Mian Nawaz Sharif has visibly panicked. That is more than obvious from his feisty censure of the combined opposition to his government, from the cancellation of his trip to Japan and from his television address a couple of days ago in which he blew hot and cold in the same breath. The radical new laws on the anvil, ostensibly to control terrorism, are yet another pointer in the same direction; they are more likely to abridge fundamental rights, throttle dissent and sap the constitution than to even scratch the law and order situation. Ch Nisar’s desperate dash to Azizabad, followed by Mr Altaf Hussain’s carefully rehearsed statement, in support of the PM and warning “ambitious undemocratic forces” to beware the wrath of the MQM should they persist in their treacherous conspiracies, merely served to clinch the argument that the PM is in serious trouble.
No wonder, Mian Sahib is grasping at foreign straws. The information ministry has paid large sums for a great deal of advertising space in several foreign journals and newspapers extolling the virtues of Sartaj Aziz’s privatisation and deregulation policies.
The interesting observation is that only last month, he was looking quite comfortable. The President had announced the imminent retirement of COAS Gen Mirza Aslam Beg and quashed rumours about the General’s presumed ambitions. Mr Wassim Sajjad’s trip to Washington had got fair billing and the PM’s proposals for a regional solution to nuclear non-proliferation had received an obliging nod in Washington and Beijing.
It is true that terrorism and crime have taken a sharp turn for the worse in recent weeks. But, while most Pakistanis are naturally worried sick, many would still absolve the new government of much responsibility for the outbreak of terrorism. Of course, the government is expected to formulate a proper response, but it is generally recognised that this brand of lawlessness is a legacy of the past and may have more to do with Pakistan’s foreign policy priorities, which are controlled by the establishment, rather than domestic policies which are within the PM’s purview.
The crucial point, however, remains that the opposition to Nawaz Sharif is fairly smelling blood. from Pir Pagaro to Nawabzada Nasrullah, from Messrs Jatoi and Khar to Maulana Fazlur Rahman, from Junejo to Leghari and Tariq Rahim, everyone, it seems, is hitching up his trousers for a spot of action. Clearly, if Mian Sahib felt that the cacophony raised against his government did not have the explicit backing of powerful elements within the establishment, he would hardly have deigned to bother.
As a matter of fact, it is not too difficult to guess at Mian Sahib’s problem. We have all known for a long time that Nawaz Sharif’s meteoric rise has had more to do with the active backing of an important section of the establishment than any great intrinsic merit to his own leadership qualities. Most of us have long suspected that, without such covert assistance, he couldn’t have put up such a solid opposition to Benazir Bhutto’s government from 1988 to 1990. More to the point, he could hardly have swept the last elections and succeeded in decimating the PPP without leaning heavily on the invisible soldiers of Islam.
Now it appears that these soldiers of Islam may be on the verge of withdrawing their support to Mian Sahib and linking up with a long line of disgruntled politicians who have been screaming for his head. Since Nawaz Sharif is already familiar with the breadth of their power, from first hand experience, he is not jittery without good reason.
What has happened in the recent past to effect this switch of allegiance which has put the Nawaz Sharif on the spot? One factor could be disagreements with the COAS over Pakistan’s overtures to the United States. Another may well be tensions in certain quarters triggered off by the appointment of Gen Asif Nawaz Janjua as COAS-designate rather than Gen Shamim Alam or even Gen Hameed Gul. Some people say that Gen Beg would have liked to sit as Chairman of a more powerful JCOS Committee rather than fade away in retirement and that by denying him a power-sharing arrangement, the PM has screwed up the chances of the survival of representative government. Of course, the simplest and most naive explanation is that the law and order situation is getting to be so bad that a long dose of martial law is in order.