miltablishment is propping up. Indeed, what is even more surprising is the Miltablishment’s readiness to abandon any pre-conditions for a dialogue with India. There was no such mention in General Bajwa’s plea for improving the environment for peace. Certainly, there was no reference to what National Security hawks in Islamabad have been telling journalists constantly: that there can be no dialogue with India until Article 370 is restored, political prisoners in J&K are released, Kashmiris are made a party to any talks, restrictions in the region are ended, the domicile law that allows non-Kashmiris to settle in the region is rescinded and human rights abuses are brought to an end.
No one can criticize any movement for peace between India and Pakistan. No one can deny the pure relief and joy of living in a “normal” neighbourhood. The harsh truth, however, is that, notwithstanding such tactical moves, both the Pakistani and the Indian Establishments have not demonstrated any evidence at all of changing their strategic spots or putting their houses in order.
Dogs and Tails
According to “insiders”, COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa recently summoned six PTI cabinet ministers for some plain talking: (1) the PTI government’s abysmal performance was fueling rage on the street and hurting the Miltablishment’s reputation for foisting such a regime upon the people; 2) The situation must be redeemed in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by replacing the CMs; (3) the federal government must run with a more efficient and credible team, at least for putting the economy on track. Time’s running out, he implied darkly.
As a consequence of such “advice”, Imran Khan has blithely sacked Nadeem Babar and Hafeez Shaikh, even though he was lauding their singular expertise not so long ago. Indeed, he had pitched Mr Shaikh to the Senate so that he could continue as full-fledged minister of finance. Some more chopping and changing is on the cards. But given Imran Khan’s track record of picking his political teammates, we shouldn’t expect any qualitative improvement in performance.
Change in the Punjab, in particular, will be a hard bone to swallow. The Chief Minister’s recommendation comes from the “Home” Department and explains his survival against the odds. But the list of candidates acceptable to both Mr Khan and General Bajwa is nil so far. Mr Khan fears that any attempt to replace the CM Punjab will unravel the PTI alliance and lead to splits and factions, culminating in a golden opportunity for the PMLN/PPP/PMLQ to woo some and seize the provincial government, paving the way for an assault on Islamabad. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.
Meanwhile, the pro-active COAS is trying to ease tensions with India and “normalize” – forget Kashmir for the time being — because they have drained his budgets and stretched his limits. The long war on the LOC was very costly – according to experts, hundreds of artillery shells costing thousands of USD were being lobbed every day, not to forget the cost of maintaining troops at full alert along a long perimeter. Just the fuel cost of keeping squadrons of PAF jets in the air when tensions were periodically running high was prohibitive. In real terms, the defence budget is more or less frozen because the government’s revenue base hasn’t increased in the last two years owing to a slump in the economy, partly due to Covid-induced business lockdowns, partly to the harsh conditions imposed by the IMF adjustment program and partly to bad policy decisions by Imran Khan.
The COAS is also prodding Mr Khan to make-up with Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman who has been alienated since the PM decided in September 2019 to facilitate an Islamic bloc of Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan to rival the OIC headed by Saudi Arabia. Indeed, MBS was so outraged when Imran Khan decided unilaterally to try and play the role of a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia that he pulled out his economic assistance to the State Bank of Pakistan in 2020 and hasn’t invested a penny in Pakistan since. Having persuaded the Saudis and Emiratis to facilitate a dialogue with India and relieve the pressure, General Bajwa has now obtained an invitation from MBS for Imran Khan to visit the Kingdom and renew ties and financial bailouts.
We also learn that Imran Khan is toying with the prospect of lifting the ban on some items from India after having earlier exempted medicines from the total embargo on all economic, diplomatic and social relations. This ban was imposed in anger in 2019 following Narendra Modi’s scrapping of Article 370 protecting the autonomy of Jammu & Kashmir. Our government’s unilateral “acquiescence to necessity” has prompted the Indian media to crow that Pakistan has “climbed down” on Kashmir. It is now speculated that High Commissioners will return and visa regimes will be relaxed.
Pakistan’s relations with America are also being managed almost exclusively by the Miltablishment because the US remains focused on its exit strategy from Afghanistan and the only institution with some leverage with the Taliban who hold the balance of power is the Pakistani Miltablishment. But Pakistan’s task is unenviable: for starters, it has to help “deliver” a cease fire with amenable Taliban to America while keeping a sharp lookout for a bigger Indian role (backed by the US and the Ghani regime) in the emerging scenario in Afghanistan. The Americans and India, meanwhile, are keeping the sword of FATF dangling over Pakistan’s head while the IMF plays the tune to which Pakistan must dance if it is not to go down the tube of bankruptcy and isolation.
There is an urgent irony in this developing scenario. In the past, Pakistan was described as a country where “the tail wags the dog”, that is to say a country whose foreign policies dictated internal political and economic developments. These foreign policies were in turn dictated by the Miltablishment’s obsession with a particular definition of “national security” focused on enduring anti-normalisation enmity with India pending an impossible resolution of the Kashmir dispute based on UN resolutions for an “either or” plebiscite. The more such a resolution became knotty over time, the more the civilian leaderships sought “normalization” with India, but the more the Miltablishment dug its heels in and derailed the civilians and their political initiatives. The Militablishment’s overlordship prevailed despite the civilian impulse for greater democracy and accountability of state institutions only for one reason: whenever the Miltablishment’s grip seemed to loosen because of internal developments, the Americans weighed in critically (1960s, 1980s, 2000s) with political support for the military and financial assistance for the economy that kept its anti-civilian, anti-India narrative alive. Now the opposite is happening: American military and economic assistance has ended with finality, the IMF and FATF are being used to tighten the screws and India has become a muscular member of the anti-China QUAD.
At this moment in historical time, the Miltablishment needs a competent and popular civilian partner to transition Pakistan to a “normal” country in which the dog wags the tail. The problem is that it is up the creek with its subnormal system in alliance with a quixotic civilian partner. The sooner the Miltablishment ends this confusion and puts its own house in order, the better it will be for state and society, for everyone.
Horses for Courses
The Indian media has been awash with stories of “backchannel” contacts, mediated by UAE/Saudi Arabia, between India and Pakistan for some sort of “normalisation” of bilateral relations. These turned sour in August 2019 following the BJP government’s abrogation of Article 370 about Kashmir’s autonomous status. But both governments are mum. Some tentative speculation of the “normalization” thesis – return of High Commissioners, resumption of trade, restoration of visa facilities, possibly even a dialogue on outstanding “core” issues – has now started in the Pakistani media too because of a series of events in the last week or two. How credible or realistic is this conclusion?
We can be sure that some prolonged backchannel negotiations between military officials led to the sudden announcement on February 25 of a strategic ceasefire on the LOC. This was just two days ahead of the second anniversary of India’s aggressive “strikes” in the Balakot region of Azad Kashmir followed by Pakistani retaliation exacting a high price from India. Indeed, recent months have witnessed some of the worst shelling and greatest casualties along the LOC. But beyond that, what?
A series of events has fueled talk of “normalization”. Last month, the National Security Division of the GoP provided a platform to COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa, to make a “paradigm change” statement on national security issues, especially relating to India. “We feel that it is time to bury the past and move forward,” said Gen Bajwa, “but for resumption of (sic) peace process or meaningful dialogue, our neighbour will have to create a conducive environment, particularly in Indian Occupied Kashmir”. Bury the past, meaning forget about the “unfinished business of Partition” and the core issue of Kashmir? Conducive environment in IOK, meaning restoration of Article 370 or withdrawal of the Indian military from IOK, or end to human rights violations, or what?
Last week, even before any answers were forthcoming on the meaning of this weighty statement, the PMs of India and Pakistan – who had been bad mouthing each other constantly – were suddenly exchanging letters of good wishes. The Pakistan government then announced that it was ready to import sugar and cotton from India, a signal that was widely interpreted to herald resumption of trade and revival of diplomatic and people-to-people ties. That’s when the old hawks in Pakistan woke up and sent the PTI government scurrying for cover.
Since it was Pakistan that ruptured all relations with India after the abrogation of Article 370 by the BJP and it was Pakistan that had constantly thundered “no normalization” until Article 370 was restored, what was the import and substance of these steps for “normalization”, especially since there was no possibility of any restoration of Article 370? Unable to clarify, the government quickly U-turned on its decision to import cotton, scapegoating a wretched minister who was simply following the PM’s orders, and reiterated its policy of no “normalization” until Article 370 was restored. Meanwhile, the Pakistani civil-military officials who negotiated the ceasefire on the LOC and formulated or backed the army chief’s paradigm-changing statement remained silent, both when the government decided to import cotton and sugar and when it U-turned.
For some answers, we should go back to August 6, 2019, when the corps commanders met under the army chief to formulate Pakistan’s response to the revocation of Article 370 by India. The ISPR noted that “Pakistan never recognised the sham Indian efforts to legalise its occupation of Jammu & Kashmir through article 370 or 35-A decades ago, efforts which have now been revoked by India itself… We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfil our obligations [to the Kashmiri people].” In other words, India’s action had no significant bearing on our stand based on the legality of the UN Resolutions and our perception of the core dispute and its settlement. This was a brilliant and wise formulation, protesting the action without closing the door for continued dialogue on disputes with India. But, in a bid for cheap popularity, PM Imran Khan quickly upped the ante by cutting all diplomatic and trade links with India, taking personal pot shots at “fascist” Narendra Modi and boxing himself in by demanding the restoration of Article 370 as a pre-condition for “normalcy”. Now comes the realization that this condition isn’t going to be fulfilled even as the pressure to end hostilities and “normalize” – as articulated by General Bajwa in his quest for regional peace – grows by the day. So the PM succumbed to another pressure – allow cotton imports to facilitate value-added exports to redress balance of payments problems and sugar imports to bring down prices and relieve the distress of the people during Ramzan – and gave a green light to Hammad Azhar. Unfortunately, however, since he hadn’t coordinated and taken all civil-military stakeholders on board, including the hawks in his cabinet and media supporters outside, all hell broke loose and he was forced to make a U-Turn.
The Indian national security establishment, meanwhile, is flummoxed by the speed at which the “normalization” speculation is moving ahead of any backchannel agreement to this effect and is therefore silent, even though it would like nothing more than for Pakistan to climb down on its earlier decisions. It is certainly not thinking of making any quick or significant concessions in Kashmir for the Kashmiris – let alone on Kashmir for Pakistan – to ease Pakistan’s dilemma.
The military conflict on the LOC and LAC was hurting India, Pakistan and China. The national security establishments of the three countries have jointly negotiated stability on their borders without abandoning their positions on territorial or core disputes. But only Pakistan’s government has boxed itself in by insisting on pre-conditions for “normalization”.
General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s “strategic reset” requires strong and popular civilian shoulders to bear the burden of “burying the past”. Both the PPP and PMLN in turns have tried to accomplish as much but were thwarted by the general’s predecessors. Since Imran Khan is neither popular nor capable of carrying the ball to the goal post, General Bajwa might be advised to change horses for courses.
Fate foretold
The questions are coming fast and furious.
US President Joe Biden has announced September 11, 2021, and not May 2021 as a cut-off date for withdrawal of all US and NATO troops from Afghanistan. Will the Taliban concede any power-sharing deal with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, before D-Day, or any leverage or role for Pakistan after it?
Hamza and Shahbaz Sharif have been granted bail; they’re ready to enter the political fray again. What role will they play within the PMLN and PDM? Will the Sharifs split?
Jehangir Tareen is manoeuvering to protect himself from the wrath of Imran Khan. What is the significance, if any, of the support of a dozen or so PTI MPAs/MNAs who are openly backing him?
The Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan is on a rampage. The Miltablishment-PTI that once egged it on to destablise the PMLN is now trying to crush it to protect its hybrid system. Will it succeed?
Afghanistan: Since President Trump announced a unilateral withdrawal by May, 2021, the Taliban have engaged in countless rounds of talks but not conceded any significant space to American power-sharing plans for post-withdrawal Afghanistan. Why should they do so now when the Biden administration has confirmed the Trump decision in principle but delayed exit for a few months? The Taliban’s intentions are explained in this critical comment on Biden’s announcement: “Now, as this [withdrawal date in May] agreement is being breached by America, it in principle opens the way for the Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate to take every necessary countermeasure, hence the Americans shall be held responsible for all future consequences, and not the Islamic Emirate … The Islamic Emirates will under no circumstances ever relent on complete independence and establishment of a pure Islamic system…” In a leaf from a manual of classic guerilla war, the Taliban have, from 2001 to 2021, successfully traded “time” to manufacture “will” to capture “space”. [Mullah Umar famously said: “The Americans have the Clocks. We have the Time!”] Therefore post withdrawal, the civil war will likely accelerate and the Ghani administration will collapse following depletion of the arms and aid pipeline from the international community. The Taliban will either vanquish all Pashtun, Uzbek and Tajik resistance or Afghanistan will be partitioned de facto along ethnic lines, with powerful neighbours lining up behind various stakeholders. The Taliban didn’t accept the Durand Line with Pakistan when they ruled in Kabul from 1997-2001 and they won’t do so now. At that time, they provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden which provoked the Americans to rain fire on them. This time, they won’t provide sanctuary to any anti-American terrorist group. But they will retain leverage against Pakistan by allowing sanctuaries to specific anti-Pakistan terrorist groups like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan with which they have always had good relations.
Hamza and Shahbaz Sharif: their freedom comes with the Miltablishment’s expectation that they will dilute the hard anti-Miltablishment narrative of Maryam and Nawaz Sharif. But they know two facts. First, that they were “betrayed” time and time again when the Miltablishment didn’t protect them from the wrath of Imran Khan. Second, that the popular vote for the PMLN belongs to Maryam and Nawaz Sharif. So they won’t be easily persuaded to become party to the weakening of, or splits within, the PMLN or Sharif family. Thus while Shahbaz can certainly play a role in trying to cement the PMLN-PPP cracks in the PDM by offering an effective compromise on the way forward for the combined opposition, we should expect Imran Khan to throw a spanner in the works, maybe by targeting Maryam.
Jehangir Tareen: Thanks to a nudge from the Miltablishment, Imran Khan may possibly agree to take a step back in his crusade without removing Tareen from his gunsights. But the latter won’t be able to crawl back into the PTI. As a long term Miltablishment asset, he will struggle to bide his time – along with his own batch of Punjabi MPA/MNA assets – until he receives a signal to strike, which could come if the June budget precipitates mass discontent and compels the Miltablishment to reconsider its options.
TLP: A potential Miltablishment ally or asset is threatening to become a dangerous liability like so many in the past. Among politicians, we can point to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Mohammad Khan Junejo and Nawaz Sharif. Now Imran Khan is straining at the leash. Among parties, we can list Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim League and Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam; among groups, the prominent include Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and its various sectarian offshoots that were used for waging jihad in the neighbourhood, and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan that was molly coddled as a group of “well-meaning but confused Muslims” until they trained their guns on their benefactors and became “condemned terrorists”. Unlike the other militant Islamic groups, however, the Labaik is a militant Islamic party with viable national electoral ambitions like none in the past. The Miltablishment imagined it could guide and control it for its own short-term political goals inside the country, as it did when it unleashed it against the PMLN government and then pulled it back when its objective was achieved. Unfortunately, however, the Labaik has nurtured and steadily grown to threatening proportions in the current environment of rising unemployment, impoverishment and social breakdown that has compelled the “masses” to retreat into the arms of radical faith. Indeed, the more the civil-military propertied elites have clutched at “Islamic” symbols and laws and customs and practices to legitimize their capture of political power and wealth, the more the Labaik has used the same tactics to rouse the “have-nots” to expose, challenge and delegitimize them. Therefore the belated attempt to roll back the Labaik by “banning” it is not going to work – it can reassemble under any new banner at any time with renewed vigour. Indeed, the more the current hybrid system fails to foster mainstream and moderate political consensus and sustained economic growth that is based on notions of social welfare for the poor rather than Miltablishment security, the more the Labaik is likely to extend its tentacles into every section of state and society and become an irreversible force that can lead to societal chaos, state collapse and foreign intervention.
These are chronicles of a fate foretold.
Labaik! Labaik! Labaik!
Last week, for the first time in nearly two decades, the specter of martial law hung over the horizon in Islamabad. The threat to state and society didn’t come from the popular mainstream, nationalist, ethnic or secessionist parties, nor from foreign-inspired terrorist groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or Al-Qaeda. It came from the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, a newly minted, religion-inspired party, tens of thousands of whose angry, passionate, militant supporters swept the squares of Lahore and fought pitched battles with the Punjab police that left over a dozen dead, scores injured and hundreds in prisons, provoking the PTI government to hurriedly brandish Anti-Terrorist laws to impose a ban on the party and stop it from marching on to Islamabad. In the event, a “dialogue” between the leaders of the TLP and representatives of state and government managed to diffuse the situation by shunting the matter to the National Assembly for resolution. Is this the beginning or end of the matter?
The TLP was borne of the religious passion to defend and uphold the Prophet of Islam (pbuh) from blasphemy by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, at home and abroad. An early casualty of its rage was Salmaan Taseer, the Governor of Punjab in 2011, who was gunned down by one of his own security guards, a TLP follower, when he sought to defend a Christian woman in prison who he felt had been wrongly accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death. Mumtaz Qadri, the self-confessed assassin who portrayed himself as a “lover of the Prophet (pbuh)”, languished in prison for five years before the Supreme Court plucked up the courage to sentence him to death and a trembling PMLN government carried out the sentence. The funeral of the assassin was the largest in Pakistan’s history, testifying to the birth of a new mass party whose relentless rise on the back of a one-point agenda has been so phenomenal that it has now acquired the capacity to literally bring the state to its knees – it is reported that a top security officer negotiating with the TLP leaders actually touched the knee of his counterpart (a gesture of obeisance) and begged him to call off the long march. This is a far cry from a situation two years earlier when the TLP had marched on to Islamabad, successfully agitated the ouster of the federal law minister, Zahid Hamid, for effecting a change in a swearing-in oath and then dispersed upon receiving a monetary incentive from a uniformed officer of the state. The irony of the situation should not be lost on us: Qazi Faez Isa, the judge who delivered a scathing judgment on the attitude and approach of the security forces which succumbed to the threat of the TLP, is in the dock today, fighting for his professional career, because the Miltablishment has not forgiven him for challenging its dangerous opportunism.
The history of the Pakistani state’s response to militant Islam is both opportunist and tragic. Since the time of General Zia ul Haq, the Miltablishment has injected, nurtured, accommodated and defended militant Islam and ethnic organisations in the body politic of state and society as legitimizing forces for its political interventions at home and military adventures in the neighbourhood. Prime examples are the MQM in Karachi and pro-Kashmir jihadis (the former laid Karachi low for nearly a decade and the latter tried to assassinate General Pervez Musharraf when he turned off the jihad tap against India in the mid 2000s) and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (who were molly-coddled with numerous financial “deals” for many years as “good but misguided Muslims” as they went on a killing spree, bombing bazaars and schools across the country, until they attacked an army school and murdered nearly 150 students in cold blood in December 2014, forcing the army to finally attack and stop them in their tracks – now they are sanctuaried in Afghanistan whence they carry out their anti-Pakistan, sectarian attacks in FATA and Balochsitan). The TLP is the latest example of such misplaced concreteness.
Last February, the TLP had threatened to run riot if the PTI government didn’t expel the French Ambassador and sever diplomatic relations with France for defending a batch of blasphemous cartoons against the Prophet of Islam (pbuh). The government bought time by promising to bring a resolution to that effect in the National Assembly two months hence. The TLP went back to the streets when the appointed date of April 20th came and went without any redemption. Now, after the loss of so many lives, damage to property and work stoppages, the government has contrived another hollow parliamentary pledge it cannot keep, insuring that the next time the TLP bursts on to the stage it will demand much more than a pound of flesh for another betrayal, and that it will be much more empowered and aggressive than this time round. In between we can expect the TLP to flex its muscle whenever it thinks that by so challenging the writ of the state or society it can be nourished and grow as a powerful force in the next elections whenever they are held. The TLP is modelled on the MQM that was based on regional ethnicity and used violence and terrorism to enhance its financial and electoral prospects with the support of the Miltablishment, except that the canvass of the TLP is all Pakistan and its fuel is passionate all-encompassing religion.
The Miltablishment’s response to the rise of the TLP is delusional. It claims it is being funded and propagated by India, America, Saudi Arabia and Israel to undermine Pakistan’s pivotal role in the developing linkage of China to an anti-West bloc comprising Central Asia, Iran, Turkey and Russia. But the fact is otherwise. The TLP is a product of the strategic miscalculations of the Miltablishment that have now put it squarely in the eye of a gathering storm that will exact a huge and bloody price from Pakistan.
Good cause, bad approach
The Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, wants to reset Pakistan foreign policy’s strategic national security parameters – especially in relation to India and the core dispute of Kashmir. This has defined Pakistan’s goals for decades. He says a “strategic pause” is needed because of compelling new economic, political and regional realities. He outlined his thoughts at a National Security Conference in Islamabad last month and followed it up with a long, informal, talk with over two dozen journalists last week, the gist of which is the need to “normalize” relations with India without necessarily first resolving core disputes.
No one can dispute the sensible logic of being a “normal” country, with “normal” relations with other countries. After all, that is the way of the globalising world and no country can afford to be in a perpetual and continuing state of hostility and war with another country just because some disputes – even core ones – remain unresolved. But for a host of important reasons, this “noble” objective is easier said than done for Pakistan.
For over 70 years, Pakistan’s Miltablishment has bled the Kashmir scar of the Partition and treated India as the perennial arch-enemy with which there can be no normal relations until the core dispute of Kashmir is settled in accordance with pledges made by India to the United Nations in 1948. To this end, Pakistan has waged war with India four times and promoted jihad in Kashmir to try and liberate it from the yoke of Indian subjugation. Unfortunately, such efforts, far from bearing fruit, have exacted a huge price from Pakistan’s own state and society. We have lost half the country. We have lost Siachin. We have provoked the Indian state to unleash unprecedented, brutal repression on the people of Kashmir, wiping out two generations. We have impoverished tens of millions of Pakistanis by diverting scarce public resources from citizens’ welfare to requirements of defense. We have warped the Constitution to erode democratic freedoms and citizen rights. We have erected an education system to brainwash one generation after another with subnormal notions of ideology and sacred cows. We have made all politics subservient to an errant and unaccountable “deep” state rather than a democratic Constitution. And so on. How on earth, under these deep rooted adverse circumstances, does General Bajwa expect his proposed U-Turn to yield “positive” results overnight, not least when his own institution is under fire for a continuing string of constitutional subversions, for propping up an inept and unpopular government, for trying to eliminate two mainstream political parties which claim an overwhelming majority of the popular vote?
In fact, it can be argued that the PPP and PMLN have, by turns, tried to change the national security narrative of the state to better manage both “normal” relations with India and also improve the lot of the people by limiting the relentless growth of defense expenditures and spending more on social welfare. But both have been punished and outcast by the Miltablishment for precisely this thinking. Today, when General Bajwa is seriously considering the very options both these parties have long advocated, he might have been advised to make them lead partners in a historic U-Turn which they, and only they, can sell to the people of Pakistan.
Instead, General Bajwa has lectured a group of journalists to build a national narrative supporting his “strategic pause”. This “media-management” is misplaced concreteness. Even if they don’t admit it, half the journalists in this group are hapless victims of decades of brainwashing that refuse to see India as anything other than the hated, anti-Muslim, anti-Pakistan arch enemy with whom there can be no normalization; the other half would rather this proposal came from elected and accountable parties and institutions in parliament rather than the Miltablishment that is increasingly viewed as part of the problem rather than the solution.
General Bajwa’s problem is accentuated by his lone partner in this enterprise. The PTI neither has the stomach to digest this narrative – consider the abusive and arrogant personal tone of Imran Khan regarding his main interlocuter in India – nor the intellectual ability to negotiate an honourable “normalization” with India, let alone sell it to the increasing mass of angry, alienated Pakistanis who are praying for his exit.
The Miltablishment reacted to the August 6, 2019, abrogation of Article 370 and 35A by the BJP government cautiously, leaving the door open for “normalization”, but the PTI government was more loyal than the King and went overboard breaking all relations with India and putting impossible pre-conditions for normalization. Indeed, it later fully messed up an opportunity to restore trade when the national interest so demanded for the good of the economy.
It is also a moot point whether the Miltablishment is institutionally ready for thus “abandoning” the cause of Kashmir (“jugular vein of Pakistan”) after so much loss of blood and territory. We might recall the fate of General Pervez Musharraf’s “four-point” formula to normalize relations with India which was blithely “abandoned” by his Miltablishment successors who swiftly reverted to form.
If the Miltablishment wants to change course because its old doctrine has become untenable, it has to get ready to abandon the commanding heights of the state and let civil society and its popular representatives use democratic and constitutional methods to de-legitimise notions of a national security state perpetually at war with its own people as well as its neighbours and replace it with the idea of a people’s welfare state in which all organs of the state are bound by their constitutional requirements and limits. That is the “normal” way the modern state is expected to behave and conduct its business in an increasingly open, free and interlinked world.
One last point. If Pakistanis are not ready to buy General Bajwa’s “strategic reset” because it isn’t being sold to them by a trusted and popular vendor or brand, imagine how much more difficult it is for India or the international community to buy it. Indeed, if they perceive it as a transactional U-Turn rather than a strategic Reset, his cause is already lost.
Droning the countdown
Acouple of days before Imran Khan was sworn in as prime minister in July 2018, the army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, advised him to make a new prime minister’s customary trip to Riyadh immediately afterwards and follow up with the equally obligatory trip to China. Imran Khan agreed to General Bajwa’s advice because both countries were critical benefactors of Pakistan. Subsequently, however, Imran Khan began to drag his feet. Indeed, he told General Bajwa that he had decided (on whose advice we can only conjecture) to focus on domestic issues and not take any foreign trips for the first three months. Since General Bajwa had alerted Riyadh to this upcoming trip, he had to fly to the Kingdom and explain a “slight delay” in the visit (while his team made frantic efforts to sway the new prime minister). When Imran Khan finally made the trip, his earlier hesitation was not lost on Prince Mohammad bin Salman even as he welcomed him with open arms. The Saudi Royal returned the visit within the year, bearing gifts, investment pledges and soft loans. In fact, the wags say that MBS left a special mobile phone with Imran Khan to enable him to contact the Prince directly at any time.
Unfortunately, a year later, the special mobile phone died and the Saudis pulled out of a proposed $10b investment in Gwadar and asked Pakistan to return the US$1b deposit in the State Bank even as they announced a plan to invest $40b in India. The Saudis’ ire originated with two unthinking “initiatives” by Imran Khan: first, his unsolicited attempt to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran; second, his bid to set up a rival bloc comprising Turkey, Malaysia, Iran and Pakistan to challenge the hegemony of the OIC in the Muslim world led by Saudi Arabia. Relations hit rock bottom some months ago when, upon Imran Khan’s urging, the foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, flew off the handle with a stinging public denunciation of the OIC’s lukewarm support for Pakistan position on Kashmir. Worried by the prospect of international isolation and censure especially at a time when the country needs all the economic help it can get to stay afloat – the Americans are “leaving” West Asia and joining hands with India in South Asia to confront China, a bloody civil war is threatening to engulf Afghanistan with massive spillover hardships for Pakistan, the EU-led FATF is threatening economic sanctions because of Pakistan’s dismal human rights situation amidst the rise of militant Islamic “terror” groups, the IMF is demanding anti-people economic policies, Covid-19 is surging ahead with a vengeance – General Bajwa quickly set about repairing relations. He nudged the Saudis and the Emirates to facilitate a ceasefire with India along the Line of Control. Then he persuaded Riyadh to extend an invitation to Imran Khan to visit the Kingdom and repair the damage. That is why and how Imran Khan’s current visit to Saudi Arabia was immediately preceded by General Bajwa’s short visit to smooth the Prince’s ruffled feathers.
Such reversals of foreign policy have compelled the Miltablishment to become hands-on in the arena of diplomacy – for example, the India backchannel – even as Imran Khan is given to hectoring foreign office cadres to “reform” themselves. Much the same situation exists on the economic front. The PTI’s first finance minister, Asad Umar, refused to go to the IMF for help and made a mess of economic policy. So Hafeez Sheikh was drafted in to get the IMF to bail out Pakistan. But he ran the economy further aground. Now the brass has dragged in Shaukat Tareen to renegotiate terms with the IMF and kick start growth. Thus, barely a month before the budget is due, the third finance minister in three years is burning the midnight oil revising core targets for next year and it is anybody’s guess whether he will last long enough to see the fruits of his labour.
Meanwhile, the administrative mess in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is getting messier. The brass has long advised competent go-getting chief ministers so that the PTI, which forms the bedrock of the hybrid political system in which it has invested so heavily, can deliver good governance to the hapless people of the two provinces. Alas, after relentless rounds of musical chairs for PSCMs, CSs, IGPs etc., the situation is so dire in Punjab now that a forward block of dozens of MPAs has bandied around the outcast Jehangir Tareen to blackmail the chief minister, Usman Buzdar, for tens of billions in scarce funds for “development”, a euphemism for corruption.
Pakistanis are livid. Unemployment has risen by 20 million. Double digit inflation, especially of food, has eroded real wages and incomes of the lower classes even as the big companies are raking in profits of over 100 percent on the back of the affluent classes. The indiscreet charm of Imran Khan has worn thin. The bye-elections have sounded the death knell of the PTI. The PMLN is surging ahead. Nawaz Sharif is looking credible again. As criticism of the Miltablishment rises for hoisting and propping up Imran Khan and his band of juvenile delinquents, General Bajwa and the brass are compelled to return to the drawing board all over again.
Sensing the time is nigh, Asad Umar recently threatened that Imran Khan would rather “dissolve” the assemblies and call for fresh elections himself rather than be kicked out. In this way, the argument goes, he can later claim he wasn’t ready to “take dictation” or abandon his quest to root out corruption by giving an NRO to the PPP and PMLN. But this reasoning is “rejected” by ground realities. The Great Khan of yesteryears is looking more like a modern day Don Quixote and his team of punters is tilting at the windmills.
They say that when a storm is approaching, the parasites are the first to discern it. That is why a notable number of pro-Miltablishment journalists have begun droning the countdown.
A wink or a nod …
The pall bearers of Pakistan’s foreign policy – GHQ as represented by General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Prime Minister’s Office as represented by Imran Khan and the Foreign Office as represented by Shah Mahmood Qureshi – are seemingly on different pages. Nowhere is this comedy of errors more starkly evident than concerning India. Consider.
In a hastily assembled National Seminar on March 18, 2021, in Islamabad, a speech read out by General Bajwa succeeded in stirring a lively debate by proposing a “paradigm shift” in Pakistan’s policy outlook from “geostrategy” to “geoeconomics”, a core plank of which was “normalization” of relations with India in order to reduce the defense burden of continuing military conflict. Shortly afterwards, the ISPR handpicked two dozen journalists to explain, clarify and solicit support for General Bajwa’s “historic” initiative.
The “take-away” by the media of a seven hour-long interaction with General Bajwa can be summarized. (1) An intel “backchannel” between India’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval and Pakistan’s DGISI, General Faiz Hameed, initiated as early as 2017 with the approval of the then PMLN PM, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, led to the important LoC ceasefire agreement effective February 24/25, 2021. (2) The Indian side had assured the Pakistanis that they were now ready to talk about other issues not as part of a composite dialogue but on an issue-to-issue basis after some “normalization” steps had been taken, with a dialogue on Kashmir included in this process.
However, perceptive analysts were quick to note certain points. (1) Pakistan had engaged in backchannel discussions with India despite its official public stance that it would not do so until India reversed its August 5, 2019, annexation of Kashmir. (2) These “talks” were conducted by the military establishment and not by the civilian government, even though they purported to go beyond the ceasefire agreement. (3) An attempt was being made to peg a degree of legitimacy to the proposed outcome by claiming that the civilian PMLN government of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had approved the initiative as long ago as 2017, which he was quick to disavow, confirming that the backchannel earnestly kicked off in late 2020. (4) The Indians were mum about all this, implying that their take was very different and they didn’t want to accept or deny anything.
The PM now gave a green light to the Commerce Ministry to allow imports of sugar and cotton from India which the ECC duly approved. But when questions were asked whether this signaled a U-Turn on policy of no trade with India until Article 370 was restored, the Cabinet reiterated the old policy, did a U-Turn and retained the ban.
Now GHQ and PMO were at odds over how to proceed further. Enter the more loyal than the king Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi. Mr Qureshi brazenly told a TV channel that the abrogation of Article 370 by India was “an internal matter of India”, suggesting that “normalization” steps could take place without any reference to it.
An uproar ensued. This compelled PM Imran Khan to brief a select group of journalists that, whatever GHQ’s compulsions, he simply couldn’t afford to “normalize” with India when his government was being tossed about in a storm of protest by the people over unemployment, inflation and impoverishment and the opposition was baying for his blood. Two days ago, he formally put an end to General Bajwa’s “paradigm shift” initiative of “normalization” with India by announcing that there would be no talks about anything with India until it reversed the actions of August 2019. Mr Qureshi had paved the way earlier by thumping the rostrum, clenching his teeth and claiming “Pakistan’s Foreign Policy is made here, in the Foreign Office!” meaning that GHQ can go fly a kite.
This is the latest twist in a tug of war between GHQ and PMO, with the FM in the middle, over how to make friends and influence people. An equally problematic approach has manifested itself in relations with Saudi Arabia. While the Miltablishment is keen to woo Riyadh for a host of reasons – ex COAS (retired) General Raheel Sharif heads the Saudi Coalition Force Command, the new Pakistani Ambassador to Riyadh is ex-CGS, General (retired) Bilal Akbar, and the COAS, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, has paid countless visits to the Kingdom to smooth the crown prince Muhammad bin Salman’s ruffled feathers, over transgressions by Imran Khan. These include an attempt to set up a rival bloc comprising Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia against the OIC headed by Saudi Arabia and don the mantle of an interlocuter between Saudi Arabia and Iran without the blessings of MBS!
It may be recalled that relations hit rock bottom in August 2020 when the overzealous Mr Qureshi, launched a stinging attack on the OIC for not censuring India over its annexation of Kashmir in 2019, sending General Bajwa scrambling for cover once again. Understandably, Mr Qureshi was not on board Pak Air Force One carrying PM Imran Khan to Riyadh last week. Equally, MBS has not immediately showered his largesse on Imran Khan, who has returned with nothing more than a promise of investment of up to half a billion dollars (peanuts) in undefined investment projects for Pakistan in the future.
Meanwhile, the stage is being set for new strains in the relationship between General Bajwa and Imran Khan. Regardless of the truth or merits of the case, the release of Shahbaz Sharif has fueled rumours that some sort of “deal” has been engineered by the brass with the opposition that will lead to regime change in the near future. This has provoked Imran Khan’s army of trolls to accuse the judiciary of kowtowing to the generals and the government has unleashed the FIA and NAB to “get Shahbaz” again.
The budget season is upon us. Hardship looms for the “common” man. All that is needed is a wink from somewhere to the PMLN, PPP and JKT Forward Bloc to spring into action and stop the budget from being passed, effectively reposing no-confidence in the prime minister. But Imran Khan is not about to be caught lying down.
New construction site
The hybrid regime is unravelling not because the combined opposition parties have succeeded in flooring it but because Imran Khan is digging his own grave. In less than three years, he has hounded the opposition, he has outraged the people and he has alienated the very Miltablishment that brought him to office and invested so heavily in the hybrid system. The only reason he’s around today is that the Miltablishment is still poring over the floor plans of the new construction site.
Imran Khan’s narrative was built on three pillars. Accountability of opposition and government. Comparatively better performance. Collaboration not conflict with Miltablishment. He has failed on all three counts.
Mr Khan has pushed NAB, FIA, IB, FBR, etc., to bung opposition leaders into prison on shrill charges of corruption and money laundering of trillions. Yet, despite a relatively compliant judiciary, not one accused has been convicted, not one paisa recovered from anyone. On the contrary, the whole accountability narrative has been converted into a relentless witch hunt which has only served to destroy the credibility of the organs of the state complicit in this engineering. Worse, the focus of accountability has now shifted from the opposition to his own party whose stalwarts are perceived to have their hands in the till but are unduly protected from scrutiny. There are scandals galore in the PTI’s carpetbag — BRT, Malam Jabba, Ring Road, Foreign Funding, Housing Societies, Sugar subsidies, etc., that are now making screaming headlines.
The much-maligned PMLN government’s performance looks stellar in comparison with that of the blundering PTI regime. GDP growth has fallen from 5.5% in 2017-18 to 1.1% in 2020-21; real wages of the working classes have declined by nearly 6% in the last three years compared to growth of 3% in the previous regime; unemployment has risen to 20 million; Impoverishment of the masses has increased as fast as indebtedness of the government; food inflation is galloping at over 15% every year; and so on. Every economic and welfare indicator is down. It is a dismal story of mismanagement and failure on an unprecedented scale. The bigger tragedy is that the machinery of government has now stopped taking or obeying orders and ground to a halt in an environment of fear of unleashed watchdogs and arbitrary postings and transfers.
Imran Khan’s failing anti-corruption narrative and policy performance has now compelled the Miltablishment to step in and stop the rot before its own credibility for imposing this hybrid regime on the hapless people of Pakistan is further eroded. It has long demanded an efficient and clean government in the Punjab, which is half of Pakistan. But there are no takers for it in Bani Gala. It has continued to press for better economic policy but the futile game of musical chairs and U-Turns continues unabated in the power corridors of Islamabad. To cap it all, Imran Khan has refused to support the army chief’s public proposal of the need for a “paradigm change” in foreign relations strategy, especially in “normalizing” with India, based on a national consensus backed by the opposition parties.
Under the circumstances, Shahbaz Sharif is now “free” to pursue his narrative of rapprochement between PMLN and the Miltablishment and consult with Nawaz Sharif in London about the way forward. Thus PMLN spokesmen like Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Muhammad Zubair have bent over backwards to deny any rift with the Miltablishment. And efforts are afoot to revive the PDM. Meanwhile, Jehangir Tareen, the Miltablishment’s evergreen asset, has been nudged to set up Forward Blocs in the Punjab Assembly and in the National Assembly, ready to strike if Imran Khan refuses to budge.
There are, however, two stumbling blocks in the developing scenario. The first is Nawaz Sharif’s refusal to accept any compromise on the core elements of his narrative: free and fair fresh elections immediately; and a guarantee of non-interference by the Miltablishment in the affairs of elected civilian governments. The “interim” arrangement after the proposed exit of Imran Khan and the holding of fresh elections, no less than the choice of prime minister in the next dispensation, is also a matter of concern and debate. But these are not insurmountable, provided the Miltablishment is serious about regime change.
The second is the Miltablishment’s fear that Imran Khan out of power might prove to be an even bigger headache than in power, especially if its proposed new arrangement with the PMLN succumbs to trust deficits on both sides in time to come, leaving no fall back position. But this apprehension is unwarranted. The leaderships of the Miltablishment and PMLN are expected to henceforth conduct themselves in a non-antagonistic manner in light of their policies of mutually assured destruction in the past that have come a cropper. No less, Imran Khan will be in no position to attack the Miltablishment since the record will show how hard it had worked to bring him into office and harder still to prop him up when he was flailing about. Equally, Pakistanis are not likely to forget his disastrous performance. Similarly, the media, which has suffered badly at Khan’s hands, is not going to forget or forgive in a hurry. Finally, it is more than likely that the very state institutions that are today targeting his opponents at his behest will turn their guns on him, compelling him to run from pillar to post and busy himself trying to save his skin.
The die is cast. Imran Khan is much too stubborn, arrogant and narcissistic to compromise or change tack. Add the word “superstitious” to this litany of political negatives since his last nuptials. But the PMLN and Miltablishment are realistic and pragmatic political players. Therefore the chances are that sooner rather than later, despite hiccups and false starts, some way forward will be mutually found to reset the political map of Pakistan on a sounder and more workable footing. God knows how desperately we Pakistanis need some representative political stability and concrete social welfare in our everyday lives.
Trojan Horses
Once again, Pakistan is faced with a crisis of political instability and uncertainty. Half-way through its five year term, the PTI hybrid regime is struggling to stay afloat. It has mismanaged the economy, demonstrated a cavalier approach to the pandemic and hounded the opposition without successfully discrediting it. The Miltablishment that engineered the PTI’s accession to office is smarting from the popular backlash against it and drawing up plans to get out of the fix.
But the nature of this crisis is fundamentally different from apparently similar ones in the past when political parties used to vie with, and conspire against, one another for the favours of the Miltablishment to win office. Today, the most popular party in the country, the PMLN, backed by small sub-nationalist regional parties, is challenging the writ of the Miltablishment while the mainstream PPP, ANP, et al, are lining up behind it. This is a historic role reversal. The PML was always a handmaiden of the Miltablishment because of its base in the Miltablishment’s Punjab heartland, while the PPP in Sindh and ANP in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa always billed themselves as anti-Miltablishment players. Consequently, the outcome of this struggle for political office is threatening to become a bid for redistributing power in the civil-military matrix of Pakistan.
This process, however, is riven with deep contradictions and conflicts that are spawning the latest new round of instability and uncertainty. Consider.
The Miltablishment conspired to oust Nawaz Sharif from office when he began to challenge its writ. Having rejected the PPP as an incompetent and unreliable ally or partner, the Miltablishment now turned to Imran Khan and helped launch the PTI, just as it had done in the past when it launched parties and moulded them to its aims and objectives. Unfortunately, however, its latest experiment has failed to deliver and become a source of acute embarrassment that is undermining its credibility and hegemony. Far from being on the much acclaimed “same page” narrative, the two sides are bickering on foreign policy, economic revival, administrative management, accountability, even corruption in government, and are so suspicious of each other that they are contemplating alternative strategies for survival or change. Further, seizing upon Imran Khan’s discomfort stemming from this situation, groups of disgruntled PTI parliamentarians in Punjab and Islamabad have banded together to demand greater recognition and rights. Jehangir Tareen, an old Miltablishment asset who helped PTI get the numbers for governments in the Punjab and Islamabad in 2018 but was later edged out by Imran Khan for being over-ambitious, is waiting in the wings to display the same talent for horse trading, if required, to effect an “in-house” change.
On the other side, however, unity of action and focus on objectives are sorely missing. The Pakistan Democratic Movement founded last year to overthrow the PTI regime and compel the Miltablishment to retreat from its hegemonic position of power is in toxic disarray. In the wake of the PMLN’s surging popularity and the PPP’s dismal performance in Sindh that is threatening to undo its government in the next elections, Asif Zardari has succumbed to pressure and decided to line up behind the Miltablishment. His actions – helping the Miltablishment put together a pliant government in Balochistan, getting a Miltablishment man elected as Chairman Senate and getting their own man nominated as the opposition leader in the Senate despite promising the slot to the PMLN – betray his intent. As such, Maryam and Nawaz Sharif now consider the PPP a Trojan Horse of the Miltablishment and are against its machinations.
But the PMLN is also conflicted by Nawaz Sharif’s openly anti-Miltablishment stance. Indeed, Shahbaz Sharif and many mainstream PMLN leaders and followers are averse to confronting the Militablishment head-on as advocated by Nawaz Sharif and his heir apparent, Maryam. The “old guard” is scared of the consequences of the rebellious new policy but is reluctant to articulate its views because the popular vote now belongs to Nawaz while Maryam has captured the imagination of younger PMLN supporters. In any free and fair elections, the PMLN would sweep to a majoritarian victory and restore Nawaz and Maryam to office. But here’s the rub.
The Miltablishment is determined not to let that happen. It can live with a PMLN victory if Shahbaz Sharif is in charge but not Nawaz or Maryam. As leverage it continues to prop up Imran while playing footsie with Asif Zardari and Shahbaz Sharif. Thus when Shahbaz Sharif tries to establish control over the PMLN and negotiate terms with the PPP and Miltablishment, he is thwarted by Maryam, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Rana Sanaullah, Pervez Rashid, etc. with the tacit approval of Nawaz Sharif. That explains why Shahbaz Sharif has been stopped from bringing the PPP and ANP back into the fold of the PDM because such a step would tilt the PDM from being an anti-Miltablishment front into another apology for it.
Such intra and inter-party problems are accentuated by the lack of a credible and coherent policy framework by the Alt-PMLN to trigger radical change in civil-military relations as envisaged by Nawaz Sharif. But, without tacit support from the Miltablishment or a popular and violent upsurge against the current dispensation, the PMLN cannot overthrow the PTI regime, let alone guarantee free and fair general elections that return it to office in the near future. Nor is there any surety that once in office it will genuinely have the power to redefine civil-military relations in its favour. Under the circumstances, the olive branches proffered by Shahbaz Sharif and Asif Zardari to the Miltablishment have acquired a sense of “practicality” for getting back into the game and starting afresh.
The Miltablishment is in a hurry to tilt towards “geo-economics” away from “geo-strategy” as the defining parameter of Pakistan’s national security. It is wooing the international community, in particular the US and its allies in the Middle-East, to secure this gain. But it is hindered in its quest by the unpopular PTI that is unable to deliver its part of the management bargain and by the popular Alt-PMLN that is in open confrontation with it. Something(s) or someone(s) will have to give way sooner rather than later.
Naming names
The Pakistani media has fought long and hard to win some freedoms for itself and survived to tell a tale. It has faced the wrath of autocratic civil-military regimes, militant jihadis, ethnic terrorists, Islamic extremists and anarchist Taliban, suffering stiff fines, public lashings, long imprisonments, terrible torture, mysterious disappearances and even broad daylight assassinations. Not so long ago, when many such threats laid the media low, Pakistan had the dubious distinction of being called “the most dangerous country in the world for journalists”. Unfortunately, there is mounting evidence to suggest that the media is now facing an unprecedented existential threat under the hybrid regime headed by Imran Khan and underpinned by the Miltablishment.
Over the last seven decades, many laws have been enacted by illegitimate, insecure or authoritarian regimes to harass, pressurize, intimidate, manage and control the media. But with the arrival of the electronic age and mushrooming of “live” private television channels, the media was able to push back a bit. That scope for freedom of expression has now expanded significantly in the age of the internet and cyberspace, with global communication corporate giants like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc., and offshoots like YouTube, powering it into overdrive. In consequence, the current insecure hybrid regime is swiftly moving to crush the increasing impetus for free speech and civil rights.
Currently, two institutions representing the civil-military hybrid regime are being manipulated to manage and control the media. The ISPR is the Miltablishment boot while PEMRA is the civilian arm of this joint exercise. The FIA has now been brought into the loop of repression to put down social media activists. Hovering above are the invisible, unaccountable civil-military intelligence agencies obsessed with notions of 5th Generation Warfare in which elements of the independent media are constantly accused of being in the pay of foreign masters and following “enemy agendas”. Together these state institutions account for all the threats, warnings, legal notices, fines, closures, beatings, arrests and disappearances that have now become commonplace.
The evidence of this is piling up and spilling into the international media. The physical assault on journalist Asad Ali Toor last week has opened up all the wounds and compelled relatively independent sections of media and civil society to stand up and resist. The list of brave media warriors who have paid a high, often brutal, price for demanding free-speech and constitutional rights reads like a Who’s Who of prominence. Hayatullah (2003, kidnapped and killed); Umar Cheema (2010 kidnapped, beaten up); Saleem Shahzad (2011, disappeared, tortured to death and dumped in a canal); Hamid Mir (2014, shot and injured); Ahmed Noorani (2017 kidnapped, beaten up, exiled); Taha Siddiqui (2018, kidnapped, beaten up, exiled); Gul Bukhari (2018, kidnapped, intimidated, exiled); Matiullah Jan (2020, kidnapped, warned); Absar Alam (2021, shot, injured) and now Asad Toor (assaulted at home). Shockingly, not a single assailant or perpetrator has been caught by the mighty intelligence agencies without whose permission a leaf dare not stir. The Owner-Editor of the Geo-Jang Group, Mir Shakilur Rahman, has just spent seven months in solitary confinement in NAB quarters for not heeding the advice of these invisible agencies. Now Hamid Mir has been banned from Geo TV following his outburst against an alleged oppressor. In between, several prominent journalists are out in the cold, facing sedition charges filed by faceless complainants.
The hybrid regime is now threatening a Presidential Ordinance to forever gag all manner of dissent and free speech in print, electronic and social media. The proposed Pakistan Media Development (sic) Authority is draconian in scope and intent. Should it be bulldozed, we can be sure it will put an end to all critical debate or commentary on any forum, especially on TV, YouTube, and other social media platforms. But consider the consequences of what is likely to happen when a society that has tasted the fruit of constitutional democracy and yearns for more is gagged and suffocated in this manner?
To be sure, a major part of civil society will likely hunker down, partly because it has no faith in the judiciary to protect it and partly because it doesn’t have the resources for a prolonged conflict. But, inevitably, a significant section will revolt and seek aggressive ways and means to pursue its goals. This is natural. When any state hounds its citizens to the wall, it should expect at least some of them to lash out in desperation, sooner or later, to defend their rights. In other words, when free speech is gagged, one important safety valve in democracy is closed to pent-up emotional and political pressure. The nature of conflict also tends to acquire a personal tone in which the oppressed is not scared of naming the oppressor and discrediting the state institution which is represented. This is what is happening now with state institutions and their leaders in the hybrid system increasingly being exposed in the public imagination. The ice was broken by Nawaz Sharif in the opposition PDM’s Gujranwala rally last year when he targeted the army chief and DGISI by name. There is no going back now. Angry media spokespersons talk openly about culpable state organs and are quick to name names of Miltablishment chiefs.
The unrepresentative, overbearing and unaccountable organs of the state suspect every other journalist and politician who challenges their writ, ideology or strategy of being a “foreign agent”. The irony is that large sections of civil society now believe that these very state organs are waging 5th Generation war against the custodians of constitutional rights like the bar and bench, rights organization and the media. But just as brave journalists are standing up to be counted, judges are also stirring to protect their hard won independence. For every one Justice Qazi Faez Isa there will be two to follow in short order. Indeed, the day is not far when these besieged constitutional institutions will throw away the yoke of oppressor institutions and help society become freer.
Cricket in Crisis
Fawad Chaudhry, the federal information minister, has made a shocking announcement. He says that forthcoming cricket series between Pakistan and visiting international teams will not be shown on Pakistan television channels as a matter of government policy. Hundreds of millions cricket fans at home and abroad are outraged by the government’s logic for such an unpopular decision.
The government has decided to not allow Pakistan Television to buy broadcast rights for cricket matches between Pakistan and international teams from the Indian company that holds these rights because this would demoralize Kashmiris under the yoke of Indian oppression. Current government policy is against any trade and contacts with India until Article 370 guaranteeing autonomy to Occupied Jammu & Kashmir is restored by the Narendra Modi regime. Earlier, the government did not to allow the import of cotton or sugar from India even though both commodities were desperately needed to shore up domestic supplies and curb rising prices.
This is Topi Drama.
Despite the continuing bloodshed and repression in occupied J&K, both Pakistan Cricket Board and Pakistan Television have been doing business with Indian companies and professionals for decades, including during the current regime’s tenure, and all PSL and international matches have been shown on Pakistan TV. As we speak, the PSL matches in Abu Dhabi are being produced by Indian professionals contracted to the Pakistan Cricket Board, the same who have been provided special visas and security clearances to come to Pakistan and cover matches in the last five years! Indeed, it has been a long held position of both the PCB and successive Pakistan governments that sport and politics should not mix and the Indian government must not ban sporting links between the two countries regardless of hostile relations between them. In fact, the term “cricket diplomacy” was coined by both sides in the late 1980s when the two countries were on the brink of armed conflict and bilateral cricket matches were used to cool down temperatures. So what’s going on?
PTV is negotiating with Sony for broadcast rights in Pakistan. Sony’s majority ownership rests with Indian nationals and it holds South Asian rights to all international cricket matches held under the aegis of the International Cricket Council. In the past, PTV and Geo Sports would join hands with one of several international bidders for Pakistan rights. But since Sony gobbled up some of the competitors and acquired a monopoly, it is demanding its asking price. Cash strapped PTV is therefore in a bind. If it doesn’t cough up, it won’t be able to show cricket matches to hungry Pakistani audiences. It will also forsake tons of money from commercial advertising. So Fawad Chaudhry, who lords it over PTV, has come up with a cunning scheme to kill more than two birds with one stone. He has linked cricketing business with Indian companies to the situation in Occupied J&K in a bid to earn brownie political points. He has also strengthened his hand in negotiating terms with Sony by implying a middle way to resolve the crisis by signing the contract with Sony UK ( a British Company) or via an intermediary company owned by a Pakistani in the UAE. The latter option is a more expensive proposition because the intermediary will demand a commission for providing this service. Whether such commissions will be “shared” or not and with whom we cannot say for sure. But we can be sure that international cricket matches will definitely be broadcast on Pakistani television screens, Indian professionals will man the cameras and the repression in occupied J&K will continue unabated.
Since the PTI government imported a high cost management team to run PCB, doubling administrative costs without improving efficiency, Pakistan’s cricket world has reeled from one crisis to another. The democratic 2014 PCB constitution drafted by two ex-Supreme Court judges and approved by the Supreme Court of Pakistan has been knocked out of the ground. In its place, a fully nominated Board is now running the affairs of PCB. The core cricketing government “Departments” that funded, nurtured and trained domestic cricketers for seventy years with combined budgets in excess of PKR 1.5 billion every year have been abolished and replaced by Regional Associations manned by PCB officials, funded by PCB but controlled by provincial bureaucrats who cannot even efficiently run the provincial sports boards. The PSL international brand has been significantly devalued by senseless tournament interruptions in 2020 and 2021, resulting in a decline of viewership (therefore commercial value) by over 40 percent. This year the situation is worse because many double-headers in Abu Dhabi will be shown in the dead of night in Pakistan when the viewership is only 1 per cent of prime time. The PSL franchises are livid over losses resulting from payments of Licence Fees to PCB and players’ fees in US Dollars after a 40% devaluation, coupled with little gate money owing to the Covid crisis. But PCB is in no serious mood to resolve the crisis. Commercial contracts with a host of vendors are in trouble and business partners are seeking litigation. Lack of transparency has reached such heights that PCB is not ready to show accounts even to parliamentary sports committees tasked with oversight of sports boards. Worse, there is a steady stream of sifarshis in PCB administration, security, selection committees and national coaching departments, resulting in the abysmal performance of the national cricket team. Memories are fast fading of when Pakistan was ranked Number One in Tests, One Days and T20s, including winning the Champions Trophy, from 2015-2018 under the previous management that launched PSL and opened the gate for the return of international cricket to Pakistan.
The cruel irony in this decline of cricket in Pakistan relates to the fact that Kaptaan Imran Khan, our cricketing hero of 1992, is the new Patron of PCB. It is Imran Khan who has dictated the new model of domestic cricket that isn’t working. It is Imran Khan who has appointed the clueless bigwigs in the PCB. And it is Imran Khan who will ultimately be held responsible for the decline of the golden game in Pakistan.
Achilles Heel
For three days running, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Asad Qaisar, has been compelled to adjourn parliament because the Treasury benches wont allow the leader of the Opposition, Shehbaz Sharif, to duly speak on the 2021 Budget. MNAs have behaved like Guttersnipes, hurling abuse, fisticuffs and budget documents across the aisles, constraining the Speaker to expel seven members from the House. But the Speaker’s bias in conducting these proceedings has obliged the Opposition to seek a vote of no-confidence against him. Mr Qaisar sat back and allowed the situation to get ugly when it was palpably clear that the Treasury engineered the situation. He sanctioned four opposition members and only three from the government when many more abusive miscreants were easily identified amongst the Treasury benches. Some questions and consequences arise.
It is past routine for oppositions to try and drown out a finance minister’s budget speech. Such remains the acrimony between government and opposition that even Presidents have not been spared. Notions of bipartisan Speakers and Presidents were chucked out a long while ago because the holders of these offices did not abide by the spirit of the constitution that enthroned them. But opposition leaders were allowed their brief, fiery, thunder in the House as a consolation prize for having to endure oppressive and unaccountable governments. Alas, this practice was also buried in the grave of constitutional democracy these past few days when the opposition was out-opposed by the government in an unprecedented and aggressive manner. Should we be surprised that the Miltablishment that hoisted this hybrid civil-military system is quietly chuckling at its “democratic” dysfunctionality and secretly plotting its replacement by a more authoritarian Presidential system rather than a more democratic one?
More pertinently, we are not surprised by the unruly and undemocratic behaviour of the PTI in the National Assembly because it is at par with its oppressive attitude and practice towards the opposition outside parliament. Indeed, Imran Khan and his followers flaunt their objective to eliminate the PMLN and PPP from the body politic of the country and establish one-party rule. Therefore they have seized control of all the repressive organs of the state like the intelligence agencies, NAB, FIA, FBR, etc, and whipped them into persecuting and prosecuting anyone who’s anyone in the PPP and PMLN, so that no credible and capable opposition leader or party is left in the country to pose an electoral challenge to Imran Khan and PTI. Now they have carried the onslaught against the opposition to parliament where the government’s Achilles heel is the Budget, which is the opposition’s main target because it affects the lives of tens of millions of Pakistanis who are enraged by the PTI’s abysmal economic performance in the last three years that has fuelled crippling inflation, rising unemployment, significant income loss and poverty.
Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif, in particular, arouses the unmitigated ire of Imran Khan for reason enough. He is a much better administrator than Imran. On his own, he is more acceptable to the Miltablishment than Imran because he is less unpredictable and more experienced in state craft. In fact, on various foreign policy issues, the PMLN under Shehbaz would probably deliver more governance and strategic satisfaction to the Militablishment than the PTI under Imran. Imran Khan knows that if the Miltablishment could stitch a deal with Nawaz Sharif that keeps him out of its hair for the next five years and frees up Shehbaz to benefit from the swelling PMLN voter base, it would throw him (Imran) under the bus without any qualms. That is why whenever there is talk of some such deal in the offing when Shehbaz Sharif is enlarged on bail or allowed to travel abroad, Imran is quick to slap new corruption cases against him and stop him from pursuing any such objective. In recent times, Shehbaz Sharif’s pro-Miltablishment narrative has acquired a threatening degree of legitimacy within the PMLN after the floundering of Nawaz Sharif’s anti-Miltablishment narrative following the pull out of the PPP and ANP from the PDM and abandonment of the strategy to topple the PTI government via a combination of long marches and mass resignations from national and provincial parliaments.
The ongoing breakdown in the National Assembly is also a consequence of conspiracy theories that threaten to bring down the PTI government. It is speculated that there is no better time to dislodge the government than via blocking the budget from being passed because that would effectively amount to a vote of no-confidence in the government and constitutionally require the election of a new leader of the House followed by a new government in Islamabad without recourse to new general elections. The numbers of anti PTI MNAs are such that if the Miltablishment winked at the JKT Forward Block, it would easily side with the opposition and stop the budget from being passed, knocking out the government. Conspiracy theorists point to some facts that give weight to their suspicions: Nawaz and Mariam are no longer criticizing the Miltablishment; Shehbaz and Bilawal have joined hands; the rump-PDM is not trying to strike out on its own; the courts have suddenly and inexplicably “softened” against Shehbaz; the opposition’s decision to launch a vote of no-confidence against the Speaker seemed ominous; and important postings and transfers are on the cards within the Miltablishment, possibly even this month, that may not augur well for Imran Khan.
Whether or not Imran Khan has incorrectly weighed the Miltablishment’s suspected plotting and planning or the PMLN’s secret moves, he is not taking any chances. Shehbaz Sharif is the lone ranger who could be embraced by the Miltablishment to dethrone him; the pro-rich budget is his Achilles heel on which no critical debate can be allowed to misguide the poor; and this moment in parliament is fraught with dangerous possibilities and consequences. He is, in short, hoping to provoke the opposition to boycott proceedings in protest so that he can bulldoze the budget without any opposition and stave off the threat of no-confidence.
Burdens of history
Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi have recently made some startling statements, provoking outrage, resentment, alarm and even dismay at home and abroad. But they remain unrepentant.
Imran Khan thinks Pakistani women invite rape by spurning purdah or dressing immodestly. It doesn’t occur to him that when children, both boys and girls, are raped, it has nothing to do with the clothes they wear; that when women are raped, it isn’t about lust for women out of purdah but about power, domination and exploitation, whether to uphold male-dominated society’s notions of “honour” and “revenge” or impose conquest. Indeed, that is why, from ancient times, armies have practiced rape as a potent weapon of war and captive women have been paraded as a measure of bounty. That’s why it is outrageous of Imran Khan to accuse rape victims of “asking” to be violated.
Imran Khan also says that if the Kashmir issue with India were to be “resolved” somehow, Pakistan would not need to retain its nuclear weapons. This is a gratuitous serving. Since the Kashmir issue is never going to be “resolved” (in Pakistan’s favour), thus ensuring a running conflict, the nukes are here to stay and even grow. But even if a compromise “resolution” were ever to be negotiated, the sources of competition and conflict that fuel the regional politics of state power, hegemony, national pride and religio-civilizational identity would remain. Indeed, this view is as foolish as the one expressed by President Asif Zardari in 2008-09 when he offered to accept India’s stance on a no-first nuclear strike agreement between the two countries, quite oblivious of the core plank of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent policy as the significantly weaker state.
Mr Khan also believes that Osama Bin Laden was a “martyr” when the global state system, including Pakistan at the UN, had classified him as a dangerous international terrorist. In fact, when OBL was “taken out” by US Marines in May 2011 from a “safe” house in Abbottabad, the COAS and President of Pakistan were both quick to “congratulate” President Obama for his great achievement! Today, when one of the biggest threats to Pakistan comes from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Tehreek I Taliban Pakistan (an ally of Al Qaeda), it is shocking to hear the prime minister of Pakistan extolling their great leader and hero as a “martyr”.
Like his leader, Shah Mahmood Qureshi is also fast becoming an international embarrassment. “I’ll pass”, he mutters grimly when he cannot say whether OBL was a martyr or terrorist. This, when he is barely out of the international spotlight following accusations of anti-semitism on CNN because he is unable to tell the difference between Jews and Zionists. Mr Qureshi is also sparring with the Afghan Intelligence chief even as Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, is rushing about the region seeking a power-sharing formula to allay Kabul’s fears about Pakistan’s support for a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. This reminds one of the blistering attack by Mr Qureshi not so long ago on the Mohammad Bin Salman regime in Saudi Arabia for not supporting Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir in the OIC, only to be followed by the hectic diplomacy of General Bajwa once again to limit damage so that Saudi largesse can continue to keep Pakistan afloat.
The dilemma for PTI leaders is obvious. On the one hand, the government is desperate to get into the FATF white list and anxious for international support to revive its economy. This is why it is wooing international finance institutions like the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, etc., and countries like the USA, EU and Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, either because of the Miltablishment’s national security doctrines regarding India and Afghanistan or because of the anti-secular, Islamic-nationalist, mindset of its urban, civil-military middle-class constituencies, it is obliged to take an anti-West stance. That is why OBL becomes an “anti-imperialist” martyr, all Jews are Zionists who own the Western media and Palestine is a Muslim or Islamic cause because PTI’s domestic and expatriate constituency has been brainwashed over the decades to believe so.
Much the same sort of problem arises in Pakistan’s handling of the crisis in Afghanistan. On the one hand, there is no love lost between Pakistan and various secular Kabul regimes because Islamabad has long supported Islamic favourites (Mujahideen or Taliban) in Afghanistan But now it finds itself having to pull back from a full throttled Taliban seizure of power in Kabul that will likely arouse a blowback from America and the international community whose money and weapons are coveted by Islamabad. In fact, the prospect of renewed civil war and splintering of Afghanistan into ethnic power blocs supported by neighbouring countries is unsettling, not least because it is a recipe for further Indian leverage and meddling, renewed cross border terrorism by the TTP and Al Qaeda in Pakistan and a wave of refugees that will overwhelm our poverty stricken state. This would explain why Imran Khan is so definite in rejecting America’s demand for a base inside Pakistan from which to monitor and bomb its Taliban enemies in Afghanistan even as the Miltablishment would like nothing more than for American drones flying from, or over, Pakistan to target the TTP and Al Qaeda.
The rise of anti-Miltablishment Pushtun nationalism in FATA and Balochistan is a prime example of how Pakistan’s foreign policy dilemmas are being mismanaged by the PTI regime to crowd out domestic political consensus and stability. Tens of thousands of sullen Pashtuns turned out this week to mourn the mysterious death (murder, they said) of Usman Kakar, an anti-Miltablishment Pashtun nationalist, while the PM and FM were making sexist, anti-semitic comments and the PTI and PMLN were hurling budget documents at each other in Parliament. Never mind that only a few days earlier, the KP police had fired upon protesting Pashtun nationalists, killing three, injuring dozens and arresting scores. Never mind, too, that pro-Taliban, Pakistani Pashtun lashkars in Balochistan are getting ready to cross the border and fight alongside their Afghan Pashtun Taliban brethren while the Pashtun TTP in Afghanistan is gearing up to send terrorist squads into Pakistan. Such are the burdens of history.
Pakistaniyat
Imran Khan has exhorted “Pakistanis” to consciously absorb and practice “Pakistaniyat” to redeem respect and honour in the international market place of independent and sovereign nations. An exploration of this notion or concept, however, leads to troubling questions rather than easy answers. What, we might ask, are the salient, unique or distinguishing features of “Pakistaniyat” for Pakistanis at home and abroad? How do these square with foreigners’ perceptions of “Pakistaniyat”?
To be sure, we are not Indians. But then the rest of the world isn’t either. So there’s nothing unique about that.
Of course, we are Muslim. But then there are a billion other Muslims out there, over 400 million in the rest of South Asia. So this isn’t a distinction of identity. Nor have we managed to create a unique “Islamic state” that separates us from other nation-states and provides some sort of political marker, like for instance Shiite Iran or Wahabi Saudi Arabia.
There is nothing unique about the colour of our skin, dress or food either. We are part of the “brown” people of the world. The shalwar-kameez of our women is the staple of nearly all of India while our men are variously decked out. The irony is that our wonderful cuisine is served in “Indian” restaurants outside Pakistan. And our Sufi music, to which we lay claim so proudly, is rooted in classical Sub-continental gharanas.
If we were situated at any historic or civilizational crossroads, we could claim some identity or appreciation on that score. But we are still far from becoming the gateway to the natural riches of Central Asia or a conduit for oil and gas to the rest of Asia, let alone the world.
We definitely have calm oceans and sandy beaches and majestic mountains and great rivers and verdant valleys of incredible beauty. But where are the leisure retreats with dollar-rich tourists?
We might have tried to become a centre of higher educational excellence like India. Or offered affordable specialist facilities for “medical” tourists. But our graduate degrees are an acute embarrassment, our PhDs are not recognised anywhere in the world and our post ops nursing care is amongst the poorest in the world.
We were among the top cotton producing areas of the world. Yet our industry hasn’t significantly added value. Indeed, “Made in Pakistan” garments are a rarity amidst quality clothes from dozens of other similar countries. In fact, we hardly manufacture anything industrial that can compete internationally. That is why our high value-added imports are twice as much as our low value-added exports and we face a perennial balance of trade and international debt crisis.
Our reputation isn’t built on pillars of trust, accountability and public service institutions of democracy and justice that could elevate us to the ranks of upright nations and industrious peoples. Our Tax:GDP ratio is among the lowest in the world because we cheat and launder money with an air of respectability and self-righteousness. Indeed, our ruling elites are heavily invested in the very West that they decry so hypocritically at home.
Our language, Urdu, has fortunately progressed to the stature of a national language, despite violent hiccups in its journey among the other “nationalities”, regions and languages of Pakistan. In fact, the more India consciously tries to abandon or Sanscritise it, the more it acquires a unique Pakistaniyat status, at least in its literature and culture. But misplaced state attempts to Arabize it at the expense of its essential Persian roots have diluted its power no less than its “democratization” by the influx of English words and terms. The fact that Pakistani Pashtuns, Sindhis and Baloch still clutch at their native languages in everyday discourse and culture suggests that language is not central to “Pakistaniyat”.
Unfortunately, however, much of the influential world has rather negative perceptions of “Pakistaniyat”. Our green passport is the 4th most distrusted and least acceptable passport in the world. Over 250,000 Pakistanis are annually deported from the West and Middle East because of fraud or criminality. Since our ruling classes formally embarked in the 1980s on the mission of “Islamising” state ideology and societal consciousness, we have invoked extremist versions of militant, jihadist Islam that have destabilized not just our own Pakistan but also the region, threatening societies, cultures and geographies far beyond our own. If Osama bin Laden is a “martyr” in Pakistan, if the Taliban are perceived as “Made in Pakistan” strategic assets, if we are shielding Hafiz Saeed from the FATF, if the nuclear weapon in our basement is an Islamic Bomb, if the rucksack that explodes in a subway in London or New York or a knife attack on innocent bystanders is subconsciously attributed to some Muslim with Pakistani origins or links, what does that say of “Pakistaniyat”?
Some of us who are as old as Pakistan may recall a very different Pakistan from the one in which we live today. Time was when Pakistani women wore a simple dupatta over their heads for modesty but not a hijab or niqab for political identity or statement. Time was when the Pakistani passport didn’t require any visas for global travel. Time was when Pakistanis didn’t much care about how they were identified, when Sunnis, Shias, Qadiyanis, Deobandis, Barelvis, etc., were purely religious denominations instead of political ones. Time was when the state was ideologically neutral and Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Hindus lived peacefully together. Time was when a BA degree qualified a graduate to be fluent in English and Urdu instead of being lost in both. Time was when PIA was internationally lauded for being “Great People to Fly With” rather than a pariah airline flown by pilots with fake licenses. Time was when Pakistaniyat was defined by modesty, moderation and peaceful coexistence rather than arrogance, false pride, double-dealing, extremism and aggression. In fact, “enlightened moderation” was a password in the first three decades of Pakistan which subsequently failed to turn back the transformational tide of 1980s history.
If truth be told, the old Pakistaniyat barely survived the break-up of Pakistan in 1971 but the post 1980s Pakistaniyat is leading us into violent political and religious upheavals at home and isolation and hostility abroad. It’s time to stop deceiving ourselves and put Pakistaniyat in right order if we truly love Pakistan.
Reconciliation?
Prime Minister Imran Khan has appointed Shahzain Bugti of the Jamhoori Watan Party, an ally of the PTI government, as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on “reconciliation and harmony in Balochistan”. The announcement came following a trip to Gwadar by the PM to review “development” work in the province. This was also the occasion to oust the sitting Governor of the province, Justice (retd) Amanullah Khan Yasinzai, with whom there were running tensions, and replace him with a PTI loyalist, Zahoor Agha, with business interests.
The federal government’s attempt to “reach out” to diffuse “angry” Baloch dissidents waging war against Pakistan from safe border havens in Afghanistan and Iran is backed by the Miltablishment which is deeply worried about the deadly frequency of insurgent attacks. This issue has acquired a degree of urgency in the wake of the American departure from Afghanistan and India’s bid to consolidate its foothold and assets in the post-American dispensation. Therefore Islamabad has upped its public diplomacy about the “foreign hand” behind terrorist attacks in Pakistan – as for example the recent attempt to bomb the Lahore house of Hafiz Saeed, the anti-India jihadi leader and alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attack on 26/11, 2008, by pointing the finger squarely at India. It is also credibly alleged that the Baloch separatists are funded and trained by India.
Under the circumstances, we should not dismiss out of hand any attempt by the government to bring disgruntled Baloch elements waging war against the Pakistani state back into mainstream Pakistan politics. We have been there before. When the Khan of Kalat, Ahmed Yar Khan, refused to sign the document of accession to Pakistan shortly after Independence in 1947, his resistance was brushed aside and he was “incentivized” into mainstream Pakistani politics. But federal promises were not kept. Much the same thing happened to the Baloch tribal resistance against the imposition of One Unit in the mid 1950s – the rebellion led by Nauroz Khan petered out after the state pledged amnesty and compensation, but his sons were executed and he died in prison a few years later. In 1973, after rebellion broke out in the Marri areas following the dismissal of the democratically elected National Awami Party provincial government by Islamabad, the top Baloch leaders were arrested and the NAP was banned. But soon after General Zia ul Haq seized power in July 1977, his first act was to free the detained “rebels” and “traitors” from Hyderabad prison and grant them general amnesty on January 1, 1978. But, again, promises of compensation and accommodation in the organs of the state were not kept. This stream of broken promises has served to radicalize the rising urban Baloch middle class and steer them into mainstream Baloch nationalist political parties. But the state has not been ready to “trust” them with provincial power, dividing and ruling at will. Faced with another potential rebellion, President-General Pervez Musharraf ordered the elimination in 2006 of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a former high level state asset who had now become “unmanageable”. This triggered a Bugti tribal revolt that allied with disgruntled Marri sardars and tribesmen, slowly spawning an Afghanistan-based insurgency supported by the Afghan and Indian intelligence agencies as counter-leverage against Pakistan’s pro-Taliban and pro-Kashmir jihad policies. Now, faced with acute danger from the unravelling state in Kabul, Islamabad is once again offering some sort of “reconciliation and harmony” to the “angry” Baloch dissidents.
But so much blood has been spilled on both sides in the last decade, and so many Baloch families devastated by the “disappearances” of hundreds of loved ones, that mutual trust is in very short supply. Certainly, Imran Khan has not helped the cause of reconciliation by closing the door on those Baloch insurgents who are “linked to India”. But all the insurgent groups are linked to either Indian or Afghan intelligence agencies for training, sustenance, arms and ammunition. It may be recalled that a decade ago, Harbeyar Marri, one of the leaders of the Baloch resistance self-exiled in the UK, publicly admitted that he would accept assistance from India or America or the devil himself to further his cause for an independent Balochistan. This line of thinking and action is to be expected. Separatist or resistance movements in history have invariably sought safe havens in neighbouring countries and relied upon foreign governments to aid and abet them. In our own neighbourhood, Pakistan has provided such support to the resistance in occupied Jammu & Kashmir for nearly thirty years and to the Afghan Taliban for nearly two decades. So this caveat effectively makes such an offer of reconciliation a non-starter. Why then has it been made?
Shahzain Bugti’s disgruntlement with the PTI has been progressively worn on his sleeve. Indeed, he was edging closer to exiting the alliance with the PTI in the same manner as Akhtar Mengal did last year when he took his party into the PDM camp. It now makes good propaganda to designate a scion of the Bugti tribe, whose tribal leaders are in revolt, as a SAPM, and it makes good tactics to offer amnesty to the insurgents on the eve of a Taliban seizure of power in Kabul who may be subsequently leveraged by Pakistan to withdraw support to the insurgents. By linking reconciliation to cutting ties with India, Islamabad is incentivizing them to think seriously about laying down arms and returning home. Will this ploy work?
The anti-Pakistan forces based in Afghanistan – Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Baloch separatists, Islamic State and Al-Qaeda – are not about to disband or clutch at any parachutes made in Pakistan. Everything will depend on how long it will take for the Ashraf Ghani regime backed by the international community led by the United States to collapse and for the Taliban to extend their control over all of Afghanistan. Even then, the Taliban are likely to take into account Pakistan’s role in this critical period in aiding or hurting their cause before deciding how to treat these groups. Much will also depend on the domestic and foreign policies of the Taliban post-seizure of power and consolidation.
In short, Imran Khan’s offer of “reconciliation and harmony” to the Baloch through the offices of Shahzain Bugti is a non-starter, for now at least.
Asian or Afghan Solution?
More than any other country in our region, Pakistan is deeply worried about the Taliban’s swift advances in Afghanistan after the “withdrawal” of American and NATO troops ahead of the September deadline. The Miltablishment has separately briefed the leaders of the government, opposition and media about the difficult situation and hard decisions in store, and sought a “responsible” reaction from them – which means not taking sides in the conflict between the various stakeholders, in particular not glamourizing the Afghan Taliban by playing to the anti-American gallery in the country, nor reporting on any resurgence of Taliban terrorism in Balochistan or erstwhile FATA.
Islamabad’s stated position is that a power-sharing arrangement in Kabul is a necessary condition for peace in the country and stability in the region. A full-fledged Taliban takeover, it is argued, will prolong and deepen the civil war by provoking neighbours and the international community to react in an aggressive manner by stoking their respective proxies, bringing Afghanistan back full circle to 2001. Pakistan, in particular, is forecast to bear the brunt of the blowback from such a situation as happened earlier, both in terms of having to cope with a mass influx of refugees as well as a resurgence of violent Taliban terrorism in our borderland provinces. The Miltablishment has belatedly acknowledged that there are no good (Afghan) vs bad (Pakistan) Taliban and a Taliban seizure of power in Kabul is likely to entrench and embolden the Pakistani Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists in safe havens in Afghanistan to launch ever more fierce attacks in Pakistan.
The future American role in Afghanistan is of special concern to Pakistan. Islamabad was not in favour of an exit of American troops from Afghanistan before a power-sharing peace plan had been executed because it feared exactly the sort of scramble for power amidst heightened conflict that is now taking place. For much the same sort of fears, it is now opposed to a proposed “across-the horizon” American “repositioning” of power in Afghanistan that would likely rely on Pakistani air space to attack Taliban positions in Afghanistan in support of the Ghani regime. Such American intervention with Pakistani “facilitation” would draw the ire of the Taliban and diminish whatever little sympathy or leverage Islamabad currently has with them, making it impossible to have good relations in the event of the establishment of a Taliban Emirate in the future. This would explain why Islamabad has launched a “pre-emptive” strike against the notion of an American airbase on Pakistani soil, even though the Americans have not formally asked for it. Indeed, Imran Khan’s “absolutely not” remark was aimed at playing to the anti-American gallery at home no less than holding out reassurances to the Taliban. The problem for the Miltablishment, however, is that without scratching the backs of the Americans, Islamabad cannot hope to get significant relief from the IMF and related international financial institutions or FATF which have a stranglehold over the Pakistani economy. Thus another piece of Miltablishment advice to the opposition and media is not to stir controversy over secret US-Pak negotiations on such thorny issues.
Meanwhile, references to a revival of The Great Game in Afghanistan have started to provoke the imagination of political scientists. For various reasons, the Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Turk and Central Asian “istans” have become very active in the scramble for influence and power in Afghanistan. The Chinese want to link a CPEC road/rail corridor through Afghanistan to Central Asia and later on to the Eurasia Economic Union as part of its Road and Belt strategy. They already have stakes in building a Kashgar-Faizabad fibre-optic cable network, which they hope to later expand toward a China-Kyrgzstan-Afghanistan Silk Road System. They also want to ensure that any future Afghan regime does not stir pro-Uighur sentiment against China. The Russians and Central Asian “istans” don’t want Kabul to host Islamic militants from ISIS-Khorasan and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Iran is concerned too – there are about 800,000 registered Afghan refugees in Iranian border villages and over 2 million illegals. The Taliban now control most of Herat province and pro-Iran Shiite warlord Ismail Khan has deployed large militia forces to guard his key cities and airports. Turkey has already stationed troops to guard Kabul Airport. Pakistan is also looking to bridge the narrow Pamir Knot in Gorno-Badakshan that divides it from Tajikistan and link an electricity grid with it.
The Taliban are scrambling for talks with Iran, in Doha with the Americans and the Ghani regime, in Islamabad with Pakistan and in Dushanbe with the stakeholders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) — the Russians, Chinese, Indians, etc. Of course, Pakistan is a central participant in all these dialogues where it continues to insist on an intra Afghan dialogue to conclude a power-sharing formula that ensures an end to the civil war and brings peace and stability to the region. The main thrust of the Taliban, however, is to try and persuade these powers that an exclusive Taliban regime controlling all of Afghanistan will not be inimical to their respective interests. But a serious trust deficit between the Taliban and the various stakeholders has precluded any breakthrough so far. The specter of terrorism, extremism and separatism continues to haunt the region.
The notion of an “Afghan solution” originally proposed by Pakistan and the US is being quickly overtaken in the SCO by the idea of an “Asian Solution” that provides a road map for political stability to promote economic development via huge infrastructural projects in the region. China is the moving force behind this. This week’s SCO moot is going to be an important springboard for such a trilateral mechanism. With the prime ministers of Pakistan and India both attending, and many top officials of the other participating countries, including foreign ministers and heads of Intel agencies, hopes are high that some headway can be made to stop the slide into a fierce civil war that compels the US to wade into Afghanistan all over again on the shoulders of Pakistan.
AJK Election Forecast
Maryam Nawaz Sharif has just wrapped up a cracking tour of electioneering in Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) where she was swamped by adoring crowds. Her energy – sometimes as many as three rallies every day – infected the people who erupted with rousing welcomes wherever she went. Rarely has AJK supported an opposition leader in such a thumping manner. Some of the scenes were reminiscent of the fervent rallies by Benazir Bhutto when she returned to Pakistan as a conquering heroine in 1986. The political norm is for Kashmiris to support and elect the party in power in Islamabad because of the dependent relationship with Pakistan. Can it be different this time round?
The PTI is the front runner not because it is the most popular party – far from it – but because of this dependent relationship. People don’t like “wasting” their votes on the opposition when there is no chance of the opposition forming a government in Islamabad and presiding over their fate for at least two more years. Still, Imran Khan’s rallies have lacked enthusiasm and those of his lieutenants have been drab because they have nothing concrete to pledge or any singular achievement to tout. Their one point agenda – “the opposition are all crooks, thugs, “dakoos” – is ringing hollow by the day because not a single institution of the state – NAB, FIA, FBR etc. – has been able to get a single conviction from the courts despite the fact that many judges have often bent over backwards to accommodate the government.
On the contrary, the PTI government’s mismanagement of the economy has inflicted so much pain on lay Pakistanis that Nawaz Sharif’s era seems like a golden age! A recent Gallup Poll claims that nearly 80% of Kashmiri respondents are worried about the dismal state of their everyday lives – lack of clean drinking water, electricity load shedding, inflation, inadequate health facilities, unemployment, education, etc. Apparently only 3% think “corruption” is a bothersome issue.
Worse, the PTI’s India-Kashmir policy of blowing hot and cold hasn’t won it many admirers. After Narendra Modi knocked out Article 370 in August 2019, Imran Khan went to Muzaffarabad and exhorted the enraged Kashmir Prime Minister, Raja Farooq Haider, not to get emotional and march across the Line of Control to provoke India. Subsequently, the Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmud Qureshi, took the position that the abrogation of Article 370 was “an internal matter” of India while Islamabad seriously thought about opening up trade with India. Furious back pedaling by PTI leaders since then has not allayed Kashmiri suspicions that the PTI government’s India-Kashmir policy is impotent.
The PPP also has a historical vote bank in AJK. The fact that it is now openly allied with the Miltablishment may count as a plus factor in this week’s elections. Voters know that it can’t possibly form a government in Islamabad now or in the future, nor one in Muzaffarabad, but a vote for it may enable it to become part of a coalition government with the PTI in AJK and thereby safeguard their local interests. This may be why Bilawal Bhutto has scooted off to the US in the midst of an election campaign. He obviously thinks there’s not much he can do to sway the AJK elections beyond the given parameters of the situation.
Two recent developments have cast a shadow on these elections. The first is the blatant transgression of electoral rules and codes of conduct by the PTI’s Minister for Kashmir and Gilgit Affairs, Ali Amin Gandapur. The fact that he is still canvassing despite orders by the Election Commission to leave the area confirms the weakness of the EC and suggests it will not be able to enforce its writ and conclude a clean and free election. The second is the withdrawal of the ISI’s Station Commander for AJK who is accused of trying to manipulate the elections to hoist a particular PTI financier as the next PM of AJK. Imran Khan’s candid admission that there may be “Do Numberiay” (crooked) candidates on PTI tickets hasn’t exactly led to a surge in PTI’s popularity!
The most striking thing about this election campaign, however, is Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s strident and confident tone. Those who accused Nawaz Sharif and Maryam of silently towing Shahbaz Sharif’s pro-Militablishment line must think again. Maryam has continued to drum up several themes: Nawaz Sharif’s critique of Miltablishment leaders for blatant partisanship is not an attack on the institution of the Pakistan army – the implication here is that this critique of leaders may be relaunched if they don’t “behave”; the designated “traitors” in the PMLN are actually true patriots with a popular pro-people history; the Miltablishment and PTI are no longer on the “same page” and serious differences have cropped up – which is meant to suggest that political space for the PMLN may open up sooner than later; a prerequisite for attending to Pakistan’s mounting problems is the granting of sanctity to the popular vote (“vote ko izzat do”) which means the Miltablishment must not connive or conspire to rig elections and deny legitimate government to Pakistan.
The Gallup Survey claims that Imran Khan is the most popular politician in AJK. But the current President of AJK, Masood Khan, a Miltablishment appointee, doesn’t seem to inspire Kashmiris. It also says that a majority of Kashmiris rate the performance of the current PMLN Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider as quite satisfactory. More significantly, if one measures popularity by the size and animation of the rallies, Maryam Nawaz is leading from the front. So what sort of result should we forecast?
The balance of power in AJK is weighted in favour of the Miltablishment and its selected PTI party and prime minister in Islamabad. The PPP’s alliance with them will ensure that in the worst-case scenario they will still be able to form a coalition government. But a strong oppositionist PMLN is likely to make their ride rough, biding its time until there is a shake up in Islamabad that prods the PPP to switch sides in Muzaffarabad.
We shall see
The Election Commission of Azad Jammu Kashmir has declared the Pakistan Tehreek i Insaf, with 25 out of 45 seats, as the winning party in the state’s elections that concluded last Sunday. The PPP is runner-up with 11 seats and the PMLN trails behind with just 6 seats. Most analysts had predicted a PTI win, not because it is the most popular party in the country (in fact, quite the opposite) but because, in line with past practice, the voter in AJK has invariably sided with the ruling party in Islamabad because he/she doesn’t want to waste his/her vote since AJK’s well-being is umbilically linked to the sitting government in Islamabad which controls its purse strings and to the Miltablishment which controls its administration.
Indeed, for similar reasons, we too had predicted a PTI government in Muzaffarabad. “The balance of power in AJK is weighted in favour of the Miltablishment and its selected PTI party and prime minister in Islamabad. The PPP’s alliance with them will ensure that in the worst case scenario they will still be able to form a coalition government.”
But we had qualified our forecast with serious observations. For starters, we had noted how the Election Commission of AJK was much too weak to ensure free and fair polling: “Two recent developments have cast a shadow on these elections. The first is the blatant transgression of electoral rules and codes of conduct by the PTI’s Minister for Kashmir and Gilgit Affairs, Ali Amin Gandapur. The fact that he is still canvassing despite orders by the Election Commission to leave the area confirms the weakness of the EC and suggests it will not be able to enforce its writ and conclude a clean and free election. The second is the withdrawal of the ISI’s Station Commander for AJK who is accused of trying to manipulate the elections to hoist a particular PTI-financial supporter as the next PM of AJK.”
In the event, we have been proven right even beyond our expectations. The margin of the PTI’s win and PMLN’s loss is quite unbelievable for a host of solid reasons.
Consider. First, the circumstantial evidence. Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s rallies were very impressive, Imran Khan’s were drab and Bilawal Bhutto left for the US midstream. The final results belie this eyewitness account.
Second, there are many videos on social media that point to rigging in one manner or another. In one, EC staffers are seen with bagsful of votes in their possession, complaining that the Returning Office has vanished without the full record. In another, a vehicle with soldiers in it flaunts a PTI flag. A clip from a TV show is most interesting. It shows Nabeel Gabol, a minister in the PPP government in Karachi, admitting candidly that “we were promised 16 seats but are happy with the 11 that we have got”! Asked who made such an extraordinary pledge, he grinned sheepishly and said “the voters, of course”, which sent the other participants in the panel reeling with embarrassed laughter. The PMLN is on record criticizing the EC AJK for withholding the results in many critical constituencies for over an hour, suggesting targeted fixing.
The data also imply a level of serious and targeted rigging. In this election, the PTI has won 25 seats on the basis of 32% of the vote while the PMLN got over 25% of the vote but only 6 seats. No less extraordinary is the fact that the PPP with only 18% of the vote was rewarded with 11 seats (for which Mr Gabol is rightly grateful!). One can hardly hold the “first past the post” system responsible for such an aberration!
In the last hours of the election campaign, both Nawaz Sharif and Maryam warned voters that the Miltablishment would try to steal the election much as it had done the general elections in 2018. “Guard your vote, defend it,” they exhorted, “If your vote has no sanctity, the country, the nation, the constitution are finished”. It seems, however, that the only response these exhortations received was from the Miltablishment that swept the decks and returned the PTI with a clear majority. If the PPP had been awarded its promised 16 seats, giving the PTI no more than 20, there would have been a coalition government in Muzaffarabad. Indeed, to add insult to injury, the Miltablishment has ensured a victory in the Sialkot bye-elections for the PTI which the PMLN had handsomely won in 2018.
This result has led to some serious debate about what lies in store for the country in general and the PMLN in particular. Is this a sign that the Miltablishment, far from retreating from a loss of credibility among Pakistanis and adopting a neutral stance in politics, has determined to go the whole hog with Imran Khan, come hell or high water, which means another rigged election in 2022-23 and another five years for Imran Khan? Does it mean that Shahbaz Sharif’s narrative of cozying up to the Miltablishment and Nawaz Sharif’s narrative of challenging it have both come a cropper?
To be sure, there is, as the cliché goes, many a slip between the cup and the lip. PMLN optimists are hoping that serious cracks will develop within the top Miltablishment leaders over personal ambitions that will undo the Holy Trinity that lords it over Pakistan and open up space for either Shahbaz or Nawaz Sharif. Others are praying that Imran Khan will make some critical mistake that destroys his “same page” camaraderie with the Miltablishment. Some believe that the crisis of state and society is so severe – failing economy, anger on the streets, international outcast status, rising tide of militant Islamism, cross border terrorism and great power regional rivalries – that only a return to consensual democratic civilian rule can pull the country out of the abyss and that it is only a matter of time before this logic is understood and acted upon by the Miltablishment.
Whatever the pros and cons of these speculations, prayers and hopes, one thing is now certain. Nawaz Sharif is more than ever convinced that his narrative will triumph in the end and a crisis of state and society will compel the Miltablishment to beat a historic retreat sooner or later. We shall see …
Narratives
Is there a rift between Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif that is bound to splinter the PMLN, as Sheikh Rashid has predicted, and enable the Miltablishment to continue unchecked on its one-page path with the PTI? We don’t think so.
There is certainly a strong difference of opinion between the Sharif brothers on how to run the party with a particular narrative, to get back into office. Shahbaz believes Nawaz’s obsession with “confronting” or “opposing” the all-powerful Miltablishment over a range of issues is responsible for the PMLN’s plight. Therefore he wants Nawaz and heir-apparent Maryam to zip up and cool their heels outside Pakistan so that he can cozy up to the Miltablishment and neutralize it. But Nawaz says the Miltablishment is part of the problem of Pakistan and not its solution. He says he hasn’t sacrificed his government three times in the last thirty years and suffered imprisonment and exile to throw in the towel now just so that brother Shahbaz can make a futile bid to become prime minister of Pakistan. The problem is compounded because a majority of the PMLN “rank” (electables) is inclined to bow and scrape before the Miltablishment while a majority of the “file” (voters) is inspired by Maryam and Nawaz Sharif’s resistance to the same Miltablishment. Thus the clash between “Realism” and “Constitutionalism” – which the brothers have been respectively pushing – has burst into the open. Shahbaz’s recent public statements in defense of his narrative have been overtaken swiftly by a Twitter Thread from Nawaz reiterating his defiant anti-Miltablishment position and closing the debate that has plunged the PMLN into confusion and despair. Shahbaz can now opt to revolt and split from the PMLN or hunker down and follow his leader.
But there are problems with the splitting option. For one, the popular vote belongs to Nawaz and Maryam and the Electables know this fact. So Shahbaz’s rump (PML S) may not amount to much. Second, the Miltablishment is not going to prefer Shahbaz’s rump to Imran Khan’s resurgent PTI with which it has done good business so far. Indeed, a split in the PMLN would actually strengthen the PTI-Miltablishment unholy alliance and put paid to Shahbaz Sharif’s narrative.
There are also problems with Nawaz Sharif’s narrative. Why should the Miltablishment allow a free and fair election that returns Nawaz to power when it is his avowed intention to clip its wings and put it out of business? But in the absence of any discernable and credible strategy to put a spoke in the wheels of the Miltablishment-PTI alliance, is Nawaz whistling in the dark? Indeed, if the recent AJK election results are a forewarning of what lies in store, the prospect of the PMLN “losing salience” is very real.
However, some developing factors could scramble such rational calculations. On top of the list are the personal ambitions of the two top Miltablishment players. At best, only one can find fulfilment next year, and his fate or destiny is in the hands of Imran Khan. Any conflict in this sphere could open up space for the opposition and spur one or another option. The second is the crisis of state and society that has acquired unmanageable proportions and could lead to an implosion with consequential options.
The current crisis is both unprecedented and multilayered. In the past, crises of economy or domestic political management were overcome by the Miltablishment either by virtue of large cash dollops from America (for pushing its global agendas) that gave a fillip to the economy or by effecting change of any civilian government through other pro-Miltablishment civilian options at hand. Now such scenarios are remote. The Miltablishment is at serious odds with America on geo-strategic issues, suggesting negative consequences. Equally, the Miltablishment has never faced the prospect of hostility on both eastern and western borders as acutely as now. But with its economic survival linked to the international capitalist community (trade, aid, private investment, remittances, debt payments, exchange rate and sanctions), the China option is not a serious starter. Similarly, with Imran Khan determined to wipe out both the PPP and PMLN, the option of some other popular back-up or fallback party is not available. Worse, the Miltablishment has never before faced acute criticism for its political shenanigans in its home province of Punjab. Sooner rather than later, all these concerns and tensions may erode its will and ability to continue in the current political direction at home and abroad.
Nawaz Sharif says that power only respects countervailing power and it is his aggressive anti-Miltablishment stance that offers leverage in the longer run. On the face of it, the Miltablishment’s successful break-up of the PDM by neutralizing the PPP is in the same vein as its efforts to break-up the PMLN by baiting Shahbaz.
Now the British government has rejected Nawaz Sharif’s application to extend his stay and the PTI is over the moon. But this is a potentially explosive development that raises several questions. Why did it take the UK government two years to decide his case? Will his popularity at home be dented if he resists the UK decision?
Nawaz Sharif has been dragged over the coals in Pakistan for three years but his popularity has grown instead of being dented. So his decision to appeal will not ruffle his supporters. Surely he knew what was coming. If he was afraid of being dragged back he would hardly have reiterated his anti-Miltablishment stance two days ago. He must also have strategized with his lawyers and political advisors in advance of this development. Does he think the court will give him a great and lengthy opportunity on an international platform to make his case of victimization and miscarriage of justice against the Pakistani Miltablishment, government and judiciary when all are in the eye of a gathering storm in the region?
Nawaz Sharif will surely return to Pakistan one day. But on whose terms? A good time for a voluntary return to court arrest would be on the eve of the next elections whenever these are held.
Message and medium
The Taliban are on the verge of seizing Kabul after having successfully forced – by a combination of military and diplomatic measures – the Western powers to quit Afghanistan after a twenty year-long occupation, and leave the tottering puppet Ashraf Ghani regime to its fate. This imminent defeat has triggered a blame game. The Americans and Europeans accuse Pakistan, an avowed ally and recipient of continuing Western largesse, of playing a “double game”, first by protecting and nurturing the Taliban for twenty years and now by refusing to leverage its influence with them to compel a negotiated peace and power-sharing deal in Kabul. The Pakistanis argue that the very nature of the unthinking Western intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 saddled them with the Taliban problem, exacting huge costs in human and financial terms, and President Donald Trump’s unilateral announcement of a “pullout” before a settlement could be reached, followed by President Joe Biden’s equally unilateral cut-off September date, has robbed everyone, all the regional powers but especially Pakistan, of any leverage to negotiate any peace or power-sharing deal.
If truth be told, there is merit in both points of view, which makes the “blame game” problematic. But at the end of the day, it is Pakistan that is fated to suffer the blowback from the Taliban victory while America can lick its wounds and try to “scapegoat” Pakistan from far away. Indeed, the turmoil and strife in Afghanistan continues to pose the greatest existential threat to Pakistan since independence.
Pakistan is in trouble. Its economy is dependent and ailing. Its political will is disenfranchised and dispirited. Its neighbours are distrustful and alienated. Now its western benefactors, especially America, are turning against it. We say we have a story to narrate but no one is listening to us because we are being “scapegoated” for others’ sins of omission and commission in Afghanistan.
One argument is that we don’t know how to tell our story, that the state continues to depend on “pedestrian ways” to tackle a complex problem. As one respected commentator put it, “the grim reality is that the Pakistani state has no idea how to weave a story around its actions – how to focus on the right audience, in the right language, through the right platform, with the right message, via the right medium – and how to narrate it to those who need to hear it”. In other words, it’s the medium, not the message.
But the truth is more complex and complicated. Regardless of how our state can be tutored to brilliantly fashion Pakistan’s narrative and target the “right audience”, it will still have to contend with over thirty years of distrust and lack of credibility in Western capitals. As General Hameed Gul, that great strategist of the Pakistani state once publicly boasted, “Our ISI has defeated the Russians with the help of the Americans in Afghanistan and now we are going to defeat the Americans with the help of the Americans”. From the parting shots of Admiral Mike Mullen, then Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff and best friends with our own General Ashfaq Kayani, that the “Haqqani network was a veritable arm of the ISI”, to President Trump’s tweet accusing Pakistan of “lying and deceiving the US while receiving billions of dollars in foreign aid”, and President Biden’s reluctance to make a courtesy phone call to the Prime Minister of a “strategic ally”, no one should be surprised why our “narrative” is not getting any mileage with the “right audience”.
Worse, for much the same sort of reasons of distrust and alienation, our state also has an increasingly serious problem selling its “stories” at home. Thus when our state representatives exhort all “stakeholders to play their part positively … in a whole-of-the-nation approach” in Pakistan, this is not readily forthcoming. There is one main reason for this: the Miltablishment is not neutrally wholesome, it has hoisted an unrepresentative political dispensation that signals the demise of electoral democracy and tears up the social contract between rulers and ruled enshrined in the Constitution and pits most popular mainstream parties against its meddling and engineering. Consequently, an unprecedented attack by the deposed leader of a mainstream political party on the leading lights of the Miltablishment has evoked a “positive” response from a populace whose vote has not been honoured. That is why the trust that glues the organs of the state to the purposes of the people is slowly disintegrating, posing new conflicts and dilemma for the state that defy any “whole-of-the-nation- approach”.
Since the Miltablishment embarked on the politics of hybridity, we have consistently argued that the “era of the tail wagging the dog” – a country for a state rather than a state for a country – was coming to an end because powerful externalities were poised – in the aftermath of defeat in Afghanistan – to overawe traditional internalities just as powerful externalities had enabled the Pakistani state to define and manage internalities for the last seventy years. When America left Afghanistan and Pakistan after the collapse of the USSR in 1989, it ended four decades of aid to a front line state against communism. It then went on to sanction Pakistan for its nuclear program and cut off all aid in the 1990s. But after 9/11, 2001, it returned to the region, with dollops of dollars for the Pakistani state. Now it is exiting again, quite unilaterally, and intends to scapegoat the Pakistani state for “double-crossing” it all these years. Worse, if it begins to think of creative ways to “punish” Pakistan for the perfidies of its state, we are in for hard times. Regional and international isolation can pay havoc with our tottering economy, making it difficult to leash the demons of regional terrorism, religious militancy and nationalist separatism, all of which our state has recklessly spawned over the years.
If ever there was a time and need for national reconciliation to adopt a “whole-of-the-nation approach” to fend off internal and external challenges, it is now. It is a new message rather than the old medium that will count henceforth.
Ten days that shook the world
The Afghan Taliban talked and fought. They won. The Americans talked and ran. They lost. The end was foretold in 2020 when President Donald Trump announced an exit from Afghanistan without installing a broad-based, inclusive interim government in Kabul. But few – certainly not President Biden who actually gave an unconditional cut-off date in September for full withdrawal but believed that the Afghan National Army could fight on for another year at least — expected the ANA to fold and President Ashraf Ghani to flee in ten days. This followed the last round of talks among the internal and external stakeholders in Doha, August 10-11.
The Taliban’s brilliant strategy was based on the basic principles of guerilla warfare — gain Time to capture Space and use Space to erode the Will of the enemy to fight. This theory was first successfully enunciated by Mao Tse Tung in China in the 1930s and then by Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam in the 1960s. For a decade after their rout in 2001, the Taliban regrouped and reorganized on both sides of the Pakistan border, becoming bolder and more aggressive after 2010. But after signing the Agreement with the US in 2020, they dragged Time to forestall any US-selected “inclusive” government in Kabul while focusing on capturing Space in north Afghanistan – ethnically hostile regions led by warlords who had challenged and undermined their power in 1997-2001. Their tactics of talking and fighting on the front lines – “the Americans are leaving, lay down your weapons, surrender and go home, we won’t exact revenge or hurt you” – paid huge dividends. In the last stage, when the Americans began to progressively pull air support, commanders, trainers, contractors, and air supply lines to distant front lines were severely disrupted, the ANA lost critical elements of the war machine manufactured by the Americans, and crumbled. It didn’t help that massive corruption in the Ghani regime, including in the ANA, was a core demotivating factor, no less than the frequent shuffling of military commanders from the Presidency. The Taliban encirclement of Kabul was complete after the provincial garrison towns surrendered one after another and American soldiers caught their last flights home.
The biggest strategic mistake Ashraf Ghani made was fighting with Pakistan, a key stakeholder, and flirting with India, a distant spoiler. Pakistan’s stake in Afghanistan, for various reasons right or wrong, is forty years old. If Kabul couldn’t be overtly friendly with Islamabad, it should not have been overly hostile to it. Thus Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban became natural covert allies. The Americans, too, lost sight of the ball when they signed the 2020 Agreement by rejecting the Taliban’s demand to replace Ghani with an acceptable transitional option. What next?
In America, President Biden – who was banking on popular goodwill for “bringing the boys home” by ending “America’s longest war” – is besieged with a popular backlash at another “Saigon moment”. Approval for his exit strategy has fallen radically among Democrats and Republicans from over 70% to under 50%. This implies that America might scapegoat Pakistan for its defeat. The anti-Pakistan narrative of “safe havens”, “Haqqani network is a veritable arm of the ISI”, “double-crossing”, etc, is already well established. If pushed, it could estrange Islamabad and derail international efforts to stabilize Afghanistan under an inclusive regime with regard for core human rights.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban 2.0 can be expected to establish only a minimally acceptable inclusive regime with substantive levers of policy and power in their own hands. Initially they will try and run the country with an Amir ul Momineen or Supreme Leader at the helm of a handpicked Council of Ministers along the lines of Iran immediately after the Islamic Revolution. They will also crave international recognition and legitimacy by assuaging the fears of the regional powers – Russia, China, Iran, Central Asian States and Pakistan – by pledging economic cooperation and ending safe havens for regional militants, insurgents and separatists based in Afghanistan. For the international community, they will try to square their idea of human rights in an Islamic regime with Western notions of freedom and democracy.
These factors are going to make or break the Taliban 2.0 regime. Al-Qaeda, TTP, ETM, IS, Daesh, Baloch separatists, etc., will not be easy to knock out or neutralize quickly. Their ranks have been swelled by the thousands of prisoners who have been released. If they continue to spill over across borders, tensions with neighbours will arise. If any Al-Qaeda attack on US soil is uncovered with footsteps going back to Afghanistan, America will come under pressure to exact revenge again.
There is also the factor of Afghanistan 2.0. In the last two decades a new generation of Afghans has grown up in the light of secularism, media freedoms, women’s rights and information revolution. If the Taliban try to scuttle these in any brutal or swift manner, there will be a definite reaction at home and abroad with blowback consequences. Afghanistan 2.0’s economy — its financial system, education, administration and infrastructure , forex reserves, etc — are totally dependent on American largesse and aid.
Finally, much will depend on the experience and wisdom of the three top Taliban leaders who will guide Afghanistan into a new age. Their reputations and credentials precede them. The Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Akhunzada, was “an enthusiastic proponent of suicide bombings” who ordered his own son to blow himself up in an attack in Helmand province. He is also the strategist who fashioned the “talk talk, fight fight” strategy which proved so successful in the end. Sirajuddin Haqqani, number two, has been the “most dogged opponent” of the US who concentrated on “complex suicide attacks and targeted assassinations”. Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is the leading Presidential candidate, has served a decade in Pakistani prison on the say-so of the Americans.
Pakistan is poised to win or lose big time. If Taliban 2.0 neutralize anti-Pakistan elements based in Afghanistan and facilitate the Pak-China CPEC corridor to Central Asia and the Central Asian rail, road, gas and oil corridor to South Asia, it will reap enormous dividends. But if the Taliban victory and American defeat raise the spectre of Islamic radicalism inside Pakistan either by emboldening disgruntled religious elements like the TLP or TTP or by triggering an anti-American populist wave that isolates Pakistan in the international community, the outlook will be bleak. Pakistan’s economy is totally dependent on the goodwill of the West and its civil society is sufficiently developed to resist any radical “Islamist” encroachments on their democratic freedoms.
If the road to a Taliban victory in Afghanistan has been long and hard and bloody, the road ahead is neither secure nor assured. The predominantly Pashtun Taliban constitute only a small percentage of the 45-50% Pashtuns of Afghanistan. The other Pashtuns and ethnic regions may have surrendered to the Taliban military juggernaut but if they are not made real stakeholders in an inclusive broad based political and administrative state system, tribal revolts and foreign interventionists will start brewing once again in the bowels of Afghanistan.
Counter-Terrorism Options
Many Pakistanis are thrilled that America has got its come-uppance in Afghanistan. This is understandable. Since the 1990s when America turned its back on Pakistan and sanctioned it for developing a nuclear program, followed by exhortations to “do more” in Afghanistan in the 2000s and later accusations of being “a veritable arm of the Haqqani network”, anti-Americanism has been steadily growing in the country, including among the ruling civil-military elites which remain the main beneficiaries of US aid and trade, visas, green cards and jobs. This sentiment was echoed by Prime Minister Imran Khan when he gleefully praised the Afghan Taliban for “breaking the chains of slavery” after seizing Kabul. But sober reflection about the Taliban conquest should necessitate a rethink about its implications for Pakistan.
Pakistan’s “interest” in Afghanistan is based on several objectives. First, if there can’t be an overly friendly regime in Kabul, at least it shouldn’t be unfriendly, let alone be hostile and pro-India. Second, Afghanistan should not provide sanctuaries or safe havens for anti-Pakistan terrorist groups like the TTP, IS, Al-Qaeda and various Baloch separatists. Third, it should be peaceful and stable so that Pakistan and China can jointly extend the CPEC corridor to Central Asia and beyond to reap the dividends of oil and gas pipe lines, mineral extraction, trade and commerce. None of these conditions was fulfilled during the American occupation of Afghanistan. What are the chances now that things will be brighter for Pakistan on each front?
To be sure, the Taliban regime will not be friendly towards India or unfriendly towards Pakistan since Pakistan has resolutely supported the Taliban since 1996 and India has consistently backed the US-installed anti-Taliban governments of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani. But Pak-Afghanistan relations are going to depend on how the second, and in consequence, the third factor, plays out in the near future. Consider.
The main concern of the regional countries, no less than that of the US and the international community, is that Afghanistan should not ever be an export-haven for terrorist groups that threaten them. This is a core commitment of the Taliban’s agreement with America. But serious doubts persist about the ability or willingness of the new Taliban regime to guarantee such an outcome for each of the stakeholders.
This would help explain why, even before any inclusive Kabul government has been established and law and order restored, Russia and China have jointly scrambled to lay down their condition for assisting and recognizing the Taliban government: crackdown on those terrorist groups holed out in Afghanistan that threaten the Central Asian states and China. The Americans have dispatched no less than the Director of the CIA to negotiate counter-terrorism strategy with Mullah Baradar and are linking economic aid/sanctions/recognition to headway on this front. And the Pakistanis are desperately seeking affirmation from various Taliban spokesmen and representatives that a crackdown on the TTP and Baloch insurgents will materialize sooner rather than later. Indeed, Islamabad’s desperation can be gauged from the various statements of the Interior Minister that Pakistan’s concerns in this matter have been conveyed to Kabul and that assurances have been received, no less than the flotation of fake news by “interested quarters” that the Taliban have set up a committee to address exactly such problems.
Interestingly, the Taliban have made no policy commitments to any of these stakeholders so far. That, too, is understandable: they are preoccupied with consolidation of power and administration internally so that the unstable situation on the economic, political and military fronts doesn’t spiral out of hand. But a calibrated statement from Khalilur Rehman Haqqani, the head of possibly the most powerful faction in the Taliban, is revealing about the thinking that prevails on this subject in the Taliban leadership.
Asked by veteran reporter Azaz Syed about the concerns of China, Pakistan and Uzbekistan regarding local and international militant organizations, Khalil listened to the question and answered with carefully selected words. “We want peace among all Muslim countries. My advice is peace. For the entire world and Muslims, my message is that all countries should give rights to all the people following different religions; have peace with them and should not do oppression.” Asked again that Pakistan has reservations about a few militant groups, Haqqani replied that “Muslims in the world should have peace among them, so in this case I also advise the same.”
Clearly, Khalilur Rehman Haqqani is saying that Pakistan should hold negotiations with the TTP and Baloch separatists and not press the Taliban for kinetic action against them. He is also advising China to look after its religious minorities (Uighurs) and resolve their grievances peacefully. Therefore it is highly doubtful that Mullah Baradar was persuaded by the CIA Director to allow American counter-terrorism experts and intelligence to assist the Taliban in going after Al Qaeda and IS in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Taliban’s reluctance to launch counter-terrorism operations against these groups suggests that, given the support-networks and ideological affinities that exist among them not just inside Afghanistan but also in Pakistan – as evidenced by the attack on Chinese engineers in Gilgit , Gwadar, etc., recently – there is little chance of success of military action. Indeed, even when the Americans were in full flow with all their sophisticated armaments, Intel and training, they were unable to wipe out pockets of Al-Qaeda and IS whose attacks were becoming more outrageous and bloody over time. Under the circumstances, short of a significant “foreign” intervention aided by the Taliban government to wipe out these groups – an impossibility when the Taliban are not even ready to allow some extra time for evacuating the tens of thousands of Afghan civilians wanting to flee – there is no possibility of the new Taliban government swiftly addressing regional and international concerns on counter-terrorism.
In the coming weeks and months, we shall note two opposing tendencies. The regional powers and international community will try to bully the Taliban to “do more” with offerings of carrots and threat of sanctions; the Taliban will drag their feet and urge peace negotiations. Tensions will mount. Meanwhile, the terrorist groups will seek to thwart these efforts, exacerbate tensions and strains between the stakeholders and try to increase their own footprint at home and abroad. Certainly in Pakistan, there is no shortage of wannabe Taliban, drawing militant inspiration from across the border.
Under the circumstances, those Pakistanis cheering the Taliban may have occasion to regret their early enthusiasm for “breaking the chains of slavery”.
Rigging next elections
Every day there is a picture in the media of Imran Khan cutting a ribbon or raising a curtain to inaugurate some new “development” project as if he’s in a mad rush to woo the people as no less a “doer” than Shahbaz Sharif. The new finance minister, Shaukat Tarin, has also been instructed to press ahead with a development spending budget and tell the IMF – which has proposed the opposite strategy of belt tightening – to go fly a kite. Now Babar Awan, the SAPM on all dubious matters, has announced that, come hell or high water, the government intends to conduct the next general elections via nearly 500,000 Electronic Voting Machines as well as enable over 7 million “overseas Pakistanis” to cast their votes electronically. The PTI government’s serious purpose in this regard is demonstrated by its threat to steamroll the EVM bill through a joint session of Parliament so that the opposition-controlled Senate is not in any position to delay and thwart it.
Naturally, therefore, speculation is rife that the next general elections may be held in late 2022 rather than in mid 2023 as scheduled. The rumour mills are also working overtime since Maryam Nawaz Sharif held out the assurance that Nawaz Sharif would return to Pakistan “sooner than later” to lead the party to victory over the PTI.
But Imran Khan’s “disapproval ratings” are at an all-time high for many reasons. Why, then, should he be keen to opt for an early election?
Various reasons have been advanced. The opposition is confused and divided; its popular leaders are in prison or exile, hounded and impotent. The Miltablishment that has propped up Imran Khan seems more confident than ever before after its “victory” in Afghanistan. And Shaukat Tarin’s spending spree is aimed at alleviating lower-middle class hardships.
But a similar list of potential pitfalls exists to dampen such enthusiasm. If Pakistan is unable to guarantee a stable, pro-Pakistan, Western-approved Afghan government in Kabul soon and is scapegoated for the US downfall in Afghanistan – contend with its consequences like tightening of the IMF, FATF and GSP+ screws – and if cross-border terrorism continues to feed into political discontent, the “hybrid system” would come under severe strain. Indeed, if the opposition is able to cement together, shrug off its helplessness to exploit the adverse economic situation and confront the government in parliament and on the street, all bets would be off. That is why Imran Khan and his Miltablishment backers might be anxious to find a failsafe way to win the next general elections sooner than later.
One way to get the desired results would be to place full reliance on an engineered disruption of the Results Transmission System to determine favourable outcomes as was done in the dead of election night in 2018. Unfortunately, however, that method now stands discredited and political parties are retraining their polling agents to be extra vigilant at all stages of the election process. A better way to get the same end result is via Electronic Voting Machines that enable select shredding and shunting of domestic and foreign votes.
Independent experts have uniformly testified why EVMs are not desirable instruments in general elections, especially where trust is in acutely short supply. These machines lend themselves to rigging through software tampering. One expert estimate suggests that rigging less than 0.7% of the machines in pre-selected constituencies can swing an election one way or another. Except perhaps for two or three countries which have progressively experimented with EVMs over a long time period to make them reliable and credible, EVMs have been globally rejected in favour of paper voting and visual identification systems. They will also cost several hundred billion rupees to build and operate with trained manpower.
The date and mode of the next general elections is a factor in Imran Khan’s political calculations for one other reason. Justice Qaez Faiz Isa is in line to become the chief justice of the Supreme Court in 2023. His reputation as a no-nonsense constitutionalist precedes him. He has stood his ground against all odds, defying both the Miltablishment’s unconstitutional political meddling no less than the executive’s manipulations in the judiciary. It is inconceivable that he would allow any rigging of the general elections, whether through disempowering the Election Commission or by allowing EVMs and RTSs to rule the roost. Until now, the Miltablishment has been trying to oust him from the Supreme Court but a combination of pressure from the bar and civil society has thwarted such efforts. Therefore the option of a rigged election next year under the aegis of a weak Election Commission or judiciary has acquired urgency for the “powers-that-be”.
Let’s face it. In November 2022, Imran Khan will also be confronted with one other major decision. Should he extend the tenure of General Qamar Javed Bajwa for two years or should he appoint General Faiz Hameed as the next army chief? If the elections are held before that cut-off date in November 2022, Imran Khan can reasonably be assured of the support of both gentlemen, each vying for the coveted slot. But if these are to be held in 2023, and Imran Khan continues to play his cards close to his chest, then one or both may be inclined to think he is, or they are, dispensable, thereby opening up options for a different sort of change in 2022.
Constitutional Corruption
In 2013, Pakistan ranked 127 out of 179 countries in Transparency International’s “Corruption Index”. From 2014-2018 – the Nawaz Sharif years — its position improved to 117. Did it and its patron then become “less corrupt”? In the last three years from 2018-2020 –the Imran Khan years — it fell back to 124th position. Did it and its patron then become“more corrupt”? Yet many “educated”, urban Pakista
Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from standing for public office because he failed to declare an insignificant income he had not received, and he was convicted for “corruption” because he couldn’t provide a “satisfactory” money trail for some of his deceased father’s assets, even though no “corrup
Nawaz Sharif was accused of rigging the 2013 general elections in absentia. But a Commission of Inquiry under an ex-Chief Justice of Pakistan determined these elections were free and fair. Imran Khan won the 2018 elections after the RTS system broke down inexplicably in the dead of night – the head of NADRA at the time said it had been deliberately switched off – which gave about 40 undeserved seats to the PTI. Now Imran Khan is determined to win a second term in office on the basis of rigged EVMs, RTS systems and internet votes of 7 million overseas Pakistanis, moves which are opposed by the ECP and Opposition parties. But this isn’t a sign of corrupt practices.
NAB has launched dozens of “corruption” cases against main leaders and supporters of the PMLN and PPP. But not a single one has been proven in three years. Unequally, it hasn’t touched any leader of the PTI or investigated various reported scams, like the sugar and wheat scams, or the commissions and kickbacks in the BRT and Malam Jabba projects, or the daily corruptions in the Punjab government evidenced by the continuing postings and transfers of low and high level bureaucrats because these instances are not corruption.
Beyond these one-sided unproven repor
In fact, “corruption” is a way of life not just among politicians and organs of the state but in society and disposable-income
If financial “corruption” is so widespread – and hence so “ordinary” – why are some people in Pakistan so obsessed with it to the point where it becomes their all or nothing? Why are they not more concerned about a more corrosive form of corruption that erodes the very basis of civil society and is a major source of political instability and uncertainty? By this we mean constitutional corruption – military supremacy, oppressive majoritarianism, election rigging, justice denial, system hybridity, etc., — that destroys the Trust embedded in a Social Contract (Constitution) betwee
Every sacking of constitutional government in Pakistan by unaccountable state organs is “justified” by allegations of financial corruption. But the act of sacking is a bigger constitutional corrupti
Let’s face it. Nawaz Sharif is no angel, never was. He was once a child of an unconstitutional dispens
Hard Times
Miltablishment leaders admit that the new Taliban regime in Afghanistan is faced with serious challenges going forward. Equally, they worry that if the Kabul regime is unable to overcome these, the political and military blowback will exact a heavy toll of state and society in Pakistan. Consider.
The international community is demanding an inclusive government, protection for human rights and clampdown on terrorist groups sanctuaried in Afghanistan before it is ready to consider granting lawful recognition to Kabul. But the Taliban are not obliging on any issue. The new caretaker government is composed exclusively of Taliban hardliners, 17 of whose members are on various international terrorist lists and they have not indicated if and when their government will become inclusive of other stakeholders and power blocs in Afghanistan. The Taliban have also made clear that they have no intention of forceful action against Al-Qaeda, IS-K, TTP, ETM, etc., and have advised concerned regional neighbours to directly negotiate peace with such groups. Unfortunately, too, their initial limited concessions to media and women have swiftly been rolled back.
Kabul faces an economic shutdown. But Western and regional powers are not immediately ready to bail it out financially. The developing humanitarian crisis will flood Pakistan with refugees, straining scarce resources, alienating locals and exacerbating tensions. A related consequence would be an increase in crime and terrorism. Worse, it might frustrate and alienate the Taliban regime into repression at home and isolation abroad, blocking the anticipated journey from Taliban 1.0 to 2.0, and provoking regional and international sanctions.
Understandably, Pakistan is urging the international community to accord recognition to the Taliban regime as a preconditional “incentive” for peace, stability and compliance with international demands. But this plea is falling on deaf ears in Washington. On the contrary, powerful voices in the US government are seeking to target Pakistan for their own failures in Afghanistan. The Biden administration’s resolve to review Pakistan’s “double-dealing” – articulated by three previous US Presidents – over the last two decades and take steps to get Pakistan to deliver on US concerns and priorities today is ominous. Unfortunately for Pakistan, since the country’s trade, aid and debt is tied to the US and Europe, it has no wriggle room to leverage its point of view.
The cold fact is that Islamabad is faced with new existential choices. Washington is gearing up to confront China in a new cold war dialectic. Next week President Biden will host the PMs of India, Japan and Australia to firm up its QUAD strategy to contain China. Equally, Russia, Iran, India and the Central Asian Republics are jointly poised to thwart any unconditional pro-Kabul initiatives by Pakistan and China at the SCO moot next month. Thus the more Pakistan tilts toward China, the greater its estrangement from regional and international power blocs.
Unfortunately, Pakistan’s domestic polity is acutely divided and vulnerable precisely when it faces its most daunting national security challenge internationally. The “hybrid” PTI regime installed by the Miltablishment has come a cropper. Unable to provide even a modicum of good governance, it has sought to entrench itself in unaccountable power by trying to decimate the opposition parties, erode media freedoms and curtail autonomous rights of state institutions like the ECP. Now it is faced with an economic crisis that is spiraling out of control and threatening to trigger riots on the streets.
Since this hybrid regime assumed office three years ago, the Pakistan rupee has been devalued significantly from about PKR 120 in 2018 to PKR 170 this week, fueling double digit inflation amidst prolonged Covid lockdowns, negative economic growth, rising unemployment and relative impoverishment. In the last month or so the Pakistani rupee has been devalued by 10% despite sale of billions of dollars out of forex reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan. The trade deficit is yawning, the current account has become negative and debt payments of about $30 billion are due this year. Only the IMF and associated international financial institutions can bail out Pakistan. But they are holding back pending a green light from Washington which in turn is reviewing its options in West Asia ringed by its strategic “enemies” (China, Russia and Iran) and “double-dealing” Pakistan.
Buoyed by their success in local Cantonment Board elections, the opposition parties in the PDM are gearing up to protest across the length and breadth of the country. They may be joined by disgruntled lawyers, media persons and civil society groups. Meanwhile, the judiciary is coming under public pressure to stand up for fundamental rights and judicial independence. The Miltablishment is the only powerful institution propping up this regime. But it is under pressure at home and abroad to review the benefits of its friends and costs of its foes.
All indications are that the national security crisis of economy, governance and foreign policy is becoming unmanageable. But Miltablishment leaders seem unwilling to explore bold options.
In the last thirty days, the TTP-ISK-AQ-ETM sanctuaried in Afghanistan have killed over fifty Pakistani soldiers in borderland attacks. The TTP leader, Wali Mohammad, has publicly vowed to seize Pakistani territory. But the Afghan Taliban who owe their successful resistance and seizure of power to Pakistan are oblivious of their benefactors’ concerns and problems.
What if the international community decides to spurn Pakistan’s plea to recognize and bail out the Taliban regime in Kabul? Will Islamabad strike out on its own (or with China) and risk economic collapse and international isolation? Similar questions abound about the Miltablishment’s hard choices in domestic politics. Will it continue to support an unpopular and incompetent regime in the face of rising political and economic discontent that is undermining its credibility and authority to take decisive decisions on foreign and security policy?
Hard times are upon Pakistan. Realistic decisions are needed. No one at home and abroad is ready to buy our failed national policy prescriptions and international narratives.
Best revenge
The last minute, unilateral cancellation of the cricket series in Pakistan by New Zealand Cricket Board on 17 September without any advance intimation has outraged cricket-crazy Pakistanis and stunned cricket-commenting players across the ICC world.
The fact that New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern so blithely rejected Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s plea to reconsider her decision to pull out the Black Caps from Islamabad without providing a shred of evidence to corroborate the alleged terrorist threat, except to say that “Five Eyes” – an Intel Group representing NZ, Australia, USA, UK and Canada – had sourced the threat, has added insult to injury.
However, four days after the event (on 22 September), NZ Interpol revealed that it received an email on 18 September (a day after the tour was cancelled) from a certain “HamzaAfridixxx” purporting to represent a terrorist organisation that was threatening an attack on the NZ team.
The Pakistan government insists there was no credible threat and its safety protocols at “Presidential level” of state security were firmly in place. Its investigations into the email in question trace it to sources in India and link it with a “5th Generation War” campaign in the Indian media to “alert” the visiting teams to “threats” from terrorists in order to deter them from visiting Pakistan, thereby hurting its efforts to project a soft image abroad.
Unfortunately, the announcement by the England and Wales Cricket Board to cancel short tours of their men’s and women’s national teams next month to Pakistan for the sake of the “physical and mental health” of their players is mealy-mouthed and hypocritical. The Pakistan national team recently toured both New Zealand and the UK amidst the most suffocating covid-restrictions to enable both hosts to benefit financially from their participation. Some reciprocal support and decency should have been forthcoming at the very least.
The waters have been muddied by “Ehsanullah Ehsan”, ex spokesman of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, who had earlier declared on his Facebook page that there was a credible threat from the TTP. He has stuck to his guns after the Pakistan government claimed his Facebook page was fake. Unfortunately, two “threat advisories” of the Punjab government days before the match on 17 September noting security threats to the NZ series have come to light, lending some weight to the fear of the visitors.
Since the ‘Five Eyes’ Intel hasn’t been shared, we can only presume that NZ read the various public pronouncements on the media and thought better to be safe than sorry in the event of any actual attack. Certainly, PM Ardern would have been hauled over the coals at home if the Black Caps had come in harms way.
The Pakistan Cricket Board’s anguish and frustration can be understood. Since 2009 when a terrorist attack in Lahore on the Sri Lanka team led to a refusal by international cricket teams to tour Pakistan, a whole generation of cricket crazies has grown up without the joy and excitement of watching their icons in action at home, in the process depriving the PCB of a significant source of funds for developing cricket infrastructure. A breakthrough was made from 2015-2018 when Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, ICC Eleven and the West Indies were persuaded to come and play in Lahore and Karachi. Incremental successes were notched up every year until the prospect of full-fledged top-team tours was within grasp. Now we must begin from scratch again.
It need not have been this way at all. If NZ had shared intel in time, or postponed the matches by a few days pending further investigations, we might have been able to prove the authenticity or otherwise of the threat, enabling us to continue the matches or cancel them without acrimony. The decision of the ECB is even more infuriating. The excuse they have made makes a mockery of the rules and rigours of the sporting game. It betrays a lack of decent reciprocity and overdose of arrogant unaccountability. Both decisions have naturally evoked bitter memories of colonialism and racism among Pakistanis and triggered conspiracy theories involving Big Three injustice and Indian hegemony at the ICC.
The PCB’s response has been delivered more in bitter anger than in calm deliberation. It had worked hard to bring NZ and ECB on board, with Australia, South Africa and West Indies to follow. But its new chairman had barely assumed office when he was suddenly faced with this extraordinary challenge. The pressure from the public and government to slide into shrill nationalist mode overwhelmed the PCB and forced it to announce some unrealistic counter-measures (make an Asian Bloc, compete with the Big Three in terms of monetary benefits and inducements, etc.) to protect its “dignity and honour”. It might more profitably have focused on immediately reaching out to the ECB to delay its decision pending further investigations and talks in London since the British tour was weeks away. Loss of pragmatic sporting initiative to fiery nationalist politics is never a good strategy in such situations, however emotionally satisfying it may be.
In the short term, the PCB has its job cut out for it. It must approach the ICC and the two errant Boards to redress these complaints. There should be solid and credible reasons for pulling out from touring commitments like this. Both the NZ and ECB should commit to bigger Pakistan tours as soon as possible without fear or favour and accept our responsibility for their security and welfare as we do theirs when we tour overseas. And Australia and others to follow should be reassured about their forthcoming visits.
Prime Minister Imran Khan is reported to have given a motivating lecture to our players focused on aggressive and confident strategies next month in the World Cup. Winning is the best revenge, argues Ramiz Raja. Truer words haven’t been spoken. It would be wonderful if we could crown roaring success on the field with quiet dignity and honour off it because that would expose the blundering arrogance of the Big Three and pave the way for the return of international cricket to Pakistan for which we have waited so long.
Crossroads again
Should the Miltablishment that effectively rules Pakistan be worried about the state of the country, about the viability of the hybrid political system it has hoisted, its institutions, its economy and relations with regional and international players? Yes. Consider the nature and scope of the various crises that we face.
Crisis of Hybrid System: The Miltablishment’s selected partner, Pakistan Tehreek Insaf, has come a cropper, in the process discrediting the Miltablishment for hoisting, protecting and sustaining it. Its attempt to replace the two party system with one party overlordship has only succeeded in breathing new life into its nemesis, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz. In order to stave off defeat in the next elections that could challenge the civil-military imbalance, the PTI is fumbling with new laws to pressurize not just the opposition parties but also certain institutions of the state to heel. The NAB and FIA have fallen; the superior judiciary is being sorely tested, and the Election Commission and Media are under attack. The dysfunctionality of parliament — marked by lack of quorum on most sittings — is being papered over by frenzied threats to call joint sessions of both Houses to railroad suffocating new laws.
Crisis of Economy: Stop-Go policies have orchestrated a game of musical chairs to sow uncertainty and discontinuity. In the space of just three years, 3 Finance Ministers, 13 SAPMs, 6 CBR Chairmen, 5 Finance Secretaries, 2 State Bank Governors, etc., have worked overtime at cross purposes. Meanwhile, the stock market has crashed; our credit ratings have plunged from Emerging Market status to Frontier Market; Inflation is galloping at double digit speed; the rupee is the worst performing currency in Asia after losing nearly 50% of its value in three years; 24% of “educated” people are unemployed and 1.5 million people recently applied for the job of a “peon” across the country; the fiscal deficit has hit 9.3%; public debt is over 90% of GDP and rising; And so on. The poor are getting poorer, the middle classes are sliding down while the rich couldn’t care less.
Crisis of Foreign Policy: Pakistan’s relations with the international community — led by the US and European Union with which it does most of its business and to which it owes its soaring debt—have hit rock bottom. The EU is threatening to withdraw GSP+ status that sustains a significant chunk of our exports while the US — which controls aid-giving financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank etc., upon which we depend critically for debt to finance development — is discussing laws to sanction Pakistan for “double-dealing” policies that contributed to its defeat in Afghanistan. Our relations with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States still haven’t recovered from the frosty embrace of Imran Khan. Relations with India have never been worse when these ought to have been “normal” in our own interest at this juncture. Ominously, the recent seizure of power in Afghanistan by the Taliban should have been an occasion of smug satisfaction for us. But it has quickly degenerated into a colossal concern. The prospect of a friendly regime at our back with secure borders that opens up gateways to Central Asia for mineral extraction and energy pipelines is fast diminishing owing to the threat of virulent terrorism from its bowels against everyone in the region, raising the spectre of foreign intervention all over again.
The dismay in these developing crises is all the greater when we examine them in the context of what seemingly matters more to policy makers in the Miltablishment and government. In the former, it is perceived to be decisions about tenurial extensions, promotions, postings and transfers rather than to finding sustainable solutions to pressing national security issues. In the latter, it is on how to eliminate the opposition, control the media, manage the judiciary and rig the next elections.
In the last seventy years since independence, Pakistan has arrived at the crossroads time and again but failed to take the right road to nation-building and sustained economic growth. In 1958 the Miltablishment opted for martial law instead of constitutional democracy and we paid the price for it by losing half the country. In 1977, the Miltablishment again chose martial law but rooted it in “Islamic jihad” in Afghanistan against the USSR, in the process birthing militant sectarian outfits that came back to bite us. In 1999, the Miltablishment seized power again and sanctuaried the Taliban as a long term strategic ally, in the bargain nurturing the TTP that has killed over 50,000 Pakistanis and is poised, along with Al Qaeda and ISK, to inflict even greater damage on us today. On all three occasions, we were allied to the Unites States which pump-primed our economy to fatten our civil-military elites and make them dependent. Today, however, we are at a crossroads where, instead of dollops of American aid as in the past, we are faced with the threat of isolation and sanctions by the international community in the midst of serious economic, political, institutional and constitutional crises at home, even as we see no respite from the backlash of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.
For all these reasons, Pakistan’s ruling civil-military elite needs to reset the framework of National Power – kinetic security, sustained and non-dependent economic growth, fairer regional and class distribution of the fruits of development and consensual rules of political participation and constitutional governance. A nation that is economically weak, politically divided and constitutionally frail is a nation on the brink of becoming a failed state for predatory super-powers.
Farewell to arms?
The transfer of Lt-General Faiz Hameed from the post of DGISI to that of Corps Commander Peshawar is very significant. It was announced by ISPR last Wednesday but a notification from the Prime Minister’s Office is still awaited, as constitutionally required. Although the transfer was on the cards — because his subsequent professional ambition depended on commanding a Corps – it was also known that Prime Minister Imran Khan wanted to hang on to his ISI coattails for as long as possible. Perhaps this is why there is a buzz about the delay in issuing the notification. Has Imran Khan changed his mind for some reason? Was there some misunderstanding between COAS and PM that has led to this confusion? If this is not sorted out quickly, we could face some serious turbulence.
General Faiz Hameed, it is commonly alleged, has provided valuable, often critical, services to Imran Khan during his journey from opposition leader to prime minister. Unfortunately for both of them, the mutually beneficial arrangement had progressively become tainted, discrediting the military and provoking a backlash in GHQ that finally led to this rupture.
It should be admitted that Nawaz and Maryam Sharif played a definite role in setting the ball rolling. By targeting the Miltablishment and repeatedly naming General Faiz for unconstitutional conduct, they changed the popular narrative from a well-entrenched pro-establishment one to an angry anti-establishment position, compelling the Miltablishment to review its political options. The coup de grace came when Maryam Nawaz filed a brave and hard-hitting petition in the Islamabad High Court last Monday citing General Faiz’s alleged role in subverting the judiciary to get both Nawaz and Maryam convicted on trumped up charges. A day later, when COAS Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and PM Imran Khan were huddled discussing the transfer of General Faiz and the appointment of Lt-Gen Nadeem Anjum as DGISI, she launched a no-holds barred attack on General Faiz which may have served to strengthen General Bajwa’s hand in thwarting Imran Khan from continuing with General Faiz in the ISI or handpicking his successor.
it is now speculated that the new DGISI, Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum, will not be inclined to follow too closely in the political footsteps of his predecessor for two reasons: one, he is General Bajwa’s nominee rather than the prime minister’s even though the appointment is supposed to originate in the PM’s office; two, the army chief means to direct the ISI to pursue his own objectives and priorities rather than those of the prime minister or General Faiz himself.
Shorn of his sturdy pillar of state, Imran Khan is desperately trying to entrench and protect himself by other means. The Amendment in the NAB law by Presidential Ordinance is aimed at providing an NRO to his teammates in cabinet and government, including himself — all of whom have been excluded from the ambit of NAB investigations and prosecutions — while continuing to witch hunt the opposition via the current NAB Chairman who has been effectively handed a new term despite howls of protest by the opposition. In the event of a deadlock between the government and opposition over the choice of a new Chairman NAB, a committee of six parliamentarians each from both sides is nominated to resolve the issue by majority vote – the chairman, a government nominee, has the casting vote, which means the government will always has its way – failing which there is no time limit during which such a decision is mandated, which means that the current chairman will continue in office with full powers under the shadow of a blackmailing video in the hands of the prime minister.
As if this is not security enough, Imran Khan has announced his intention to head a “cell” to investigate Pandora offshore companies and their Pakistani beneficiaries. There is no recourse to the Supreme Court to determine who isn’t “Sadiq or Ameen”, no JIT headed by an ISI nominee to probe money trails, no potential trials under a hawk-eyed judge bent on finding fault. All that was reserved only for Nawaz and Maryam Sharif.
Understandably, though, Nawaz and Maryam are elated by the departure of Gen Faiz. Instead of the Miltablishment proving successful in driving a wedge in the PMLN between the pro- and anti-Miltablishment factions, the father and daughter have spiked their detractors. This is not to say that the path to the prime minister’s house has been cleared for them and they can dethrone Imran Khan at will. But the necessary conditions for climbing back to office may now obtain. If a popular perception takes root that the Miltablishment will not go out of its way to protect and support Imran Khan, a significant number of PTI MNAs will read it as a sign to bolt from the PTI and prepare for the next government or elections under the winning banner of the PMLN. Certainly, if a severe foreign policy or economic crisis should overtake Pakistan – which is a real possibility — the Miltablishment will inevitably seek to scapegoat the sitting PTI government and clutch at the opposition to bail it out.
The PMLN’s jailbird stalwarts – Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Rana Sanaullah, Ahsan Iqbal, Javed Lateef, et al – are finally able to smile and exude some confidence. “Nawaz Sharif will be back in Lahore by December”, they wink, suggesting he will be “allowed” to lead the party to victory in the next elections which will be sooner than later. This may be premature or misplaced optimism, but it is a good strategy to instill confidence in the rank and file of the party that has been reeling from the confusion sowed by the opposite narratives of the two brothers. Meanwhile, Maulana Fazal ur Rahman and Nawaz Sharif are now scheduled to hold a party conference next week to lay down the agenda for rallies and marches to destabilize the government. Their aim is to test the resolve of the Miltablishment to protect Imran Khan or get ready to ditch him.
Pundits predict a cold winter. Shortages of essential goods. Rising energy and food prices; joblessness, alienation; criminality; indebtedness; industrial strikes; terrorism; foreign threats and sanctions. One spark is sufficient to change the political landscape from an icy one to a sizzler.
Downhill
Imran Khan didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the last election without critical Miltablishmen
The worst kept national secret is that Imran Khan wants Gen Faiz Hameed to remain head of the ISI and continue working to keep the opposition under heel and deliver the next election to him as he did in 2018. As reward, Imran Khan has promised to appoint Gen Faiz army chief in November 2022 when General Bajwa retires. But the “stitching up” in this scheme has started to unravel and led to the current crisis.
For starters, it seems that speculation about General Bajwa seeking another extension next year may have startled both Imran Khan and General Faiz. Conspiracy theorists say that if General Bajwa wants the extension and Imran Khan gives it to him, that would spell the end of General Faiz’s ambitions. But if he doesn’t get it from Imran Khan, he may try to manipulate politics (via the ISI and general elections next year instead of in 2023 as scheduled) to make sure that he gets it from Imran Khan’s successor, especially if he has anything to do with putting him there. This would put paid to the ambitions of both Imran Khan and General Faiz. So they would have a joint vested interest in retaining full command of the ISI for as long as possible to consolidate their respective positions.
But conspiracy theories apart, there are solid reasons why Miltablishment leaders have finally rallied behind General Bajwa against Imran Khan. One, the opposition in general, but Nawaz and Mayam Sharif in particular, have succeeded in shifting the ire of the people for their daily suffering away from Imran Khan to the Miltablishment which is now being discredited for the ISI’s rough and ready ways to sustain such an unpopular government. Two, Miltablishment Three-Stars fear that if General Faiz is made the next army chief, he will stick around, along with Imran Khan, for another six years, dashing their succession hopes and bringing their hallowed institution into further popular disrepute.
The current crisis originates in historical stakeholder predicaments. Milt
Thus, with the PM dragging his feet and refusing to issue the relevant orders, we have a deadlock. This has now acquired dangerous proportions because both sides have made their positions known publicly and neither can afford to retreat without losing face and power.
Pakistan’s political history confirms that the Miltablishment always wins whenever there is a clash with civilian authorities. Why, then, has Imran Khan turned his staunchest
Some people argue that he has seen the writing on the wall – this is going to be his first and last term – and has decided to dig his heels in and go down fighting as a political martyr for “civilian supremacy” rather than patheti
Of course, “civilian supremacy” has nothing to do with this case. Such notions are relevant in established constitutional democracies where civilian defense of democratic and constitutional institutions is mandatory, not in a willfully established hybrid regime built on fraud and vote rigging in which a supremely egoistic and arrogant “prime minister” seeks to wipe out all democratic and constitutional opposition by subverting state institutions like FIA, FBR, NAB, ISI, IB, etc, to enthrone himself as the sole and unaccountable ruler. Much the same was the case of Nawaz Sharif in his second term from 1997-99 when he tried to become Amir ul Momineen and handpick army chiefs to do his bidding.
Where do we go from here?
One way out is for Imran Khan or General Bajwa to swallow their pride and sign on the other’s dotted line. The only problem is that General Bajwa represents an armed consensus while Imran Khan cannot even clutch at a feeble civilian resolution.
Unfortunately, Imran Khan has not helped his cause, first by stepping on the toes of the very Miltablishment that brought him into office and has propped him up since, and then by prolonging the crisis and creating ever more distrust and suspicion. After all, the Miltablishment is the proverbial elephant in the room, and elephants are known to have long memories.
By all accounts, it is going to be downhill for Imran Khan now. The opposition is definitely going to explore ways and means to press home the advantage of a serious crack in the hybrid regime. It is also natural to assume that state institutions, like the judiciary for example, currently at the beck and call of Imran Khan will look out to assert autonomy,if not independence. And it is seriously moot whether the Miltablishment will consciously rise to the defense of the PTI regime when it needs it the most.
Headlines
Today’s headlines are depressing. “Pakistan remains on FATF hook”… “Outlawed TLP announces march on Islamabad”… “PDM launches nationwide protest”… “Khurshid Shah gets bail after two years imprisonment”… “Shahbaz Gill threatens media”…and so on.
Pakistan remains on the FATF Gray list because the US wants to retain leverage Much the same reason lies behind the IMF’s foot-dragging on signing off with Shaukat Tareen. It seems Pakistan isn’t ready to give the US an “over-the-horizon” highway to conduct kinetic operations in Afghanistan, as and when. Why is this so important to the US? After all, it is the regional countries – Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran and Central Asian Republics – that have to contend with terrorism exported from Afghanistan and not the US or the international community who don’t have to contend with global terrorism organized by Osama Bin Laden wannabes based in Afghanista . It is, of course, no coincidence that the three top global targets on the US hit-list are China, Russia and Iran.
The TLP is marching again. It wants the government to release its leader Saad Rizvi and oust the French Ambassador from Islamabad. Curiously enough, the Election Commission of Pakistan has allowed the “banned” TLP to contest elections and the government has allowed it to hold protests and long marches. Indeed, Sheikh Rashid, the interior minister, has “warned” the peaceful PDM “not to take the law into its hands” but not uttered a squeak against the militant TLP!
Journalist Asma Shirazi is the latest vile target of PTI ministers and trolls for writing that a country like Pakistan beset with myriad problems cannot be run on Hokus Pokus policies. Shahbaz Gill, the PM’s spokesman, has warned the media that any “slurs on the PM’s family” will not be tolerated, clearly implying the source of such inspiration. The PFUJ has countered that any attack on the media will be fiercely resisted.
NAB’s cruel victimization of opposition politicians is breaching the limits of law. There is a long list of people who have suffered incarceration for months without a shred of evidence presented in court against them. Khurshid Shah has suffered the most. The Islamabad High Court and Supreme Court have censured NAB for its arbitrary and high handed ways but the government has gone ahead and extended the term of the very NAB chairman who is blithely cracking the whip.
In the latest twist of events, two headlines run side by side. “DG-ISI Lt Gen Faiz Hameed in Kabul for talks with Taliban”… and “New DG ISI to be notified today”. The ISPR announced over ten days ago that Lt General Nadeem Anjum had been nominated as the new DG-ISI and Lt Gen Faiz Hameed the new Commander 11 Corps based in Peshawar. But neither has yet taken up his new post because PM Imran Khan has not signed off even after “interviewing” Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum. This is an example of the sort of confusion and instability – the signs are not rightly aligned — that Asma Shirazi and others are talking about.
Unfortunately, however, this issue has become much more than a blip on the same page narrative of the PTI government and Miltablishment. Speculation is rife about how the army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, and his GHQ colleagues are outraged that the ISPR announcement is not being “honoured” by the PM and they are “ready for any eventuality”. On the other side, the PM has dug his heels in and let it be known that he is not going to be a pushover any more. This contradiction spells the imminent demise of the “hybrid regime”. But it isn’t clear how and when this structure will collapse because there are so many “options” on the table.
Imran Khan could finally sign off on the ISPR announcement and save the day. But the damage to mutual trust and interests is irrevocable. There will be prickly disagreements as the system grumbles along until something or someone will “break”. And then we will be back to discussing “options”.
Should Imran Khan decide to put the Miltablishment in its place, will it meekly allow him to run rough shod over it (the Jehangir Karamat option) or will it angrily react and throw everyone and everything overboard (the Pervez Musharraf route)? Would he prefer to go down fighting in parliament when the Miltablishment winks at the disgruntled parliamentarians to throw him out or will he chose to call fresh elections himself and, without Miltablishment support, risk being wiped out by the PMLN?
Pakistan under the Hybrid Regime is riven by bitter internal disputes that are acquiring militant proportions by the day. It is isolated internationally and bereft of friends to bail it out of its economic woes. Continuing instability in Afghanistan is threatening to spill over into Pakistan by way of refugees and terrorists. Without a radical overhaul of national security and elite-capture policies, the outlook is grim.
Liddle-Hart, the great military historian, famously remarked that the only thing more difficult than teaching the military to adopt a new idea is to abandon an old idea. The old idea is that the military has Pakistan. The new idea is that Pakistan has a military. Over the course of Pakistan’s political evolution, one by one, the military’s “chosen” came to realise this predicament but lost their jobs when they tried to redress the balance. The last politician to stand up was Nawaz Sharif. He is still out in the cold despite overwhelming public support for him. Now Imran Khan is stirring. As opposed to notions of “civilian supremacy” for popularly mandated politicians and parties, his motives and maneuverings are hugely suspect. That is why there is so much confusion about what is right and who is wrong in the current standoff.
This is going to be a hard winter of discontent. Something is dying in the bowels of Pakistan but we don’t know what is being born in its womb. The omens are not good. The screaming headlines say it all.
Course Correction
After months of prevarication, Prime Minister Imran Khan has finally notified a change of command at the ISI. Why he dug his heels in and refused to concede GHQ’s demand for months until the nth day (almost one month hence) is not rationally clear. If he did it unwillingly in the end when relations came close to breaking point, why didn’t he do it earlier when all was hunky dory between them? Now he has lost the trust of the Miltablishment and bitterly alienated it to boot, compelling it to review its options going forward without him. But by so doing, he has, unbelievably, accomplished a task – torn up the “one page” narrative of the PTI-Miltablishment that was threatening to keep the opposition parties out in the cold for a decade at least. This the opposition’s democratic alliance had failed to do in two years.
From the outset, the “one-page” narrative was based on two factors. First, the institutional hostility of the Miltablishment towards the PMLN and PPP and their respective leaders Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari that necessitated the search for a third option with the installation of the PTI and Imran Khan in office. Second, the motivated, personal, vested interests of the three top players who came to dominate the proceedings – COAS Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, DGISI Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed and PM Imran Khan — that gelled with the first factor.
When these factors began to lose vitality with rising popular hostility to the selectors and selected, or the main players came into competition or conflict, the stage was set for an unravelling of the plan. The first two players had connived to bring the third into office. As reward, Gen Bajwa sought and obtained a three year term extension, after which Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed was to wait in line to succeed him and help Imran Khan win a second five year term. It was also expected that Imran Khan would provide good governance to win hearts and minds and thus justify the Militablishment’s blueprint. But then the atrocious performance of the chosen one robbed the Miltablishment (that was propping him up) of its credibility and put it directly in the firing line of the people. Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam helped shape and drive this narrative. Then they drove a wedge between Gen Bajwa representing the Militablishment and Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed and Imran Khan by naming and shaming the latter two who stood accused of batting solely for themselves regardless of the consequences for the Miltablishment or the country.
Now the Miltablishment has been left with no option but to line up behind Gen Bajwa to redeem its credibility by sidelining Lt-Gen Faiz, ousting Imran Khan and correcting course behind an old but popular party (PMLN) and a new and pro-Miltablishment PM (Shahbaz Sharif) following free and fair general elections early next year.
Of course, Imran Khan can still nuke this developing scenario by sacking Gen Bajwa before he executes his ouster and appointing a senior general as the next chief instead of Lt-Gen Faiz to dilute the hostility of the institution. If Gen Bajwa takes the Gen Jehangir Karamat route of 1998 and goes home quietly, then Imran Khan is home, safe and sound. But if the Miltablishment nudges Gen Bajwa to take the Gen Pervez Musharraf route in 1999, then Imran Khan will face a fate worse than Nawaz Sharif did in 1999. Will he risk it? Martyrdom does not come easy to unpopular leaders.
Gen Bajwa will have full command and control of the ISI after Gen Faiz is shunted to 11 Corps in Peshawar late next month. Indeed, as matters now stand, Gen Faiz has already lost effective control of the agency to Gen Bajwa because all its top officers can read the writing on the wall. Indeed, his future is severely circumscribed because of the robust litany of charges against him.
There are several ways to engineer Imran Khan’s ouster. The swiftest is a decision by the Election Commission of Pakistan to knock him out along with the PTI for embezzling party funds, the evidence for which is overwhelming, even though it would be as unworthy a pretext as the “iqama” that felled Nawaz Sharif. Another way is to start the downslide by changing the government in Punjab (long live the Chaudhries and Turncoats) and launching a revolt against Islamabad from there, thereby triggering a collapse of the PTI government in Islamabad. A short lived government would then dissolve the Assemblies, caretakers would be sworn in and free and fair fresh elections held that would return the popular PMLN to power. In due course, the new elected government would either extend Gen Bajwa’s term for a year or give him safe passage to a secure retirement.
It hardly needs saying that Imran Khan could also call it a day by dissolving the assemblies and calling fresh elections. That would be the democratic way of resolving this crisis by asking the voter to decide who is right or wrong, who to punish and who to elevate. But Imran is not one to lay down arms without a fight. And he is certainly not a democrat by any standards. So we may expect the political weather to get rough in the next few months.
It is unfortunate that the country has been brought to this pass by the reckless machinations of the Miltablishment and the vested interests of its leading members, in cahoots with eminent lights of the judiciary. But it is not too late for the very same institutions to correct course and make amends for the sake of the country.
Changing colours of autumn
Prime Minister Imran Khan is reported to have told his cabinet colleagues that the next three months are going to be critical but he didn’t explain why. Much the same sort of comment is forthcoming from PMLN bigwigs but they also don’t care to elaborate. However, speculation in the media is focused on the growing tension in civil-military relations which, if history is any guide, has invariably led to regime change, often at great cost to the civilian dispensation. The fact that this is happening in the midst of a severe economic crisis that is fueling popular protest, renewed terrorism from bases in Afghanistan, strained relations with the US and the rise of the increasingly militant Tehreek Labaik Pakistan is additional cause for anxiety.
One critical milestone ahead is 19 November when the ISI is scheduled to get a new commanding officer. That Imran Khan has conceded this with great reluctance is one cause of his tensions with the Miltablishment. He wants the ISI to continue to troubleshoot and protect him in the future as it has done in the last few years. But the Miltablishment is in no mood to oblige blindly because its “one-page” association with Imran Khan has rebounded to its acute discomfort. The ball is in Khan’s court. Will he make a pre-emptive strike against the Miltablishment and risk his all, will he go down fighting against it in the next few months and stay out in the cold for years to come, or will he survive this tense period by some select tanother?
Three recent developments give an insight into his line of thinking. He ordered his civil-military troopers to put down the TLP. But the Punjab police balked and the Rangers stood down, compelling a U-Turn leading to a “settlement” that is so embarrassing that he isn’t ready to disclose it to the public. The second is his determination to railroad oppressive new laws via Presidential Ordinance to control the media and harass the opposition so that they cannot mount any challenge to him in the next elections. Among these may be counted the law to legitimize EVMs and Internet Voting to facilitate select rigging, the right to appoint and sack the NAB chairman to victimize the opposition and wear it down, and the PMDA to control the media so that it doesn’t support the rising popular narrative against him. The third is his attempt to give a sugar coated pill – “an unprecedented Relief Package” of Rs 120B that works out to about Rs 5 per day per person for six months – to try to blunt the anger of the people at the corruption and mismanagement of his government. Indeed, his comparison of price hikes in other countries without reference to incomes and employment added insult to injury to Pakistanis who acutely feel the hardships imposed by continuing cuts in disposable incomes. In other words, Imran Khan seems determined to fight off threats to his government and is certainly in no mood to take the democratic route and call upon the people to give a fresh ruling mandate to someone else.
As Imran Khan digs his heels in, there are signs of increasing resistance and even hostility from those organs of the state that had helped bring him to power. The Punjabi civil service has put pens down and brought governance to a halt; the Punjab police is demoralized and leaderless – the 7th IGP in three years is on his way out; the Election Commission of Pakistan is standing up to resist his threats and abuses; the judiciary has ordered local body elections knowing well that the PTI will be wiped out; and there is every reason to believe that his most controversial Presidential Ordnances may be struck down by the courts, leaving the Emperor without clothes.
Until now, the Miltablishment has reasoned that there is no alternative to Imran Khan because a hostile Nawaz Sharif is liable to stick the knife in if the PMLN returns to office or because the pliant PPP is not popular enough to win the general elections. But some sort of “understanding” is certainly possible to create a more palatable option than Imran Khan in his current form and content: If the Miltablishment could guarantee free and fair general elections (that will, of course, lead to a win for the PMLN), Nawaz Sharif would probably agree to nominate Shahbaz Sharif – who is the “acceptable” face of the PMLN — as PM and guarantee safe passage to core Miltablishment figures.
But it is also significant that the PDM’s jalsas are not grabbing the sort of media headlines that are needed to give momentum to any serious and threatening movement. Its leaders are also not interested in trying to exploit the grievances fueling the TLP, which is the opposite of what Imran Khan did when the same TLP was on the streets against the PMLN some years ago. This is strange, considering politics is all about ruthlessly seizing opportunities to further one’s cause or ambitions. The only explanation is that the Miltablishment has asked the components of the PDM not to muddy these waters in the “national interest” and the PDM is cooperating because it is hoping to woo the Miltablishment away from the PTI.
Whatever the stars foretell for political astrologers, we shall also know soon enough. If there is a new DGISI on November 20, it may be the beginning of a period of political neutrality in the Agency with far reaching consequences for politics in the country. But it may also be because Imran Khan has something more sinister in mind, in which case all bets will be off. Do the changing colours of autumn presage another winter of discontent? Or is spring already in the air?
Reform, Reform, Reform
It is no secret that there is serious tension, even a rift, between Imran Khan and the Miltablishment. But no one quite knows whether and when this will lead to regime change, what sort of regime will follow, whether it will try and last until 2023 or whether it will immediately dissolve the Assemblies and order fresh elections and when fresh elections will be held. The most important question of all hasn’t even been asked – whether the next elected government will tread the same beaten path of misgovernance and misplaced or opportunistic economic policies as in the past or whether it will embark on the path of radical political and economic reform to set Pakistan right. So here goes.
Since independence, Pakistan has been structured as a militaristic “National Security State”. This is mainly because the civil-military bureaucracy (CMB) inherited from undivided India was relatively over-developed in relation to the underdeveloped and inexperienced political parties and classes into whose lap Pakistan fell, thanks to the dogged efforts of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the sole spokesman. Accordingly, this CMB promoted and nurtured a political structure that gave primacy to bare notions of “national security” over political representation and popular welfare. It established its hegemony over state and society by provoking four wars with India, it seized direct power three times while continuing to destabilise and undermine civilian regimes, even its own puppet ones when they threatened to acquire autonomy. It captured the commanding heights of the economy by allying with landed elites wedded to the rent-seeking status quo and business elites hooked on licences, protection and subsidies; it hogged the budgets, opposed popular attempts to cut its vested interests down to size; and it rented itself out to the US by conflating Washington’s “national security interest” with its own and living off the fat of its multi-billion dollar aid and loans. This state structuring and dependence on foreign rent-seeking has distorted the economy and devastated society.
Therefore, the crying need of the time is to reform the crippling elements of this inheritance. The starting point is to “normalize” the Pakistani state by transforming existing notions of “national security” into concepts of “national power”. This can only be done by giving primacy to economic strength and political representation over military might and hybrid regime-making. The first stone in this direction has been cast by the slogan “vote ko izzat do”. We need to see this movement to its logical end. A free and fair election that returns the legitimate winner to power rather than office could provide a necessary condition for national regeneration. But two other conditions need to be met for sufficiency.
The first is a critical review by the CMB of its failed political and economic policies that have led Pakistan into a dead end. That is not going to happen overnight or by fiat, nor without some delicate negotiation over a period of time by popularly elected leaders who are committed to good governance. Until now, this hasn’t happened either because such political leaders were absent or because they didn’t know how to run a good ship or negotiate properly with the CMB. But there is some scope for optimism now only because the options to experiment and usurp have run out. Both sides need to share vision and power less inequitably. More critically, both must now realise that tinkering with trickle-down economics is not going to pull the country out of this crisis.
An economic reform agenda must be based on broad political and philosophical agreements. First, if belts have to be tightened, then the “haves” must tighten them and not the “have-nots”. This means that military and development budgets must both be operationally rationalized; government subsidies or special exemptions to rent seeking public and private enterprises must end; public revenues must be substantially increased by reforming the FBR (if need be, by outsourcing elements of tax collection to foreign agencies with greater credibility and efficiency), by ending export incentives that have failed to deliver results (merely fattened some business elites), letting the sugar industry fend for itself (by freeing imports), enabling the market rather than support prices determine the pattern and output of agriculture, reforming the structure of land holding (ending paper partitions) and cultivation (share cropping/absentee landlordism) to end rent seeking on agricultural holdings, imposing progressive inheritance tax and death duties on the wealthy, demonetizing the 5000 rupee note to end tax-evading cash transactions; and so on. There are many more such measures that could be contemplated and implemented. The end result must be a quick doubling of tax revenues so that international loans can be paid back, currency stabilized, employment generated and inflation and poverty reduced.
To be sure, this agenda will meet with stiff resistance from the entrenched CMB and its elite allies who have captured the state of Pakistan. But without a serious attempt to take this path no government can hope to pull the country out of its cancerous malaise.
Meanwhile, a suitable social environment must be consciously created and nurtured to ensure that such radical measures bear fruit. The most important of these relate to curtailing population growth and radical religiosity. The first eats into the dividends of economic growth while the second destabilises the polity, alienates foreign investment and diminishes the prospects of benefiting from the fastest growing service sector of the global economy like tourism and hospitality – even the custodians of Islam like Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc., have recognized the enormous merits of this critical truth.
It’s a tall order. But a start has to be made. Reform is the need of the hour, if Pakistan is to be prevented from going down the slippery slope of state failure.
Black Wednesday
Wednesday 17th November will long be remembered as one of the “blackest” days in the parliamentary history of Pakistan. On that day, a PTI government rammed dozens of bills through a joint session of both houses of parliament without as much as giving the opposition leave to read the text of most bills, let alone debate them as required by tradition and law. Among these were the highly contentious bill to impose Electronic Voting Machines on the Election Commission of Pakistan (which had earlier rejected the proposed for many valid reasons, not least that EVMs could be used to rig elections), a bill to grant 9 million “overseas Pakistanis” the right to vote in Pakistan elections via the internet (a scheme that is also vulnerable to both rigging and distortion of election results), a bill to castrate rapists (that is unprecedented in modern history), etc. Several important points stand out.
First, the joint session was postponed by the government when its alliance partners voiced disgruntlement with the ruling party, sparking fears that they might absent themselves from the session and deprive the government of the numbers needed to pass the legislation. This compelled the Miltablishment to step into the fray and lean on dissenters to attend the joint session and support the government. A government that was on the verge of being shown up as losing the confidence of the house, and hence the right to rule, was shored up unnaturally, just as it had been hoisted into office three years ago by the same Miltablishment which rigged the general elections by switching off the RTS and stuffing ballot boxes.
Second, law and constitution were beaten black and blue. The Speaker of the National Assembly, Asad Qaisar, played the role of a poker faced partisan of the PTI instead of the avowed neutral “custodian of the house”, refusing to allow the opposition to speak, or to divide the house and count votes, eventually ruling that the ayes have it amidst a roar of nays. It is especially noteworthy that he took the position that a simple majority was needed of those present in the house to carry the omnibus bill package while the opposition insisted that a majority of those elected to both houses was necessary. The Speaker clutched at a clause in the constitution that explains how a bill originating in any of the two houses of parliament can be legislated through a joint session of both houses by a simple majority of those present, in the event that it is not passed in any one house. His interpretation ignores the critical fact that a joint session may only be called to override the decision of any house to reject or amend any bill and is not available as an instrument to bypass any house in which the bill has not even been presented, let alone been rejected. In every bi-cameral parliamentary system of the world, the upper house or Senate that is indirectly elected to represent the federating units is meant to check and balance the lower house or National Assembly that is directly elected, but without crippling it. That is why the Senate has the right to reject a bill originating in the National Assembly but the ruling party in the National Assembly has the right to call a joint session to override the decision of the Senate. But in our case, the opposition which enjoys a majority in the Senate has not seen, read or debated most of the bills that were railroaded on Black Wednesday. Even the EVM bill was pending for debate in the Senate and had not been rejected by it. As such, the opposition will likely challenge the Speaker’s ruling in the courts on the applicability of the particular constitutional clause in a situation in which the Bills were not even presented in the Senate in the first place.
Third, this episode has rekindled speculation that the “same page” narrative of the unholy compact between the PTI and Miltablishment is alive and kicking, much to the disappointment of the opposition that had pinned its hopes of political rebirth owing to tensions between the two sides on important issues. Indeed, the opposition had decided to train its guns on Imran Khan while sparing the chief Miltablishment architects of their misfortune on assurances of “political neutrality” and reconsiderations of “options” going forward without Imran Khan. This “strategy” was advocated by Bilawal Bhutto and Shahbaz Sharif as opposed to Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazal ur Rahman. Now the opposition will have to huddle and determine whether this episode is a temporary Miltablishment reprieve for Imran Khan for various reasons or whether the Miltablishment has “betrayed” them once again and cannot be trusted.
The prevailing consensus among analysts is that negotiations between the Miltablishment and opposition have gone so far that the current hiccup will not derail them for two reasons: one, the Miltablishment has come to the irrevocable conclusion that Imran Khan is a recurring liability which is undermining its institutional credibility as well as “national security”. So, in principle, it will continue to explore options sans Imran Khan. Two, the opposition is agreed that it must create space for negotiating with the leaders of the Miltablishment by “guarantees” of both good behaviour regarding its institutional interests and safe passage for its errant leaders. All eyes will therefore be focused on Nawaz Sharif who holds the key to negotiations with leaders of the Miltablishment. If he refrains from targeting the chief protagonist, COAS Qamar Javed Bajwa, one may assume that the negotiations will continue behind the scenes until the “guarantees” are in place and change can be ushered in. But if he considers the current bailout of Imran Khan a serious breach of trust and reverts to form, then Imran Khan may get a longer reprieve than anticipated.
Seize the day
Until recently, despite three naked seizures of power lasting over 30 years, the Miltablishment was
But these perceptions have been significantly eroded in recent times. The Emperor has been exposed as a scheming, hypocri
Now it is the turn of the judges. Since independence, the judiciary was perceived to be a handmaiden to the executive, a hangover from colonial times when such was indeed the case in political matters of concern to the imperialist administration. But a degree of “independence” was imposed by a democratic constitution in 1973 which gave scope for shrugging away the burden of the executive. Unfortunately, however, this was eclipsed by decades of martial rule when the man on horseback wielded the sword of necessity over the judges and cut them to size. A brief revival took place when the Lawyers Movement in 2008-2009 against a military dictator elevated the rebels led by ex-CJP Iftikhar Chaudhary to self-appointment and self-accountability status, overriding parliament and the executive. Unfortunately, however, the new bench soon lost respect in the eyes of the bar and media that had restored it to power following the ego-centric, hypocritical, way
Five recent incidents have thus far demeaned and exposed the higher judiciary. The first case related to the independent and brave supreme court judge, Qazi Faez Isa,who dared to expose the unconstitutional machinati
The fourth pillar of the state, the media, has already turned against the Miltablishment and Judiciary by reflecting the sentiment of the public.
The Pakistan Democratic Movement senses all this but is unable to chart the way forward for several reasons. The PPP fears that if it strays too far out of line from the Miltablishment, Asif Zardari will be incarcerated, the party will be ousted from office in its last stronghold of Sindh and be relegated to the dustbin of history. The PMLN is divided between the opposing political outlook of two brothers who cannot be parted even though their joint struggle is the very cause of their own impotence that has created confusion and de-motivation in the rank and file of the PMLN.
Sooner than later, however, something will give. The situation is primed for it. Either popular pressure originating from comprehensive hybrid regime failure to manage the economy and state will compel the Miltablishment and/or judiciary to review options and abandon Imran Khan. Or the PDM will finally find a windfall political opening to surge ahead with confidence and besiege Islamabad. The tragedy of Pakistan is that in such a potentially revolutionary moment when the masses are waking up to the sham sanctity of post-colonial state institutions and are ready to challenge them, the opposition is unable, even unwilling, to seize the day.
Sinking ship
Imran Khan has advised cabinet members not to stray too far from Islamabad for the next three months. “The move is aimed at imposing austerity”, explains His Masters Voice, Chaudhry Fawad Husain, with a straight face. This is the gent who told the Election Commission of Pakistan recently that he should be excused from the charge of contemning the ECP because he is a veritable mouthpiece of the cabinet. The real reason is that Imran Khan fears an imminent move to oust him and wants all hands on deck to face the challenge. But the game is slipping from his hands faster than most people could have forecast some months ago. The signs are ominous.
Last month, Imran Khan desperately tried to hang on to the coattails of General Faiz Hameed, DGISI, who is the architect of putting him into office and propping him up for three years, but failed in the face of institutional pressure from the Miltablishment. Indeed, the PTI could not have fielded a majority in the Joint Session of both houses of Parliament if the COAS, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, hadn’t pulled out the stops at the nth hour to make it happen. Much the same sort of fate awaited the government if General Bajwa hadn’t stepped in to calm the surging Tehreek Labaik Pakistan and make it back down. How much longer will such bail-outs be available before the Miltablishment breaks ranks and sponsors more credible options? Here’s a read out.
The Karachi stock market reacted to news about the surging trade deficit and galloping inflation by plunging 2000 points. The finance ministry’s latest U-Turn – accepting all IMF conditions – means that after a short spurt of “go” we are back to “stop”. A new budget ending tax exemptions and subsidies, increasing utility rates and property taxes, cutting expenditures on development and poverty alleviation, etc., is to be announced shortly. We should expect protests across the sectors to start besieging the government.
The parliamentary opposition has decided not to assemble for the umpteenth briefing on National Security. Diminishing returns have set in for such briefings so rapidly that the COAS and DGISI have asked Moeed Yusuf, NSA without political capital, to conduct them. But, despite much to-ing and fro-ing all over the globe by “concerned officials”, “national security” is up the creek without a paddle. Kabul has done nothing to clamp down on the TTP; President Biden is still not on speaking terms with Imran Khan; Riyadh has belatedly, and only reluctantly, ceded $3b in deposits to the State Bank of Pakistan on unprecedented harsh terms and conditions. The money can’t be used to finance government, it can be withdrawn on 72 hours’ notice, it attracts a steep rate of interest, any default by Pakistan on any financial commitment to any international body like the IMF, World Bank, ADB, etc., shall be considered a default on the Saudi contract, all disputes to be settled in the courts of Saudi Arabia, any Pakistani asset anywhere in the world can be seized by Riyadh in event of any default. All this because MBS was offended by Imran Khan’s attempt to set up a rival camp with Turkey and Malaysia to challenge the hegemony of the OIC headed by Saudi Arabia. Now there is a new “national security” challenge that threatens to unravel our foreign policy options: what if India, Russia, Iran and China were to recognize the Kabul regime and the western bloc (including its partners in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia) led by the USA, upon which Pakistan is dependent for trade and aid, was to withhold it, what would Pakistan’s position be? The COAS, General Bajwa, has called for “resetting” Pakistan’s national security outlook from “geo-strategy” to “geo-economics”, which includes “normalization” with India, closer relations with the Western bloc, but there is still no change because Imran Khan is afraid of the political backlash from such a leap of doctrinal faith.
Now the PTI government is tussling with the Election Commission of Pakistan and the superior judiciary for partisan political gains. It launched its anti-ECP campaign by bad mouthing the ECP; now it is threatening to cut off its funding if it doesn’t agree to use EVMs in both the forthcoming local body elections and general elections. The ECP has responded by turning the screws on the Scrutiny Committee in the PTI Foreign Funding Case for delaying the outcome of the inquiry. It has already indicted the PTI Punjab government for serious malpractices in the Daska by-election and is readying to disqualify PTI badmouth Faisal Vawda for deliberate misdeclarations on his election forms.
The superior judiciary is also finding it increasingly difficult to scratch the back of the PTI government without losing face. The cases and convictions against Nawaz and Maryam Sharif are encountering heavy weather because new revelations have put ex-Chief justices Saqib Nisar and Asif Khosa in the dock. Slowly but surely, one after another, high court judges are inclined to assert their autonomy from the executive. For instance, the judges have finally woken up to order local body elections in all the provinces on a party basis, which the PTI opposes because it knows it will surely lose them. Some recently promulgated laws via a sitting of both houses of parliament are also likely to be successfully challenged on the yardstick of constitutionality.
The hybrid regime foisted upon Pakistan by the Miltablishment and judiciary is crumbling.
Although President Biden has invited Pakistan to participate in the Democracy Conference as a sop to retain some relationship with it – and pointedly ignored its “friends” China and Turkey – it remains concerned about the rise of militant organisations, the state of religious minorities and constrained media freedoms due to the hybrid regime’s policies.
Imran Khan is anxious about the next three months for good reason. In London, Chaudhry Sarwar, Governor Punjab, is criticizing his ruling party and spilling the beans by saying that a decision has been taken by the Miltablishment to support a vote of no-confidence against Imran Khan. This is what happens when a ship is sinking.
Final solution
Apublic opinion survey of corruption by Transparency International Pakistan is a damning indictment of the PTI regime. Nearly 86% of respondents think this regime’s self-accountability is unsatisfactory and nearly 66% say this “accountability” is partial and one sided. Indeed, the two most important causes of corruption are weak accountability (52%) and the greed of powerful people (29%). Nearly 73% think that corruption could have been reduced significantly if this regime had held and empowered elected local bodies (which is hasn’t) while 93% confirm that inflation has been the highest during this regime compared to the two earlier regimes (PPP and PMLN), suggesting economic mismanagement on an unprecedented scale. An earlier international survey had confirmed that Pakistan had become more “corrupt” in the last three years than in the preceding five. But instead of focusing on good government and delivering positive results to raise the standard of living and security of Pakistanis, this PTI government has tilted at windmills and done U-Turns, compounding insecurity and instability. It has hounded the opposition, eroded media freedoms, alienated foreign governments and plunged the country into a deep well of indebtedness.
Now Imran Khan has embarked upon a plan to target the Election Commission of Pakistan and undermine its credibility. His insistence on the use of EVMs, despite strong objections by civil society experts and the ECP, is a primary case in point. He has unleashed federal ministers Fawad Chaudhry, Shibli Faraz, Azam Swati, etc., to hurl abuse and threats at the ECP; he has refused to consult the leader of the opposition to fill two vacancies as required by law and constitution, leaving the ECP incomplete; and now he has brazenly defied written orders by the ECP not to tour KP and announce new welfare schemes while canvassing for local elections is underway. His scorn and disdain for the ECP is evident from the manner in which he has conducted his “defence” in the foreign funding case for seven long years despite the overwhelming evidence of misappropriation of billions of rupees in party funds.
It seems, therefore, that Imran Khan is preparing the ground for retaliating against the ECP in the likely event that it indicts him for corrupt practices in the foreign funding case which is about to conclude. Much the same sort of reading may be attributed to some other statements he has made or decisions he has taken. For instance, his “Absolutely Not” remark and his contextualisation of the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan as “cutting the shackles of slavery”, are aimed at extracting full mileage from the anti-American sentiment in Pakistan (despite on-going secret negotiations with Washington on precisely the same sort of issues) in the same manner in which his “critique” of “Islamophobia” and references to “State of Medina” are aimed at capturing the attention and support of the burgeoning “youthia” population of this country. Indeed, his U-Turn on trade with India, a first step on the road to the sort of “normalisation reset” suggested by the army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, is of a kind with his anti-American stance which has been deliberately “personalised” with pointed references to the “ignorance” of Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken, etc., and the “fascism” of Narendra Modi. In fact, his last minute refusal to attend the Democracy Conference — President Biden’s attempt to reclaim his country’s declining “democratic” credentials while pulling up his low domestic and international ratings – has little to do with standing with China on the issue of Taiwan and more to do with his proposed “life after death” populist narrative to salvage his political career in the coming months.
The Miltablishment, he must rightly sense, has decided to cut its losses with him and go back to the drawing board. The Miltablishment’s domestic “reset” has taken longer than anticipated because the personal ambitions of some top generals got in the way to muddy institutional waters. But that has apparently been sorted out now and new initiatives and options can be considered. A successful vote of no confidence against Imran Khan can be launched by the PMLN, PPP and Miltablishment “assets” as soon as some “trusted understanding” on core issues can be clinched between the Miltablishment and PMLN and between the PMLN and PPP. Since that may take some delicate toing-and-froing requiring some time and space, we can understand why the PDM has postponed its Long March three months hence. All parties now realise each can’t have its way fully, it’s important to get rid of Imran Khan first and clear the decks, so a pragmatic political compromise is probably on the cards. Of course, Imran Khan can decide to call it a day himself by going down as a “political martyr who defied both America and the Army in the service of Allah!”
But that won’t work. Imran Khan has cried “Wolf” so often, and alienated so many by his deceitful propaganda and hollow self-righteousness, that not many will wait on him much longer. Instead, the day a vote of no-confidence is launched against his government, there will be a mad scramble inside and outside parliament for election tickets from the PMLN which will be perceived as having brokered a winning deal with the Miltablishment and few will pause to consider or raise any moral issues and dilemmas for any of the parties to the final solution. The rest, as they say, will follow in due course.
National Action Plan?
Saudi Arabia, which leads the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) of 57 Muslim nations constituting over 1.3 billion people, has embarked on a reformist transformation of state and society under the leadership of Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Are there any lessons in this for Pakistan? Consider.
Wahhabism, that branch of radical Islamic theory and practice which has long defined the Faustian soul of Saudi Arabia under the House of Saud, is consciously being pushed back as a measure of state policy, and the Closed Kingdom is opening up to the global economy of the future when its diminishing oil revenues will not be able to cater to its increasing needs. Three significant steps are a sign of the new Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Foreign Policy is being overhauled. The dependence on the United States for arms and security is being reduced swiftly. The French and Russians are in business, selling state-of-the-art fighter aircraft and missile security systems worth tens of billions. Riyadh is also readying to stitch up relations with Iran, Qatar and Yemen with whom it has been at loggerheads for decades. Most significantly, it is about to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, a step that will forever change the political outlook and landscape of the Muslim World.
The Saudis are also pushing back on political Islam. Saudi funding for Wahhabi mosques and mullahs across the globe is drying up. At home, the laws are being changed to enable Saudi women to celebrate the freedom to travel, drive and walk without abayas or chaddars or male attendants.
These developments are aimed at preparing the cultural, social and political environment in which a $400B economic project along the Red Sea coastline can take off and flourish. This project aims to take a slice of the fastest growing Services (Banking, Finance, Tourism, Hospitality, etc) sector of the global economy which accounts for nearly $23 trillion or 25% of global trade and is growing at nearly 10% a year. This is a belated leaf from the strategic outlook of Dubai which recently further relaxed moral policing laws (eg, adultery, pre-marital sex, etc.) in order to encourage tourism and foreign investment.
Pakistan, meanwhile, is definitely headed in the opposite direction. The resurgence of “Islamism” today is directly linked to policies that birthed the Mujahidin in the 1980s, the Jihadis in the 1990s, the Taliban in the 2000s and now the TLP in the 2020s. In this process, Pakistan has alienated Afghanistan and India and suffered a terrible blowback of terrorism that has laid the state low. These policies have also diverted scarce economic resources away from productive investment, development, education, health and poverty alleviation and into military defence and physical security. The net result of these misguided state postures is a picture of Pakistan as a financially bankrupt and politically failing state. In the last three years of this hybrid regime, there is nothing positive to show for where the money has gone. No grand oil and gas pipelines have been laid. No big dams have been built. Karachi, the hub of trade and commerce lifelines, is still without a water desalination/reclamation plant or public transport system. Public utilities and corporations are bleeding at state expense. Inflation is galloping ahead in the region. Now Gwadar, that was once billed as the Gateway to Central Asia, is the target of Baloch separatists and the public is exploding with anger at denial of everyday rights like jobs, education, electricity, fishing, etc.
The most potentially explosive development is related to state policies of appeasing radical “Islamist” elements. This is manifest in the explosive rise of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan that is a breeding ground for the sort of violence that erupted against the Punjab police last month or in Sialkot recently; in the misguided Single National Curriculum that brings religion to the forefront of public discourse; in the constant ill-informed references to the “state of Medina” by Imran Khan; and in the plethora of so-called “Islamist” laws and institutions that mock everyday life and freedoms in the modern world.
The army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, seemed to sense some of these issues when he called for “resetting” Pakistan’s strategic goals, in principle aimed at “normalizing” relations with India and realignment to the West and its allies with whom Pakistan trades and from whom Pakistan borrows heavily to keep afloat. Unfortunately, however, his partner in the hybrid regime, Imran Khan, is unable or unwilling to subscribe to this reform of strategic policy because it may provoke a backlash from a public that has been brainwashed to the contrary for decades by the very Miltablishment that now wants to do a U-Turn.
Another unfortunate factor has now entered the equation. The United States is inclined to hold Pakistan’s responsible for its defeat in Afghanistan. So it is in no hurry to scratch Islamabad’s back by recognizing the Taliban regime or to bail it out by unfreezing its assets. In fact, Washington is pressing Pakistan to become an ally in its war against Al-Qaeda and Islamic State in Afghanistan, an objective that Pakistan cannot share without facing a terrible terrorist backlash. Meanwhile, the US has tightened the screws on Pakistan via the IMF and FATF and is now threatening to monitor and sanction its human rights record, especially regarding lack of minority rights, oppressive religious laws, disappearances, media censorships and crackdowns, etc.
It’s time for our ruling elites to recognize some harsh realities. Pakistan is internationally isolated. It is riven by internal frictions and fractures. Its political system has come a cropper. Its civil-military leadership is feeble, lacks courage and vision to change the status quo because it’s not ready to sacrifice its excessive perks and privileges. The National Action Plan is not worth the paper it is written on because there is no will to implement it. We have been forewarned. The unwashed masses are awakening to the call of the minaret to vent their rage.
Come January!
Is the party over? Consider.
Last Wednesday, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Asad Qaisar, had to hurriedly adjourn the scheduled session for the day because he couldn’t rustle up sufficient PTI members to complete a quorum. While this isn’t uncommon on any day, the session was especially important for one reason: the government wanted to test the waters before wading in to enact two very important bills. But it is afraid of the consequences if it is unable to muster a parliamentary majority to pass the bills. It fears the opposition will raise an unprecedented hue and cry because both bills are unpopular in the public imagination. One diminishes national sovereignty and the other imposes new hardships on the public. After the rout in the local body elections in KP attributed to inflation and economic mismanagement, ruling party MNAs are loath to support either bill.
The first is a bill to make the State Bank of Pakistan independent of the Finance Ministry. The second is a Money Bill to supplement the Budget 2021-22 by raising revenues and cutting expenditures (ending tax exemptions and subsidies and imposing additional import duties and taxes) significantly. Both are pre-conditions for getting back on track with the IMF’s structural adjustment program whereby Pakistan has queued up to receive a second tranche of over US$1 billion. These two bills must be passed in the next week or two before the IMF Board’s meeting in Washington DC. The government is begging the IMF to accept a Presidential Ordinance instead of a Parliamentary Bill for SBP autonomy but the IMF has flatly refused. It knows an Ordinance is valid for only four months and has no permanent value. The Money Bill is more critical. If it fails to sail through both houses, the constitution treats the matter as a vote of no confidence in the government. In the event, a new government has to be formed on the basis of a vote of confidence by a majority of MNAs or fresh elections have to be called if no one can demonstrate a majority.
That would explain why a cabinet meeting on the same day announced that it had deferred both bills to a later unspecified date. The last time Imran Khan could rally his allies to lend him their votes was during the Joint Session of Both Houses earlier this month when the government railroaded 33 bills without even a reading in parliament. But that was made possible only by a not-so-discreet intervention by the Miltablishment which nudged disgruntled allies to bail the government out. This time round, however, Imran Khan is not sure whether the same help will be forthcoming or not. Certainly, it wasn’t available during the KP local body polls, confirming the true situation on the ground just as a false situation was created to facilitate the PTI’s win in 2018.
The ball is in the Miltablishment’s court. If it bails out Imran Khan yet again when public sentiment against him is at its peak, it will invite severe opprobrium, which will spread disaffection in its rank and file. If it doesn’t, Imran Khan’s government will be immobilized and face the prospect of being ousted. He could react by replacing the current leadership of the Miltablishment by one more committed to bailing him out, but that may invite a severe institutional backlash against him with unforeseen consequences. Or he could call it a day himself.
The opposition isn’t waiting to find out what he will do and how the Miltablishment will react. The PMLN has announced it will launch an “agitation” movement to raise the stakes. Given the angry mood of the public, even a limited organizational measure of success could prove difficult to handle for the government. After the TLP protest in which the Punjab Police got the end of the stick instead of giving it to the militant mscreants, it is moot whether the cops will obey orders with any degree of motivation. But if the Miltablishment once again steps in to help Imran Khan, it will provoke the opposition, in particular Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazal ur Rahman, to once again target its leading lights for unconstitutional interventions, which will have the same negative impact on its rank and file as happened the last time when both gentlemen ended up naming and shaming names.
According to insiders, the Miltablishment has finally decided it can’t support Imran Khan any more without irrevocably alienating its own support base. Indeed, according to a leading TV channel close to the government, Miltablishment negotiations with Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif have yielded positive results, with only one or two hurdles to cross before steps are jointly taken to get rid of Imran Khan and install a new government that can transition to general elections as soon as possible. As if on cue, Nawaz Sharif has publicly announced that he will return to Pakistan soon and Maryam Nawaz has publicly confirmed that the next prime minister will be chosen by Nawaz Sharif.
Come January, watch this space for an announcement that the party is over. That will happen when a vote of no-confidence ousts Imran Khan, or he sees the writing on the wall and packs his bags, after which a new government backed by the PMLN will take over for a short period to accomplish certain tasks and then dissolve parliament and order new general elections.
Forecast 2022
There was little to cheer in 2021. Internal politics was riven by acrimony, instability and uncertainty. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government unleashed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the opposition but failed to get a single conviction, in the process roundly discrediting itself and the watchdog. Most significantly, Imran Khan irrevocably lost his sheen as well as the “one page” narrative with the Miltablishment that brought him into office and propped him up for three years. Meanwhile, the opposition took advantage of the situation to put options on the table for the Miltablishment going forward.
PTI government mismanagement and corruption plunged the economy into a trough. Galloping inflation and unprecedented unemployment laid the working and lower-middle classes low. In consequence, the PTI was routed in almost all by-elections. It also lost the elections to cantonment boards across the country and in local bodies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Foreign policy options dwindled over time. Relations with China were frozen. Those with America turned prickly. The Saudis became sullen. India remained hostile. Even Afghanistan stopped listening to us. So, today, internal security is fragile because the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is continuing to attack our security forces from across the border while a new militant religious force (Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan) has risen to pose a serious challenge to the writ of the state and to our relations with Europe. The only silver lining has been containment of Covid-19, thanks to planeloads of free vaccines from sympathetic donors like China and the WHO.
Looking ahead to 2022, the challenges are manifest. NAB must be reformed to become a fair and efficient watchdog under an upright and neutral chairman. The Election Commission of Pakistan must be encouraged and empowered to guarantee free and fair elections under reformed electoral laws. The economy must shed wasteful and unproductive expenditures while making the tax system more efficient and equitable. Donors and foreign investors must be facilitated to lend and profit in an environment of trust, stability and certainty. Relations with neighbours and foreign powers must be repaired and normalized in our own interest. Militant religiosity must be nipped in the bud. The notion that tanks and guns can provide national security must be supplemented with a narrative of national power based on bread and butter. And so on. But none of these objectives can be achieved under the present PTI-led dispensation that has squandered a historic opportunity to set things right with the help of supportive pillars of the state.
Many people are inclined to ask how a PMLN government that replaces the PTI regime this year might tackle the myriad problems faced by Pakistan. One short answer is that, all other things being equal, Shahbaz Sharif is a better, more experienced and capable administrator than Imran Khan, so that factor alone should lead to greater productivity of given resources. It is also true that he can expect to wield greater leverage and enjoy more trust with foreign donors and investors on the basis of their good experience dealing with him as Chief Minister Punjab for many years. Man to man, too, Nawaz Sharif has a track record of soft-spoken humility in his relations with the Saudi and Qatari royal families, with US President Joe Biden, Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan and Narendra Modi of India, unlike Imran Khan whose arrogance and strident nature has alienated world leaders. So we may expect these factors to tip the scales in favour of a PMLN regime. Over and above all these factors, the PMLN may listen to good advice to take tough decisions early in its tenure so that it can enjoy the fruits of its labour closer to when the next elections are due. It is a truism that an unpopular selected regime cannot take hard decisions like a popular mandated one. Last but not least, the core PMLN team comprising stalwarts like Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Ishaq Dar, Miftah Ismail, Ahsan Iqbal, Khawaja Asif, Musaddak Malik, Khurram Dastgir Khan, Maryam Aurangzeb, Azam Tarrar, etc., wielding both experience and professionalism are leaps ahead of comparative do-ers in any other party.
The last PMLN government was chugging along well enough until it was derailed by a Miltablishment conspiracy that ousted Nawaz Sharif and brought in Imran Khan. Mr Sharif’s crime lay in wanting to “normalize” with India by shutting down the Lashkar-e-Tayba and Jaish-e-Mohammad “jihad” against India and leaning on the Afghan Taliban to negotiate peace with the American-supported Ashraf Ghani regime in Kabul for an inclusive dispensation. But the Miltablishment had contrarian ideas. Now it is lumped with a hostile India that is sponsoring separatism, insurgency and terrorism in Pakistan, a cold Taliban regime in Kabul that is providing safe havens to TTP and an unfriendly US regime that holds Pakistan responsible for its humiliating defeat in Afghanistan. Since Imran Khan is unable or unwilling to fix these issues, the Miltablishment is having to eat crow and turn to Nawaz Sharif to put the country back on the rails.
Everything now hinges on how quickly and efficiently this about turn can be effected by the Miltablishment. That, in turn, depends on how a sufficient degree of trust can be built on both sides, with or without international guarantees, to implement a formula for power-sharing and good governance.
Deal or No Deal
‘Democracy’ has been declining globally every year for the last fifteen years, most significantly in the US and India, the world’s two ‘greatest’ republics, says a report titled “Democracy under Siege” by Freedom House, a respected US-based Think Tank. The report claims that democracy has declined in 73 countries and lists current-day Pakistan as “partly free”. In recent commentaries on the developing conflictual situation in the US, an alarming “civil war” scenario is forecast by the time the next election rolls around in 2024-25 based on fears of vote manipulation and fraud by the new leadership of the Republican Party led by Donald Trump.
One reason for this global decline in democratic systems and values is attributed to the phenomenal rise of social media that has given a voice to lay folks who sense a threat to traditional values or singular identities, or provided an ever-expanding platform for populist prejudices, organized propaganda, disinformation, fake news, etc., eroding the hegemony of elite mainstream media that has supported modern, liberal, constitutional values.
In Pakistan, too, we have experienced a ‘democratic’ slide with the advent of a “hybrid-regime” in 2018 under the joint tutelage of the Miltablishment and a selected populist prime minister. This slide is manifest in targeted victimization of the opposition and crackdowns on the media via pressure from state institutions like NAB, FIA, police and the judiciary and in the railroading of oppressive or undemocratic new laws.
But now, three years down the line, this hybrid regime is crumbling under the weight of its own blunders and contradictions, no less than the misplaced personal ambitions of its chief proponents. Ironically enough, though, it is social media (that was originally the conduit of organised propaganda on behalf of the hybrid regime) that has ended up providing a public platform to expose the machinations, frauds, conspiracies, bankruptcies, U-turns, lies and deceits of the originators and perpetrators of this hybrid-regime, compelling a desperate search within the increasingly discredited Miltablishment for less illegitimate or unpopular options going forward, including the ouster of the PTI regime.
There are two unmistakable manifestations of this potential ‘democratic’ revival. The first is the near-universal loathing of the PTI government for plunging Pakistan into its worst economic crisis since independence, imposing unprecedented and unacceptable hardship on a vast majority of the weak and unprotected classes and segments of the population. The second is dogged resistance by the ousted prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who has won the grudging support of many Pakistanis for demonstrating the courage to expose and attack the civil-military leaders of this anti-people hybrid regime. This is reflected in a surge of popularity for the PMLN which is the leading component of the opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement as reflected in the results of recent Cantonment Board, Local Body and national/provincial By-Elections.
As a result, the civil-military “deal” that was clinched in 2014 with the launch of the five month long dharna by Imran Khan (that led to the ouster of Nawaz Sharif by a complaint judiciary and climaxed with a rigged election in 2018) has begun to unravel. The first sign of this is a breakdown of the civil-military one-page narrative that ended last November with a complete loss of faith and trust on both sides over the matter of the transfer of one ISI chief and the appointment of another. The second is a quiet build-up of resistance in the core organs of the state to the blackmail and authoritarianism of the hybrid regime. Judges are beginning to stand and speak up (Qazi Faez Isa, Arshad Butt, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, Rana Shamim, etc.) against the Miltablishment even as others are increasingly showing dissent in opposing the biased judgments of their weak or compromised colleagues. Equally, supine judges like the discredited former CJ Saquib Nisar have been shown up for what they are. The Election Commission of Pakistan has finally refused to be cowed down by bullying ministers from fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities, including opposition to the introduction of election-rigging EVMs in the next general elections. In a final act of defiance, the ECP is now poised to apply for the disqualification of the PTI prime minister for blatant violations of the law in connection with receiving unauthorized funds from foreign sources and embezzlement of hundreds of millions. And lo and behold, the Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court, Athar Minallah, has overruled an additional judge of a sessions court who unfairly closed the video testimony of Imran Khan without allowing cross-examination by Khawaja Asif’s lawyer in a defamation case, and ordered the prime minister to present himself for cross examination. The media, too, has sensed a change in wind direction. Pro-Imran anchors and commentators have suddenly discovered the truth about their aging hero and opened their guns on him to redeem their lost credibility. Those journalists who have been sidelined from mainstream media on the instructions of the Miltablishment or government are now openly pointing the finger at their detractors and even naming names. And political ex-loyalists and supporters of Imran Khan are spilling the beans about his corrupt practices.
The DGISPR says the media must refrain from speculating about any “deal” between the Miltablishment and Nawaz Sharif because there is no such thing and the military is not involved in politicking. That is good news. But, given the track record, we shall be justified in looking out for any continuing signs of Miltablishment politicking to extend the original sinning “deal” with Imran Khan. The people of Pakistan want a restoration of their constitutional rights, including the right to elect their civilian leaders, and the sooner this hybrid regime loses its artificial props for good, the better, so that Pakistanis can have their rightful say.
The History Man
Justice Athar Minallah, Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court, has made history. He has ordered the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to knock down the Pakistan Navy’s Sailing Club House on the edge of the Rawal Dam in Rawalpindi as well as the Monal Restaurant in Islamabad and seize the Margalla Greens Golf Club in the Capital, because these have been built illegally on land belonging to the Margalla Hills National Park. He has thus outlawed the military’s claim to about 8000 acres of such land. Most significantly, the good judge has expressed the view that the Pakistan Navy does not have the authority to undertake a real estate development venture, nor the right to lend its name to any such enterprise.
Naturally, this judgment has warmed the cockles of millions of Pakistani hearts even as it has raised the hackles of powerful people lording it over unaccountable state institutions which have similar illegal stakes in real estate across the country. For starters, the Auditor General of Pakistan has revealed a list of 79 “encroachments” on the land of the Margalla Hills National Park, noting that several government bodies – CDA, Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad, Islamabad Wildlife Management Board, etc. – claim the right to control and manage the area, making the job of adjudication of rights and permissions difficult.
Justice Minallah’s judgment has also ignited questions of how courts have earlier dealt with such matters relating to the rich and powerful as opposed to the poor or feeble. In recent times, two cases have roused public indignation and in both the courts have been inclined to bend over backwards to appease powerful stakeholders. The first is that of Imran Khan’s sprawling multi-billion rupee estate in Bani Gala which was illegally constructed many years ago and brazenly “regularized” by the CDA on orders of Justice Saqib Nisar. In pursuit of this court order, the wretched chairman of the CDA who sent a questionnaire to Imran Khan regarding the property was swiftly dispatched to the nether lands and the journalist who quoted a news report exposing the PM’s shenanigans was served with a “show cause notice” by PEMRA. The second is a high rise luxury apartment construction at 1 Constitution Avenue Islamabad, a list of whose owners reads like a Who’s Who of the high and mighty (Imran Khan was one such). This building again, was “regularized” by the Saqib Nisar court, in sharp contrast to the demolition orders of lesser structures and lay encroachments in Karachi ordered recently by the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Gulzar Ahmed.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The highway robbery began at the time of partition in 1947 when tens of billions worth urban and rural evacuee property of Hindus and Sikhs was seized by the new lords of the state and distributed freely over the years to their favoured assets and allies regardless of merit or due process. In time, the parliaments of the state began to make laws for cheap acquisition of lands and properties belonging to Pakistanis for the avowed purpose of building public parks, educational institutions or military security and defense installations. These land were then leased out at throwaway rates to favoured institutions and individuals, only for the latter to quietly transform these into high value, exorbitantly profitable commercial ventures in the private sector (housing societies, clubs, marriage halls, golf courses, etc). And that is how “Military Inc.” irresistibly came to be the leading “businessman” in Pakistan, owning airlines, shipping, hotels, banks, insurance, food, fertiliser, cement, housing, you name it. This is why Justice Minallah’s recent judgment is something to write home about. Earlier, he had put a stop to the practice of the civil bureaucracy allotting valuable residential and commercial plots to themselves and judges at throwaway prices to ensure protection against land-grabbing claims and law-bending practices, thus casting the first few stones at the established disorder. Which other court or judge will follow his laudable example and make these singular milestones in Pakistani history?
The Supreme Court is now faced with another public interest challenge. The Supreme Court Bar Association led by lawyer Ahsan Bhoon has filed a petition challenging the lifetime disqualification of PMLN’s Nawaz Sharif and PTI’s Jehangir Tareen from holding public office for not being “sadiq and ameen”. This petition follows revelations of high level judicial impropriety, misconduct and political bias by ex-CJP Saqib Nisar (that name again!) made by ex-CJ Gilgit-Baltistan, Rana Shamim, aimed at knocking out Nawaz Sharif from politics. To prepare the ground further for appropriate judicial review, the ex-Secretary of the PTI, Ahmed Jawad, has now come out of the closet to level accusations of judicial and military manipulation to oust Nawaz Sharif from office and hoist Imran into it. His allegation that Supreme Court judges disqualified Jehangir Tareen in order to “balance” their unfair ouster of Nawaz Sharif is bound to impact the trial and appeals of Mr Sharif in multiple cases and help pave the way for the judiciary to reclaim its lost credibility. It is significant that Justice Athar Minallah is also seized of adjudicating the allegations of ex-CJ GB Rana Shamim, and he will now be hard pressed to include the testimony of Ahmed Jawad in his deliberations.
Is Justice Athar Minallah the man of the moment? The history man?
NSP: Content and Challenge
The PTI government claims to have formulated a National Security Policy after consulting key stakeholders, including hundreds of intellectuals, experts, businessmen, teachers and students. Unfortunately, however, opposition political parties and leaders were kept out of the loop and parliamentarians, even on the treasury benches, were all but ignored. To top it, the policy is classified as “Secret”. We have only been told that “traditional security” is to be buttressed by “human security” by increasing the size of the pie that is to be distributed among these two categories. But not to worry. We already know what our National Security Policy has been for over seven decades and we are not shy of asking how and why the new policy should deviate from established wisdom.
Pakistan’s birth is rooted in the biggest mass migration in world history, unprecedented communal violence, and war over Kashmir. In fact, India’s political leaders wasted no time in loudly proclaiming that the new state of Pakistan would be reabsorbed into India before long. Thus insecurity was built into the genetic structure of the new nation and state and over 70% of the country’s first budget was immediately earmarked for military defense and security. The inherited colonial civil-military bureaucracy – that was more developed, organised and cohesive than the indigenous politicians and political parties – now seized the commanding heights of state and society, centralizing power in Governors-General (Ghulam Mohammad, Khjwaja Nazimuddin) and Presidents (Generals Sikander Mirza and Ayub Khan) and signing strategic defense pacts (CENTO, SEATO, BAGHDAD PACT) with the US (ostensibly against communism but in reality to bolster military defenses against India). Thus was born a National Security State based on three national security pillars: Distrust of, and enmity with, India (“unfinished business of partition” pegged to Kashmir); centralization of power via guided “basic democrats” under General Ayub; and dependence on the US for military and economic aid.
This centralized national security state system broke down in 1971 after the break-up of Pakistan following military defeat, leading to civilian assertion under Z A Bhutto and the first democratic constitution of 1973. But the Empire hit back in 1977 with the imposition of martial law, a presidential non-party system under General Zia ul Haq and return to the American camp in the 1980s. The system received a jolt in 1988 with the unexpected exit of General Zia ul Haq but recouped under President Ghluam Ishaq Khan and General Aslam Beg into a hybrid-constitutional system that enabled a strong military nominee or ally as President with the power to dismiss an elected prime minister and parliament (three times in the 1990s). Benazir Bhutto tried to build peace with Rajiv Gandhi but was declared a national security risk and booted out in 1990. The civilian impulse was restrained throughout the 1990s by periodic sackings and rigged elections. It was finally thwarted in 1999 when Nawaz Sharif clutched at bus diplomacy to build “peace” with India and General Musharraf put paid to it by adventuring in Kargil, overthrowing and exiling him, and ruling like a dictator for eight years on the back of billions of dollars in American military and economic aid for abetting its war in Afghanistan. An unexpected mass resistance sparked by a maverick judge, Iftikhar Chaudhry, ended his rule and ushered in the civilians again, but not before they paid the price of Benazir Bhutto’s life. Asif Zardari’s term was blackballed by Mumbai and Memogate, including the sacking of his prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani; Nawaz’s rule was undermined by surrogate Dharnas, export of jihadis to India and accusations of sleeping with the enemy, finally coming to an end on the basis of a Joint Investigation Team answering to the brass.
This National Security paradigm was revived with the installation of Imran Khan in 2018 and the incarceration and victimisation of Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif. But the loss of American goodwill and aid, coupled with the failure of Imran Khan to provide a modicum of governance, has eroded the prospects of economic revival and legitimacy of the hybrid system, discrediting its manufacturers. Meanwhile, the conventional military balance with the old enemy India has fast deteriorated and, faced with the challenge of both legitimacy and feasibility of the hybrid system, the National Security Establishment has been compelled to return to the drawing board and review its National Security Policy.
Perforce, a new National Security Policy has to be fashioned to withstand the loss of American aid and goodwill; to restore representative and credible legitimacy to the political system; and to step back from perennial conflict with India over Kashmir. The trillion dollar question is how. Only a massive transfer of wealth from the super-rich rentier classes to the poor, and a return to a representative civilian system of governance, will stem the rising economic and political discontent and religious militancy that threatens to overwhelm the state; only a prolonged period of peace with India and a profound retreat from militarism will yield the required space in which to accomplish this task. But any overnight attempt to stand the old National Security Policy on its head may unleash a formidable backlash from vested stakeholders among the institutions, groups and classes that have benefited from it for seven decades.
That is why the new National Security Policy is top secret, and jargon and generalities have been profusely sprinkled on its public version to obscure its true content and challenge.
PTI Corruption Pvt Ltd
Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) has indicted Imran Khan’s “Naya Pakistan” as being more corrupt in 2021 than at any time in the last ten years under Asif Zardari or Nawaz Sharif. Pakistan has fallen in the Corruption Index from 117 in 2018 to 140 in 2021, a big enough drop in three years of PTI to warrant adverse comment. But Mr Khan’s minions are casting aspersions on Transparency International Pakistan, the local chapter of TI, for feeding false biased data to its parent organization.
This is outrageous. The data is culled from credible sources like The Economist Intelligence Unit, the World Bank’s CPIA, World Economic Forum, World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, etc. These highly respected sources are used in all TI reports so that comparisons can be fairly made between countries and between any country’s progress or down sliding from year to year. It is also ironic that the PTI government’s propagandists should choose to target Transparency International Pakistan considering that it is a Trust whose elected Chairperson is none other than Pakistan’s most reputed Architect and Urban Revivalist, Yasmeen Lari, whose Vice-Chairperson is Dr Nasira Iqbal, ex-judge Lahore High Court whose son Waleed Iqbal is a Senator of the PTI, and which counts PTI’s President of Pakistan, Arif Alvi, as one of its founding members! But Imran Khan takes the cake for grabbing headlines by straight-facedly declaring that he had uprooted all corruption from Pakistan in the first 90 days of his regime in 2018 even as he scapegoated his Anti-Corruption Czar, Shehzad Akbar, this week, for failing to deliver a single conviction against a hoard of allegedly “corrupt” opposition leaders in nearly four years.
The PTI’s public narrative is built around the theme of corruption by the PPP and PMLN. But now, after seven years of investigations by the Election Commission of Pakistan that were thwarted by hook or by crook by the PTI, the ECP has publicly indicted this very same party for large-scale foreign funding fraud by Imran Khan and other office holders of this organisation. The Scrutiny Committee assisting the ECP was handpicked by the government but, despite its inclination to give a clean chit to the PTI, has been compelled to record the fraud because it was so overwhelming. Efforts to stop its report from public dissemination have also failed and soon the full extent of the corruption will be in the public domain to show Imran Khan’s real face. Indeed, it is only a matter of time before the ECP will write to the government to notify its findings in the Gazette of Pakistan and forward them to the Supreme Court to determine whether or not Imran Khan should be disqualified.
Two other reports on the corruption of the PTI merit comment. The first relates to the NAB Chairman, ex-Justice Javed Iqbal, who has resisted summons from the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee to brief it about his institution’s “performance”. The NAB is largely perceived to be a victimizing handmaiden of the PTI executive. Its Chairman is allegedly being blackmailed by the Prime Minister’s Office to do its bidding since a video of the Chairman in a compromising situation mysteriously surfaced on the platform of a TV channel whose owner is close to the PTI. Since then, the Chairman has been stopped in his tracks from going after leading stalwarts of the PTI regime. Now the Peshawar High Court has woken up to ask why NAB has shelved investigations into several projects in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, notably relating to the Malam Jabba Resort, the 1 billion tree plantation project, the Khyber Bank, etc. And the less said the better of the raging corruption in Punjab province under Imran Khan’s handpicked chief minister, Usman Buzdar, where civil service posts are routinely auctioned to the highest bidders, land grabs are everyday affairs, and billions are siphoned off from provincial and local government funds earmarked for people’s development and welfare. In truth, however, the loudest whispers are reserved for the Prime Minister’s family, friends and cronies. In fact, the list of corrupt or incompetent police officials, civil servants or advisors who are regularly transferred or sacked is growing by the day.
The myth of Imran Khan as Mr Clean is evaporating by the hour. People want to know which ATM funded the spanking new house in Zaman Park, Lahore, and the luxury apartment at #1 Constitution Avenue Islamabad. Questions are being asked about the source of overnight income in 2020-21 on which Khan has reportedly paid nearly Rs 10m in income tax. Intrepid reporters have tracked down people who donated generously to Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital but were shocked to learn that their donations were funnelled into PTI coffers. Indeed, mysteries surround the whereabouts of billions collected for flood relief more than a decade ago or speculative investments by the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust that channelled several million dollars to Imran Khan’s friends and cronies. To top it all, Imran Khan’s sprawling Bani Gala estate has been hastily “regularised” by the Capital Development Authority whilst scores of other illegal structures are still pending approval (one report notes that the CDA chairman who dared to submit a questionnaire to the Great Khan was told to pack his bags and scoot). Not to be forgotten, ex-spouse Reham Khan’s autobiography is full of accounts of generous friends who run his house and travels and cars etc., not without expectations of bigger rewards from proximity to power.
Now Imran Khan is warning the Establishment that brought him to power that he will be a more formidable force on the street than in office if he is kicked out. The good news is that this threat is now being challenged in wildly popular memes on social media that reflect a devastating new reality. The Emperor has no clothes. If and when he struts his hour on the street, people are more likely to taunt and mock him, rather than hail him.
For better or worse
The new Chief Justice of Pakistan, Umar Ata Bandial, has provoked comment in his first public address before the bar and bench. He believes the media has a fair right to criticise judicial decisions but must be restrained by the government of the day from defaming and scandalizing judges. He is particularly irked by the free-wheeling and sometimes personal remarks about the judiciary in general and some judges in particular on social media platforms. But the good judge might pause to consider some points before jumping the gun.
Pakistan’s judiciary is not exactly a paragon of virtue and justice. A recent global poll has kicked Pakistan’s judiciary down to 145th position in the international index of corruption and inefficiency. Indeed, its historical reputation as a “handmaiden of the executive” is fairly deserved in the pecking order of the civil-military establishment. Lay folks commonly say they are inclined to rent a judge rather than hire a lawyer to plead their case in the lower courts. Meanwhile, “superior” judges have justified all martial laws in the country under the dubious “doctrine of necessity” and tripped over themselves to serve the Establishment when it conspired to kick out elected prime ministers on the basis of trumped-up allegations of corruption or misdemeanor. They have thought nothing of unduly grabbing perks and plots. On the one occasion when a maverick chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, triggered a mass democratic protest movement against a dictator, the “revolutionary awakening”
Chief justice Bandial’s exhortation to the executive to protect the court’s integrity from the media’s slings and arrows is a classic case of misplaced concreteness for two main reasons. Forgive the cliché, but judges are expected to speak and defend themselves through the integrity and strength of their judgments rather than executive fiat. In modern times, too, they are expected to protect the have-nots who are most in need of swift relief and justice rather than the grubby elites who make and break laws. More to the point, if the judiciary fancies itself as an independent pillar of the state, it must accord the same status to the media in the constitutional order of things. In this scheme, asking the executive to sort out the media is unacceptable. A recent report by the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors on the threatened state of the Pakistani media is worth summarizing in order to disabuse such notions.
In 2021, five journalists were killed in the line of duty, two committed suicide because they couldn’t feed their families, seven were wounded in targeted attacks, four were seriously injured, 28 were assaulted, four were “disappeared”, many were harassed online to stress-point by regime trolls, ten were slapped with FIRs and dragged to police stations. Media houses and TV channels were subjected to arbitrary closures, PEMRA notices, stiff fines and blatant censorships. Sever
Justice Bandial arrives at the apex of the apex court in troubled times. Until now, the judiciary has been overly protective and supportive of Imran Khan, partly because of the perception of Sharif-Bhutto family corruption, partly because of PPP and PMLN musical-chairs fatigue, a
The big break occurred in the Supreme Court when the Supreme Judicial Council judgment against Justice Qazi Faiz Isa was overturned recently. Justice Bandial was among the judges who ruled against Justice Isa on both occasions. The naysayers are convinced that the Miltablishment hasn’t given up trying to oust Justice Isa from the SC. So all eyes will now be on Justice Bandial. The Peshawar High Court has also woken up after nearly two years to revive the corruption cases relating to the PTI government’s Malam Jabba and Billion Tree Projects, Khybar Bank, BRT, etc. The Islamabad High Court has ordered the Chairman NAB to answer contempt charges. The Election Commission of Pakistan is slowly releasing damning documents in the PTI Foreign Funding Case that could make for disqualifying Imran Khan; the LHC and SC have suspended major development in the Ravi River project so dear to Imran Khan’s heart. Some disqualifications of PTI stalwarts by the ECP are on the cards. These developments are a far cry from the Hanif Abbasi petition against Imran Khan’s disqualification in 2018 on the yardstick of “sadiq and ameen” that was turned down by the Islamabad High Court because having a child out of wedlock and not acknowledging her was deemed a “personal matter” not subject to law, never mind that a law was clearly broken in the bargain!
The current crisis of the state is not limited to the credibility of political parties or sustainability of the hybrid political system. It has also delegitimized the national security policies of the Miltablishment. The Supreme Court cannot remain oblivious of the popular will and swim against the current. Under the circumstances, Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial’s stint is likely to assume historic proportions, for better or worse.
50 Days
Sheikh Rashid, the self-appointed Miltablishment mouthpiece, says that the opposition will be scuttled in 50 days. Why 50 days exactly he doesn’t explain, unless he means to say by “March end”. Since the “long march” of the PDM to Islamabad is scheduled for March 23rd, he seems to imply that it will fail to oust Imran Khan and will then scatter in the wind. Interestingly, the Sheikh has also hinted at the reason for the opposition’s projected failure. “The Miltablishment is with the government”, he assures his supporters, but in the same breath he claims that “it is neutral”. So the question naturally arises: how can the Miltablishment be neutral and also be with the government?
This is the core issue which the opposition is trying to fathom. If the Miltablishment is “neutral”, ie, if it will not bail out the government when the opposition storms the National Assembly in days to come, then the government’s allies will flock to the opposition’s camp and a vote of no-confidence will succeed in ousting the PTI regime and opening the way for fresh elections. The argument here is that since the Miltablishment earlier roped in the Allies to prop up the PTI government, its “neutrality” now will free them to seek fresh alliances with the opposition in order to have a fighting chance in the next elections in which the PTI’s rout is forecast. Hence Sheikh Rashid’s assurance that the Miltablishment is still standing with the government and will protect it from falling down.
Meanwhile, the opposition has come to the conclusion that the Miltablishment has finally and irrevocably withdrawn into the shadows and will not any longer prop up a hugely unpopular government which has discredited the Miltablishment for supporting it. Consequently, talk of resignations from parliament or protest rallies has given way to feverish meetings to put the numbers together for a vote of no-confidence. The government and its allies tally 182 while the opposition adds up to 162. The critical difference of 20 is made up of the government’s allies. If just over half break away, the government will fall. All the opposition has to do is to offer them guaranteed seats on winning tickets in the next elections and they will come running. But is it really as simple as that?
The Chaudhries of Gujarat have five NA seats. They currently have the Punjab Speakership and two federal ministries in hand. So they will want more than that in their Punjab home base for ditching the PTI. But here’s the problem: the PMLN will need to sweep Punjab in order to reach Islamabad and the last thing they will want to give away to unreliable partners in crime is too many seats or a significant share of power. Then there’s the MQM with two MNAs. It has many problems with the PPP in Karachi. But the PMLN can’t help them against its main partner in the “Get Imran Operation”. And so it is with the others in KP and Balochistan. The Lone Ranger on the horizon is Jehangir Tareen who claims over 20 MNAs in his stable to sell to the highest bidder. But, like the MQM and Chaudhries, he won’t move without a nod from the Miltablishment. So, is the Miltablishment with the government or is it neutral (meaning the allies can take independent decisions in their own self-interest)?
It isn’t also simply of question of a few more or less votes for either side. The Speaker of the National Assembly, Asad Qaisar, is a thoroughly partisan fellow who has never shied away from fiddling the vote count in the past. And since his decisions cannot be challenged in any court, he may be expected to ride rough shod over the opposition. Therefore, the winning margin should be so significant that it can’t be fudged. Furthermore, Imran Khan’s desperation should not be discounted. He may not be averse to the idea of using the FIA and NAB to detain or kidnap opposition MNAs from Punjab and Sindh.
There are other weighty matters to settle even if the numbers can be cobbled and the PTI government kicked out shortly. Will the interim “opposition” government be short or long? When will fresh elections be ordered? Who will be PM and President? What will the caretaker government after the interim government look like? What will happen to the provincial governments if they don’t stick to the dissolution plan in Islamabad? Can we have a general election without simultaneous provincial elections?
Sheikh Rashid’s end-March scenario is ominous for another reason. It is speculated that come April and Imran Khan may announce General Faiz Hameed – the man who engineered his rise and ensured his survival until now — as the next head of the Miltablishment. Should that happen, the opposition will be sent packing and Imran Khan can rest assured of another five year “selection” next year. Alternatively, if the Miltablishment has decided not to allow Imran Khan to interfere in its internal matters regarding appointments, promotions, transfers or extensions, it may be provoked into a confrontation with the government that will not necessarily be in the interest of the opposition. So, if the opposition has to take the plunge, it must strike now, but in no case beyond the next 50 days.
Shehbaz Sharif and Asif Zardari have feted and exchanged more than just pleasantries. An MQM delegation has lunched with Mr Sharif while the Chaudhries have shaken hands with Mr Zardari. Mr Sharif is now scheduled to hob-nob with Jehangir Tareen and the Chaudhries. Meanwhile, Imran Khan has taken to public platforms to blast them all.
The tension is palpable. It is writ on the face of each protagonist. But here’s the rub. There is no such thing as “Miltablishment neutrality” in anyone’s book. In the current scenario, with end-game approaching, this amounts to “either you’re with us or against us”! Who will strike first?
Comeuppance
Mohsin Baig, the owner/editor of Online News Agency, is a self-avowed Establishment-influential. He also admits to being a fund raiser for, and confidante of, Imran Khan, having been on the notorious container with him in 2014-15. There are pictures of them together in select gatherings of Imran Khan’s personal friends. So when he started to openly criticise Imran Khan some months ago, a lot of tongues naturally began to wag. Had Khan and the Establishment that drafted him into office drifted so far apart that the time had come for the Establishment to sic its media assets on him? But when Baig started to threaten Imran Khan in public with disclosure of “unholy secrets”, the die was cast.
Imran Khan knows how much damage such revelations can inflict on his crumbling character and politics. Thus Baig was arrested by the FIA on the morning of February 16 from his house in Islamabad, partly to silence him and partly to send a warning to other ex-cronies who might be thinking of spilling the beans. Unfortunately for Khan, however, the manner of Baig’s arrest and the charges that have been slapped on him have redounded to Khan’s disadvantage instead of making him look strong and entrenched.
An FIA team in plainclothes went to arrest Mohsin Baig. He thought they were dacoits/kidnappers, so he pulled out a gun. Shots were fired in the air. He resisted and was roughed up. The police arrived, whisked him away and bunged him into a cell. By the afternoon, an additional sessions judge had been approached to summon the police and explain their conduct: how come an FIR by PTI MNA Murad Saeed for an alleged cyber-crime was lodged against Baig in Lahore at 9 am but by 9.30 am a team in Islamabad was already on the move to get him. The judge took one look at the FIR and declared that the arrest was illegal. The police responded by slapping charges of terrorism and shunting Baig to an anti-terrorist court which remanded him for three days. Questions arose. Why, for example, were charges of terrorism framed against him when he was only alleged to have made an oblique reference to Murad Saeed in a TV show on the basis of what was written in a book authored by Reham Khan, ex-Mrs Imran Khan?
The popular consensus is that Imran Khan is flailing about desperately in a fit of panic and rage. The Establishment has turned against him. The opposition is cobbling a united front against him. His allies are waiting for a signal from the Establishment to bolt into their arms and kick him out. He is intimidating his critics. Hit lists are being compiled feverishly. Repressive Presidential Ordinances are being drafted. The air is thick with stories of corruption in government, amongst Khan’s cronies and family. The Election Commission of Pakistan and the courts are waking up to flex muscle. Everyone is asking one question: who will strike first and when?
There are three ways to oust Imran Khan. The first is to create an environment in which he is thoroughly discredited and so pressured in one way or another that he chooses to throw in the towel and call it a day himself. But Khan is a stubborn man known to dig in his heels and fight to the bitter end. The second is to get him disqualified by the Election Commission of Pakistan whose damning judgment on the Foreign Funding case is expected in the first half of March. That would put the political merits of the legal route above par with the one taken to oust Nawaz Sharif. The third is to facilitate a successful vote of no confidence against him in parliament. A combination of the first two would be neater than the messy risks involved in the third.
There is a fourth way. If Imran Khan tries to sack the army chief and seize command of the Establishment by way of appointing his own man – as Nawaz Sharif did in 1999 vis a vis General Pervez Musharraf – the Establishment would likely hit back and he would meet the same fate as Nawaz Sharif did. But the country and its politics would be dragged into uncertain territory with unforeseen and unintended consequences
Nonetheless, sooner or later, whichever route is taken, general elections would be held and the PMLN, which enjoys great popularity, would form a government in Islamabad and the country would revert to being a normal democracy.
As matters get rough for Imran Khan in the next few weeks, he may take recourse to illegal and unconstitutional ways to retain his government. For instance he may try to arrest parliamentary members of the opposition so that they cannot muster the required numbers to unseat him. Or he could order the Speaker of the National Assembly, Asad Qaisar, a thoroughly biased and partisan fellow, to thwart the opposition by manipulating the results of any balloting or denying them their constitutional rights and privileges. Or he could exploit constitutional ambiguities and unprecedented interpretations of law to sow confusion and cling to office with the support of his hand-picked President, leaving no option but to drag the Umpire into the fray.
Some people don’t rule out the possibility that Imran Khan could outwit the Establishment and the Opposition to survive until the scheduled elections next year and then go on to rig them and rule autocratically for another term. Such people discount the angry mood and will of the people. Civil-military politicians who have tried to subvert the constitution, steal mandates and install hybrid or authoritarian regimes have always got their comeuppance sooner or later.
The Big IF
The Opposition has finally stitched it up. At last count, it had confirmed over 200 votes to oust the PTI government in Islamabad. These include most PTI allies plus a significant chunk of sitting PTI MNAs answering either to Jehangir Tareen or dealing directly with Nawaz Sharif. It was important to get past this 200 number because Imran Khan is sure to offer fresh inducements to his allies while pushing state institutions like the FIA, NAB and Police to cut the Opposition down to size. A formal notice of no-confidence is expected to be lodged next week if – the big IF — all goes according to plan.
Significantly, the Opposition has decided to focus on ousting Imran Khan and postponed “other” thorny issues till after a successful vote of no-confidence. These “other” issues include who will be the new Leader of the House or prime minister, what will be the composition of the new government, for how long will this government last, what steps it will take to order and ensure free and fair elections and whether or not all or some provincial assemblies will also be dissolved and national and provincial elections will be held simultaneously as in the past.
But there is a big assumption underlying this forecast. That is, IF the ubiquitous Miltablishment does not signal NO, or otherwise. Indeed, the delay in announcing an irrevocable date for D-Day is related to confirming assurances of “neutrality” from the Miltablishment that has time and again bailed out Imran Khan and “betrayed” the opposition. An indication of the sort of uncertainty that exists on this front can be gauged from a recent statement by Mariyyum Aurangzeb, the PMLN spokesperson, accusing (and warning) a top pro-Imran Khan Miltablishment official based in Peshawar of calling up PMLN MNAs and asking them to refrain from participating in this exercise. The opposition knows that if this move fails for one reason or another, it won’t get another chance for a long time, during which Imran Khan may be expected to reset and consolidate his power equation with the Miltablishment and divide and rule over the opposition.
Curiously, while the war clouds are darkening over his political horizon, Imran Khan has jetted off for a meeting with Vladimir Putin, the modern Russian Tsar, in Moscow, who decided to invade Ukraine, trigger war and incur global condemnation. In the event, there was no joint statement, press conference or banquet for the visitor. This is a case of either over-confidence – the Miltablishment is with him and he doesn’t have to worry about anything — or cynical desperation – it’s all over, so might as well get some billing back home for meeting the top world leader of the moment! Certainly, there was nothing in the brief meeting that would suggest any “breakthroughs” in the realm of “geoeconomics” or “geostrategies”.
There is, of course, no doubt that Imran Khan has alienated, or lost the support of, most sectors of state and society at home in less than four years. By virtue of its close association with Khan, the Miltablishment is also smarting from the popular backlash against it. A degree of bitter resentment has also seeped into it on account of Khan’s arrogant and dismissive attitude, no less than his attempts to manipulate its leadership. Still, suspicions linger about its readiness to fully trust the Opposition and learn to live and let live with it.
Then there’s the media. It is up in arms against new laws to gag it into submission. Even the most biased pro-Imran anchors and commentators worry about their falling credibility in the face of rising anti-Imran sentiment. But journalists are a cynical lot by definition. If the oppositionists drag their feet much longer on the vote of no-confidence, the media will waste no time in lambasting them.
Not to forget the Election Commission of Pakistan. It is about to release evidence of large-scale fraud and money laundering in the PTI’s foreign funding case. That is bound to make nasty headlines for Imran Khan and facilitate the opposition’s strategy. The ECP also intends to challenge a new Ordinance that violates its code of conduct for candidates and supporters in the run-up to elections.
Finally, the judiciary is waking up to resist Khan’s unconstitutional diktat. The judges in the case against Maryam Nawaz Sharif have ticked off NAB prosecutors for delaying matters because they lack evidence. The Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court, Athar Minallah, has just upbraided FIA officials for violating SOPs and deliberately misreading sections of the PECA law by arresting media owner-editor Mohsin Baig. Most significantly, the good judge has suspended action under the new PECA amendment aimed at arresting and punishing free speech on social media, which is an indictment against Khan and his yes-men in the law department who drummed up such a black Ordinance in the first place.
But it’s the economy, stupid. It shows no sign of limping out of the Intensive Care Unit. The hardships of the people are not about to go away. Indeed, that is the major reason why the PMLN wants an immediate election after Khan’s ouster which it can win and rule for five years thereafter rather than struggle to lead a government for a year or so and incur the wrath of the people for not being able to deliver before the elections next year.
So we wait and watch for The Big IF …..
Now or Never
Maulana Fazal ur Rahman, head of the Pakistan Democratic Movement, has announced the decision of the combined Opposition to requisition a session of the National Assembly within a couple of days to table motions of No-Confidence against Prime Minister Imran Khan, Speaker Asad Qaisar and Deputy Speaker Qasim Khan Suri. PDM sources claim 86 MNAs have signed the notices even though the law stipulates only 68 may suffice. The constitutional procedure requires the Speaker to call a session of parliament not earlier than three days after receiving such notices and not later than seven days in concluding the matter. The voting against the Prime Minister is via open ballot but against the Speaker and his deputy via secret ballot.
This would suggest that the Opposition may move against the Speaker and Deputy Speaker first because the secret ballot may facilitate the floor crossers from the PTI and allied parties to remain invisible until success has emboldened them to openly stand against the Prime Minister in the second round. But if the government orders its supporters to abstain from attending the assembly, then this approach will not be fruitful.
It is speculated that a similar Opposition move may materialize in the Punjab Assembly any day.
Meanwhile, popular pressure on the ruling party is building up through the PPP’s Long March led by Chairman Bilawal Bhutto that has entered Punjab and is facing roadblocks by the Punjab Police.
The PDM’s decision to take the plunge follows weeks of hectic politicking by both opposition heavyweights and government stalwarts. The former was aiming to corral the government’s 20 or so allies while trying to poach an equal number from the ranks of the government. The latter, naturally enough, has been desperately resisting such moves. On one side are arrayed the two Bhutto-Zardaris, the two Sharifs, three ex-Prime Ministers Yousaf Raza Gillani, Raja Pervez Ashraf and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, and the good Maulana. On the other, the arrogant Imran Khan is personally hustling the Allies, notably the Gujrat Chaudhries, and bending the knee to COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa in a last-ditch attempt to clutch at the Miltablishment’s coattails and survive.
Until now, naysaying analysts have ruled the roost. How can a sitting government handpicked by the Miltablishment be ousted, they have argued, especially when they were on the “same page” and the only option to Imran Khan was Nawaz Sharif, the one man the Miltablishment had moved Heaven and Earth to dislodge only a few years ago? But bird watchers saw unmistakable signs of increasing tears on the “same page”, notably in sharp differences of opinion between Imran Khan and the Miltablishment on conduct of national security policies, foreign affairs, economic management and one sided “accountability”, that proved to be embarrassing for the Miltablishment by association with him. Thus they were bold to predict that the end of Mr Khan was nigh, sooner or later, but no later than the tipping point when the PPP and PDM would arrive on the “same page” between themselves and also with the Miltablishment about what should happen but after the vote of no-confidence has succeeded – the nature and scope of the next government, the timing of the next elections to the national assembly and the provinces and the limitations of the various power-sharing compromises built into the situation.
Imran Khan is expected to deploy all his resources of state and government to thwart the Opposition, including arrests of Opposition figures, political bribes to allies and harassment of independent media. It is also not beyond the realm of possibility that he may desperately lash out at the leaders of the Miltablishment and risk taking the system down with him.
But Khan’s weakness is staring the Opposition in the face. His handshake with Vladimir Putin, followed by a refusal to criticize Russian aggression against an independent country, was meant to score brownie points with his anti-American supporters despite the Miltablishment’s advice against it. His economic “relief” package is aimed at befooling the masses in an election year even though it may derail the IMF program and nudge Pakistan in the direction of bankruptcy and default. His refusal to start trading with India, despite the fact that it will provide relief to the population at large by ending speculative shortages and resultant price increases of essential goods, defies logic unless the aim is to prepare the ground for attacking the Miltablishment and Opposition in the event that Imran Khan is on the outside when the next government tries to “trade with the enemy” or get too pally with America.
Although we can be reasonably sure that the Opposition has done its homework before making such a strategic announcement and Imran Khan will soon lick the dust, nothing is 100% guaranteed in the murky world of Pakistani “spy vs spy” politics. What will the Opposition do if the vote of no-confidence fails to de-seat Khan?
We can be reasonably sure that the PMLN will raise the stakes for the Miltablishment based on the argument that its avowed neutrality was in fact objectively weighted in favour of Imran Khan. If there is another “great betrayal”, we should expect Nawaz Sharif to open his guns again and name names. With public sympathy on his side, the Miltablishment will squirm and bristle, as it did on such an occasion earlier, but without any prospect of relief afforded by prospects of better economic and political management by Imran Khan.
The “Ides of March” deadline for settling debts has arrived. The Opposition has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Place your bets. It’s now or never.
Ominous
The numbers game for ascertaining who will be the Leader of the House (prime minister) has finally kicked off. The PTI has 155 votes and its allies have 24, totalling 179 for the government. The combined opposition has 162. If at least 10 switch from the government to the opposition, swelling its ranks to the magic number of 172, Imran Khan will be gone. What are the chances this will come to pass?
The Opposition claims that at least 20 PTI MNAs have already committed to crossing the floor on voting day. Some are said to have been “induced” to switch by the prospect of getting a winning berth on the PMLN ticket in central or northern Punjab or PPP ticket in Sindh or southern Punjab. Some palms may also have been greased. If this claim is even half true, then the dice will roll for the Opposition on D-Day.
The Allies of the government, which include the PMLQ (5 votes), MQM (7 votes), BAP (5 votes), GDA (3 votes), Ind (2 votes), Sheikh Rashid (1 vote) and JWP (1 vote), sense they may be the biggest losers in the game if the Opposition gets their required numbers from the PTI. So they are all scrambling to negotiate terms for ditching this government and securing seats in the next. Under the circumstances, if all goes according to plan, the Opposition could well dethrone Imran Khan with a thumping majority of over 200 votes.
For precisely this reason, Imran Khan is fighting back on two fronts. He is swallowing his pride and arrogance and desperately trying to retain his allies by counter inducements. But his focus is on stopping his own herd from flocking to the Opposition. The idea is to instil confidence in his allies that he isn’t going anywhere and they should stick to him.
Imran Khan’s strategy is to block his MNAs from coming to parliament on voting day. And if they defy his orders and end up voting with the Opposition against him, to get the Speaker, Asad Qaisar, to disqualify them from remaining members of the PTI and cancelling their votes. Constitutionally, he cannot stop them from voting against him and the disqualification process can take up to four months (one month with the Election Commission of Pakistan and three months in appeals before the Supreme Court) if due process is followed. But the Speaker can blithely mock the constitution, gaining time for Imran Khan to fight a rear guard action.
The Opposition knows this. That is why it is negotiating with the allies at the same time because they cannot be stopped by the Speaker from joining forces with the Opposition. Voting day promises to be rowdy and murky.
This has come to pass only because the Miltablishment has let it be known that it is no longer propping up Imran Khan, that it is “neutral”. But if Imran Khan survives, the Opposition is bound to accuse it of bailing out the government at the last minute by signalling the allies to stick to Khan like glue. And if he falls, he is sure to target it for “conspiring” against him for various real or imagined reasons.
But the game isn’t over until it’s over. Even if Imran Khan is ousted, the Opposition has to work out a modus operandi and modus vivendi for the next phase. Who is going to head the next government in Islamabad? For how long? What “reforms” will be needed in electoral, accountability and budgetary laws? What is the fate of the various provincial assemblies, who will head them, if and when these will be dissolved. How will Miltablishment allies like PMLQ, MQM, GWD, BAP, et al be accommodated in any future dispensation? If such thorny issues aren’t sorted out swiftly, the whole exercise could be derailed by default, inviting the Miltablishment to “sort out” the situation to everyone’s disadvantage.
Now we are informed by Asad Umar that Imran Khan intends to call his Youthia Brigade to seize D-Chowk in Islamabad on voting day, besiege parliament and stop PTI “deserters” from entering it. In turn, Maulana Fazal Ur Rahman has ordered his “Razakars” to protect JUI MNAs in parliament lodges from being harassed, kidnapped or arrested by the police. If PPP “jiyalas” and PMLN supporters are provoked to enter the fray, the stage is set for violent clashes. The Speaker, Asad Qaisar, is waiting for such a situation to arise so that he can prorogue parliament indefinitely and postpone the day of reckoning.
Imran Khan has been as good as his threat. Since last November when tensions erupted between the Miltablishment and him and talk of the Miltablishment weighing its options gathered credibility, he has been planning his exit strategy. This is based on five pillars of resistance. One, continue to lash out at the Opposition as a gang of thieves and robbers who deserve no place in government and provoke them by insulting them personally Two, build up a populist narrative of anti-America, anti-West, anti-India sentiment, regardless of any damage to Pakistan’s foreign policy interests, so that he can point to their “conspiracies” to oust him. Third, threaten the Miltablishment with his “nuclear” option of sacking the current army chief and appointing his own man. Fourth, instruct the Speaker of the National Assembly to obstruct any attempt by the Opposition to dethrone him in parliament regardless of his illegality. Fifth, galvanise his Youthias to physically and violently obstruct the removal of his government by constitutional means. In short, his strategy is to resist his ouster by violent means and drag the army into interventionist politics all over again. In other words, if he isn’t allowed to rule, his preferred alternative is to trigger political chaos in the country. Comparisons with a mad man like Donald Trump obviously some to mind.
The ISPR has now pointed to an “unidentified flying object from India that has crashed in Mian Channu in Pakistan Punjab”. The Tehreek Taliban Pakistan, Islamic State-K and Baluch Separatists from across the western border are terrorising and killing Pakistanis, civilians and soldiers, at will. With domestic civil strife notching up by the day, the writing on the wall is ominous.
Tragic End Game
The Opposition has now demonstrated an absolute majority of over 172 MNA votes to clinch a successful vote of no confidence against Imran Khan’s PTI government. It has done so by allowing the independent media to freely quiz over a dozen PTI MNAs holed out in Sindh House Islamabad to determine their motives. An equal number of PTI MNAs are still in hiding from the Intelligence Bureau and Islamabad Police and are expected to show up on D-Day to stick the knife in. Meanwhile, the PTI’s erstwhile allies led by the PMLQ and MQM are visibly stitching up last minute details before formally joining the swelling ranks against Imran Khan. Thus, in the next few days, the Opposition should be able to field at least 200 votes, leaving the PTI gasping with less than 140. There may be some horse trading but the central fact is that widespread popular alienation from Imran Khan’s policies has made it impossible for them to win an election on a PTI ticket. So they are scrambling to get a berth on a winning platform.
Under the circumstances, the constitutional thing to do is for Imran Khan to step aside with dignity and allow a new government that enjoys a clear majority to rule in Islamabad.
But Mr Khan’s reaction has been terribly negative. He is abusing his ex-allies and vowing to “fix” them through the offices of NAB, FIA and assorted government agencies. He is aiming to stop PTI rebels from voting and, failing that, through the office of the Speaker Asad Qaisar, to disqualify them and reject their votes. He is discussing unconstitutional proposals with his hangers-on – like Governor’s Rule in Sindh, Presidential Proclamation of an Emergency, etc. — to block the no-confidence process and drag it into the courts through April and May. And, more ominously, he is preparing to besiege Parliament and browbeat parliamentarians on voting day by gathering hostile crowds in D-Chowk.
This last act of unconstitutional resistance has provoked the Opposition to call for a bigger and equally aggressive demonstration in the same area to counter his machinations. This is a recipe for clashes and violence.
Imran Khan is also threatening to reveal an Ace of Spades on D-Day to foil the Opposition. Since no threat or blackmail is likely to deter or undermine the Opposition at such a late stage, one may presume he means to divide and pressure the Miltablishment to abandon its “neutrality” and take his side. How he intends to do this is not clear, nor can one be sure that, when this card is played, it will succeed in its objective.
PTI whisperers say Imran may target and even sack General Qamar Javed Bajwa and appoint a senior non-
There is also some speculation that he means to provoke chaos and violence in D-Chowk on D-Day. Since this is bound to drag the Miltablishment into the fray, it would amount to a philosophy of “If I am going down, I will drag the Opposition with me and burn the House down”. Of course, both the Opposition and Government will lose out but Imran and the PTI will be the biggest losers whereas the Opposition will give safe passage to the Miltablishment and get back into the saddle before long.
A significant number of PTI MNAs are not the only ones bolting to the Opposition’s stables. The Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, who is reputed to be responsible for some bad advice and decisions, has hurriedly made plans to escape to safer pastures. A number of special assistants, advisers and ministers are readying to flee. Others have suddenly become tight lipped and invisible.
The fact that it is downhill all the way now for Imran Khan, whatever his illegal and unconstitutional delaying tactics in Islamabad, is underlined by a serious developing threat in the Punjab. The Opposition is ready with the required signatures to launch a vote of no-confidence against Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. This move is as good as done because the Speaker of the Punjab Assembly, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, and his cohorts have already switched loyalties. Unlike Speaker Asad Qaisar in the NA, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi is part of the proposed solution rather than being the problem. Those who think that the Opposition will start in-fighting and fall apart sooner than later are wrong. The personal hatred of Imran Khan and the political t
For so many voters, Imran Khan promised so much and delivered so little. But tragically, he is a deeply flawed person. The worry is that his personal failings may lead to democracy’s failure in Pakistan all over again.
Course Correction
For all intents and purposes, the “selected” prime minister, Imran Khan, is on a ventilator, fighting for his government’s survival. He has lost the confidence of a majority of the members of Parliament. Over a dozen PTI MNAs have openly revolted (more are said to be biding their time) and, despite threats and exhortations, have refused to return to the PTI fold. In the same manner, at least 15 MNAs from allied parties have admitted to stitching up agreements with the Opposition to join their no-confidence bid against Mr Khan. That means a vote of no-confidence is assured of success if the constitutional procedure is followed by the NA Speaker, Asad Qaisar, in the next seven days or so. But here’s the rub.
Imran Khan, who never tires of taking the moral high ground, is determined to resist his ouster, never mind what the law and constitution say. The Speaker has used his discretion to delay the day of reckoning as much as possible and indications are he will continue to drag his feet. This includes conspiring with President Arif Alvi and compelling the opposition to approach the Supreme Court to clarify or restrict his rulings. This will entail further delays, as for example in the matter of the Presidential Reference seeking the SC’s opinion on the matter of “de-seating” for the term of this parliament or “disqualification” from parliament for life of MNAs crossing the floor.
While the battle in parliament is joined by the government and opposition and spills over to the SC, Imran Khan is daily exhorting his supporters to reach Islamabad on March 27 for a “historic” rally during which he intends to spring a thunderous surprise to knock out the opposition. Since his ouster is now a legal and constitutional issue, he may be aiming to put public pressure on the SC to discard notions of “constitutional justice” and blackmail the Miltablishment to abandon “
This is a dangerous and risky strategy. The Opposition has already geared up to challenge his 27 March rally with its own in Islamabad on March 28.And there is no knowing how the Miltablishment will react to any attempt by him to embarrass, divide or belittle it on one ground or another, as for example by “de-notifying” the current army chief and “notifying” a new one, because any such move will be challenged institutionally in more ways than one. Therefore the stage could be set for a violent ending.
There are some media reports that Miltablishment efforts are afoot to facilitate a compromise between the protagonists, to diffuse the situation in the national interest. The proposed formula would lead to elections later this year instead of next year under a neutral Miltablishment and stop the victimization of the Opposition by NAB, FIA, etc., in exchange for calling off the vote of no-confidence, thereby saving
On the other hand, there are equally responsible media voic
Opposition leaders insist they have crossed the Rubicon and there is no chance of any compromise with Imran Khan because of the yawning trust deficit between them. He has lied through his teeth so often and taken so many U-Turns, they believe, that they are not even prepared to accept Miltablishment assurances on his behalf even if these were forthcoming. They say they will keep up the pressure even if Imran Khan survives this round for one reason or another. They simply cannot afford to let Imran Khan off the hook because they fear he will scupper parliamentary democracy, rig the next elections and set up a fascist regime. There is also a trust deficit between the Miltablishment and Imran Khan that has provided an opportunity to the opposition to bring matters to a head.
While the civilians slug it out between themselves and the Miltablishment ponders the failure of its most recent hybrid regime experiment, the economy continues to plunge in the face of unprecedented inflation, un
In the next few days, political confrontation will reach a climactic breaking point. The Opposition holds all the cards but Imran Khan is threatening to finesse the end-game with a secret Ace of Spades. In the final analysis, it is the Miltablishment and the Supreme Court whose decisions will tilt the balance. If both stay “neutral”, the country’s blundering course can be corrected by reinvesting in democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism.
The End
Imran Khan has lost the confidence of a majority of Parliamentarians and will be constitutionally voted out of prime ministerial office on April 3rd, 2022, by a thumping majority. Indeed, even if he plays foul by getting the Speaker of the National Assembly or President of Pakistan to extend his political lease of life a bit by twisting procedures, he won’t last much longer. The people are mad at him for making their lives miserable. The opposition is united in exacting revenge for four years of brutalization. The Miltablishment wants to disown the “same-page” narrative and redeem its credibility by letting him fend for himself. The bruised and battered media is in an unforgiving mood. And the superior courts sense the national mood and won’t bail him out any more.
Imran Khan should take a moral and principled position and resign so that the system can transfer power smoothly. The country craves certainty and stability.
But he says he will fight to the bitter end. As a last ditch effort, he has brandished a “letter” from the outgoing Pakistan Ambassador to Washington, Asad Khan, to the Pakistan Foreign Office alleging that the US is “conspiring” to oust the PTI government. The letter’s disclosure at this time is aimed at persuading Pakistanis, Parliamentarians and the Miltablishment to stand with him and resist the “conspiracy” in which the Opposition has allegedly sold out Pakistan.
Imran Khan’s position on the “letter” has been deliberately ambiguous and fluid. At first he waved it dramatically in front of a charged PTI crowd, suggesting it was a formal and deadly threat by a foreign power against his government. Then he confessed that it was an internal cable from the Pakistan Ambassador in Washington based on his talks with a senior American official. Later, he revealed he had shared it with key national security stakeholders and his cabinet. Belatedly, he also agreed to brief parliament “in camera”. But he refuses to order any investigation into how and why the letter came into being or the authenticity of its content.
Thus far, however, his “conspiracy” story has been rejected by all the stakeholders. The NSC has ordered no more than a “demarche” to the US which has officially denied any threats. Indeed, the demand for an investigation is growing because suspicions persist about the terms and conditions behind the writing of this letter. It mysteriously arrived on the 7th March, on the eve of the lodging of the Vote of No-Confidence (VONC) on March 8th by the Opposition, has references to it in the text, and is written by an outgoing Pakistan Ambassador to Washington, Asad Khan, who returned to Islamabad but departed on March 27 to assume charge of the Pakistan Embassy in Brussels a day before the VONC resolution was moved in Parliament on March 28 so that he would not be available for comment or evidence in Islamabad.
A common belief is that Asad Khan was leaned upon by the government, via the Foreign Office. to write such a letter in exchange for the posting in Brussels. That is why the government is refusing to order an investigation into Lettergate. True or not, what is certain is that the Ambassador in Brussels will be recalled by the next government in due course to explain what actually transpired.
A host of serious reservations exist. Why did the PM sit on the letter for weeks and not take action earlier? Why did the Foreign Minister invite a senior American official to participate in the OIC moot in Islamabad and publicly express satisfaction in his meetings with the official if all was not well? Why did the PM keep changing his story about the need to keep it secret and not share it with the national security establishment and parliament if it was such a serious threat? Why should any routine exchange of views between two diplomats be flagged as an existential threat to Pakistan, least of all when it merely reflects the impressionistic feedback of a Pakistani official? What drastic decision by Imran Khan against core American interests has antagonized President Joe Biden to the point of instigating regime change in Pakistan?
Meanwhile, Imran Khan’s desperate follies have put Pakistan in a terribly precarious diplomatic situation. Relations with the Western powers, especially the United States and its Middle-Eastern allies, with whom we predominantly trade in goods and services and whose aid and loans we seek, have hit rock bottom. With the economy on lifeline support from precisely these powers, Imran Khan’s legacy will be a devastating one for the next government. It’s as if he has deliberately planted a time bomb for the next government to diffuse at great risk.
Now Imran Khan has sought a last minute “NRO” from the very Opposition he despises. He wants the Opposition to withdraw the VONC in exchange for announcing general elections in August. This “deal” was transmitted via the Miltablishment to Opposition Big-Wigs. And, as expected, it was been roundly rejected. Nonetheless, PTI propagandists are burning the midnight oil selling it as a “done deal” to lure PTI allies and dissidents back into the fold.
He is also threatening to call a big rally in front of Parliament on April 2nd, the eve of the VONC on April 3rd. The idea again is to threaten his opponents and pressure the Miltablishment, Courts and dissidents to stand with him. Meanwhile, his Social Media Department is busy bombarding GHQ with statements of support for Imran Khan from ex-servicemen.
In a desperate attempt to escape his fate, Imran Khan reached out to the nation on Thursday night. But is was all in vain. It was a rambling, repetitive, dull speech that exposed his fatal flaws rather than win any brownie points for him. In the end he looked like an angry, frustrated, delusional man who knows the end is nigh but is struggling to deny it. Under the circumstances, Imran Khan would do himself and Pakistan a favour by retreating to the opposition benches and live to fight another day.