Amir Zia
Monday, October 20, 2014
The News
It was hard to imagine that Sharif, who got more or less a perfect start to his third stint in power following the 2013 general elections, would be on the ropes barely less than 18 months into power.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif may have succeeded in clinging to power for now against the backdrop of anti-government sit-ins in Islamabad and mammoth public rallies in the other major cities, but Pakistan’s political turmoil remains far from over. Rather, it is all set to aggravate.
The country’s fast drift towards intense political instability has now become a stark reality given the extreme and confrontationist positions the two squabbling sides have taken.
The heightened political polarisation is likely to consume most of the government’s energy and attention in the coming weeks and months as it attempts to counter its rivals and remain afloat. It means Sharif and his team's ability and capacity to improve governance or concentrate on mid- to long-term policy measures vital to address pressing issues will reduce further. This will whip up public discontent and add to the opposition campaign demanding Sharif’s resignation.
Apart from the challenge the continuous political instability poses for the government, it is also harmful for the state, which faces multiple grave challenges – from border tensions with India to the protracted internal fight against extremists and terrorists. Add to the list Pakistan’s economic woes, the crippling energy crisis, the dysfunctional state of many of the country’s public sector institutions, including social services, and the soaring crime rate, and we have all the ingredients needed to keep Pakistan’s political pot on the boil. Real or imaginary public perceptions about rampant corruption and misrule only complicate an already volatile situation.
For any government or state, failure to resolve internal contradictions and overcome challenges is indeed a nightmarish scenario. Ironically, Sharif failed to move fast to prevent the impeding confrontationist politics that started on August 14 with Imran Khan’s self-proclaimed ‘Azadi’ (freedom) and Allama Tahirul Qadri’s ‘Inqilabi’ (revolutionary) marches.
In fact, the Shahbaz Sharif-led Punjab government provided all the fuel to the fire with its ill-advised crackdown on Qadri’s supporters in Lahore which killed at least 11 people and wounded more than 90.
Even after the formal launch of the sit-in politics outside parliament in Islamabad, Sharif failed to capitalise on the unanimous support given by all the parties in the house and their efforts to find a negotiated-solution with the help of the self-styled ‘political jirga’ that tried to broker a deal between the government and the Imran-Qadri duo. According to the Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Sirajul Haq, the non-serious approach on the part of the government and the inflexible attitude displayed by both the sides are to blame for the failure of the direct and indirect talks.
Now with both Imran Khan’s PTI and Qadri’s PAT holding large public meetings in various major cities and planning to take their protests to the next level – which includes calls for general strikes after the month of Moharram – the tidings are bad for the besieged Sharif government.
Sharif – being an elected prime minister – on principle may be justified in asking why he should resign on the demand of a few, several, or tens of thousands of protesters. But in politics popular waves and street agitation hardly take into account the delicacies of the constitution and what is politically correct or incorrect. Being an old hand in politics Sharif should know better.
Sharif failed to act promptly on the early signs of discord and dissatisfaction. Had he opened the four National Assembly seats for scrutiny – the initial demand of Imran Khan – before the start of the August 14 marches, it is possible that he would have given Imran Khan one less reason to agitate against him. Instead, his government provided every excuse to his bitter rivals to intensify polarisation. A case in point is the way the government initially tried to avoid registering an FIR for the Model Town killings by the police. That was done only after judicial intervention.
The failure of the political players to end the deadlock has led the country’s entire polity into a blind alley. If the crisis prolongs, only active intervention by the judiciary or the army can end this gridlock. Should our politicians allow this to happen?
It was hard to imagine that Sharif, who got more or less a perfect start to his third stint in power following the 2013 general elections, would be on the ropes barely less than 18 months into power.
There was a first-ever peaceful and constitutional transfer of power from one elected government to another. There was a broad consensus among all the major stakeholders, including the country’s most powerful institution of the armed forces, that democracy and constitutional rule are the only way forward. Sharif’s comfortable majority in parliament – without the crutches of allies – triggered hopes for a strong and stable government. Sharif’s pro-business image raised expectations of bold and quick reforms.
The smooth transition in the leadership of the judiciary and the Pakistan Army also went in Sharif’s favour. It may now look odd how Sharif’s political fortunes eroded in a short span of time. The credit for that goes to Sharif’s style of politics, paving the way for the unimaginable to happen.
He took all the wrong turns which not only created unease within the institutions but also aligned the relatively non-traditional and new political forces aiming for greater political space and challenging the current democratic order which is skewed in favour of two old parties – the PML-N and the PPP.
To begin with, Sharif dragged his feet and wasted precious time in holding futile peace talks with the Al-Qaeda inspired local Taliban militants. It was only after a tough signal from the armed forces that he reluctantly took ownership of the much-delayed operation against the militants.
In relations with India, he again failed to take all the stakeholders into confidence and showed undignified haste in offering a one-sided olive branch to New Delhi without reading the intentions and mood of the hard-line Hindu nationalist leader Narendra Modi. The recent skirmishes at the working boundary between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours and New Delhi’s aggressive and hardened posture toward Islamabad indicate that those advising restraint and caution to Sharif in his peace bid were right.
Sharif and his cabinet members also opened an unnecessary front by targeting former military ruler Pervez Musharraf for ‘selective justice.’ The kind of language the two Khawajas in the Sharif cabinet used against Musharraf only worsened the distrust between the civil and the military leadership.
Sharif’s banking on his kitchen cabinet comprising mainly relatives and close friends alienated many even with the PML-N camp. The time he took in taking key decisions, even in the appointment of the heads of government institutions and regulatory bodies, only cemented the perception of inefficiency and incompetence of his government.
No wonder that more than 20 major institutions – from chief election commissioner to the head of Pemra – are now being run on an ad hoc basis. Institutions including PIA, the Federal Services Tribunal, the Karachi Port Trust and Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research remain without organisational heads.
Can Sharif and all the forces which stand for the status quo of the current democratic order crawl back from the brink and give Pakistan its much-needed political stability? That remains a tough question with no easy answers.
However, what Pakistan desperately requires is a strong, stable government which ends this current state of political disorder and chaos. A government that focuses on the existentialist internal threat posed by Al-Qaeda-inspired and -linked terrorists and can stand against the aggressive designs of a Modi-led India. A government that can end this lawlessness, establish the writ of the state, initiate bold reforms and revive the economy. Ideally this democratic order should be able to deliver all this, but it is failing. Who else then?
Monday, October 20, 2014
The News
It was hard to imagine that Sharif, who got more or less a perfect start to his third stint in power following the 2013 general elections, would be on the ropes barely less than 18 months into power.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif may have succeeded in clinging to power for now against the backdrop of anti-government sit-ins in Islamabad and mammoth public rallies in the other major cities, but Pakistan’s political turmoil remains far from over. Rather, it is all set to aggravate.
The country’s fast drift towards intense political instability has now become a stark reality given the extreme and confrontationist positions the two squabbling sides have taken.
The heightened political polarisation is likely to consume most of the government’s energy and attention in the coming weeks and months as it attempts to counter its rivals and remain afloat. It means Sharif and his team's ability and capacity to improve governance or concentrate on mid- to long-term policy measures vital to address pressing issues will reduce further. This will whip up public discontent and add to the opposition campaign demanding Sharif’s resignation.
Apart from the challenge the continuous political instability poses for the government, it is also harmful for the state, which faces multiple grave challenges – from border tensions with India to the protracted internal fight against extremists and terrorists. Add to the list Pakistan’s economic woes, the crippling energy crisis, the dysfunctional state of many of the country’s public sector institutions, including social services, and the soaring crime rate, and we have all the ingredients needed to keep Pakistan’s political pot on the boil. Real or imaginary public perceptions about rampant corruption and misrule only complicate an already volatile situation.
For any government or state, failure to resolve internal contradictions and overcome challenges is indeed a nightmarish scenario. Ironically, Sharif failed to move fast to prevent the impeding confrontationist politics that started on August 14 with Imran Khan’s self-proclaimed ‘Azadi’ (freedom) and Allama Tahirul Qadri’s ‘Inqilabi’ (revolutionary) marches.
In fact, the Shahbaz Sharif-led Punjab government provided all the fuel to the fire with its ill-advised crackdown on Qadri’s supporters in Lahore which killed at least 11 people and wounded more than 90.
Even after the formal launch of the sit-in politics outside parliament in Islamabad, Sharif failed to capitalise on the unanimous support given by all the parties in the house and their efforts to find a negotiated-solution with the help of the self-styled ‘political jirga’ that tried to broker a deal between the government and the Imran-Qadri duo. According to the Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Sirajul Haq, the non-serious approach on the part of the government and the inflexible attitude displayed by both the sides are to blame for the failure of the direct and indirect talks.
Now with both Imran Khan’s PTI and Qadri’s PAT holding large public meetings in various major cities and planning to take their protests to the next level – which includes calls for general strikes after the month of Moharram – the tidings are bad for the besieged Sharif government.
Sharif – being an elected prime minister – on principle may be justified in asking why he should resign on the demand of a few, several, or tens of thousands of protesters. But in politics popular waves and street agitation hardly take into account the delicacies of the constitution and what is politically correct or incorrect. Being an old hand in politics Sharif should know better.
Sharif failed to act promptly on the early signs of discord and dissatisfaction. Had he opened the four National Assembly seats for scrutiny – the initial demand of Imran Khan – before the start of the August 14 marches, it is possible that he would have given Imran Khan one less reason to agitate against him. Instead, his government provided every excuse to his bitter rivals to intensify polarisation. A case in point is the way the government initially tried to avoid registering an FIR for the Model Town killings by the police. That was done only after judicial intervention.
The failure of the political players to end the deadlock has led the country’s entire polity into a blind alley. If the crisis prolongs, only active intervention by the judiciary or the army can end this gridlock. Should our politicians allow this to happen?
It was hard to imagine that Sharif, who got more or less a perfect start to his third stint in power following the 2013 general elections, would be on the ropes barely less than 18 months into power.
There was a first-ever peaceful and constitutional transfer of power from one elected government to another. There was a broad consensus among all the major stakeholders, including the country’s most powerful institution of the armed forces, that democracy and constitutional rule are the only way forward. Sharif’s comfortable majority in parliament – without the crutches of allies – triggered hopes for a strong and stable government. Sharif’s pro-business image raised expectations of bold and quick reforms.
The smooth transition in the leadership of the judiciary and the Pakistan Army also went in Sharif’s favour. It may now look odd how Sharif’s political fortunes eroded in a short span of time. The credit for that goes to Sharif’s style of politics, paving the way for the unimaginable to happen.
He took all the wrong turns which not only created unease within the institutions but also aligned the relatively non-traditional and new political forces aiming for greater political space and challenging the current democratic order which is skewed in favour of two old parties – the PML-N and the PPP.
To begin with, Sharif dragged his feet and wasted precious time in holding futile peace talks with the Al-Qaeda inspired local Taliban militants. It was only after a tough signal from the armed forces that he reluctantly took ownership of the much-delayed operation against the militants.
In relations with India, he again failed to take all the stakeholders into confidence and showed undignified haste in offering a one-sided olive branch to New Delhi without reading the intentions and mood of the hard-line Hindu nationalist leader Narendra Modi. The recent skirmishes at the working boundary between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours and New Delhi’s aggressive and hardened posture toward Islamabad indicate that those advising restraint and caution to Sharif in his peace bid were right.
Sharif and his cabinet members also opened an unnecessary front by targeting former military ruler Pervez Musharraf for ‘selective justice.’ The kind of language the two Khawajas in the Sharif cabinet used against Musharraf only worsened the distrust between the civil and the military leadership.
Sharif’s banking on his kitchen cabinet comprising mainly relatives and close friends alienated many even with the PML-N camp. The time he took in taking key decisions, even in the appointment of the heads of government institutions and regulatory bodies, only cemented the perception of inefficiency and incompetence of his government.
No wonder that more than 20 major institutions – from chief election commissioner to the head of Pemra – are now being run on an ad hoc basis. Institutions including PIA, the Federal Services Tribunal, the Karachi Port Trust and Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research remain without organisational heads.
Can Sharif and all the forces which stand for the status quo of the current democratic order crawl back from the brink and give Pakistan its much-needed political stability? That remains a tough question with no easy answers.
However, what Pakistan desperately requires is a strong, stable government which ends this current state of political disorder and chaos. A government that focuses on the existentialist internal threat posed by Al-Qaeda-inspired and -linked terrorists and can stand against the aggressive designs of a Modi-led India. A government that can end this lawlessness, establish the writ of the state, initiate bold reforms and revive the economy. Ideally this democratic order should be able to deliver all this, but it is failing. Who else then?
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