Daily Times

Last week, on these pages, I mentioned how the personal political likes and dislikes of men in powerful positions in the state’s apparatus impacted the political process in Pakistan and how it politicized the state institutions of the army, judiciary and bureaucracy, leading to crippling of the state’s machinery and writ of the state. From the political flux prevalent in the country, the future course that the country will chart depends on how it manages to fix this issue of personality-driven administrative conduct.

I will not deliberately talk about the difference between how Yousaf Raza Gillani was disqualified and how elected prime ministers are persecuted while a military dictator is set free despite subverting the constitution not once but twice. Or about how ruthlessly the state acted against Al Zulfikar or the Balochistan Liberation Army while action against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) has been reeking of reluctance. I will not talk about them because, on all those issues, a case may be made that they were issues that were dealt with in the light of national security and institutional interest paradigms. Yet, there are many examples where there is not an iota of national security or an institutional interest angle and where the biases, at least in perception, have been evident.

To see how the personal likes and dislikes of powerful elements in the army, bureaucracy and judiciary have impacted the political process, there are ample examples. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) claims to be the most aggrieved party of this injustice, and rightly so. That Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged in what is termed a judicial murder speaks for itself. Flashback to the 1990s: the Nawaz Sharif government, dismissed under Article 58(2)(b) by the president, was restored by the Supreme Court (SC) while the Benazir Bhutto governments dismissed under the same Article by presidents were not. Many astute political observers attribute this contradiction to the fact that Mr Sharif has been an establishment insider with a strong clout among the Punjabi-dominated judiciary and army.

The courts have been approached to review the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto case through a presidential reference but progress on it has been nill for many years into hearing and yet, when bypassing all legal precedent, Mr Sharif sought acquittal from a hijacking case nine years after the verdict, the SC was swift in granting him relief. There can be countless examples of verdicts that at least hint at the court’s apparent bias against the PPP or for elements that are perceived insiders.

And it does not stop with the courts. After much public pressure, 21 years after the hearing began, in 2012, a forum no less than the SC confirmed that men in the highest positions of the state’s security and administrative apparatus were involved in a plot to rig the 1990 elections, denying Benazir Bhutto her mandate. When a government in Punjab is allowed to complete its five-year term by providing lingering relief to the chief minister through a stay order while a chief ministerial candidate from Sindh, Murad Ali Shah, is disqualified by the SC in alleged haste — despite renouncing his dual nationality he could not provide his renunciation certificate in time — the apparent biases in the system are highlighted.

If Husain Haqqani had to resign on the unproven, unsubstantiated allegations of ‘Memogate’ and Yousaf Raza Gillani was deposed for taking a stand on the issue while some ministers of the current administration continue in their posts despite rhetoric fired against the institution of the army post-Hamid Mir saga, it hints of smoke. Most of the above mentioned examples are PPP-focused because the party has been the object of dislike of powerful lobbies inside the system and yet it does not stop there and will not. Needless to say, it is the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) that is out on the streets claiming its mandate was robbed in the 2013 elections through the civil and judicial administration, and that the judiciary is not providing it with any relief.

In all of the instances above, it is very hard to believe that systemic institutional conduct is in play here. Rather, if the bias exists, the more plausible explanation can be found in personal affiliations, likes and dislikes. And this is where it becomes a decisive question in the current political flux. The biases of men like Maulvi Mushtaq, Hamid Gul and many more against the PPP and its leadership have been known. Similarly, the ‘love-turned-into-hate’ between Imran Khan and former Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has also made it to the front pages of the national media.

Whether this era of influence of personal likes or dislikes on administrative decisions continues depends the most on the PTI. Imran Khan is immensely popular among senior military and civil administration officials and their families. Yet, among the highest echelons of power players in Pakistan, doubts have been raised about Mr Khan’s unpredictability. Mr Khan and his party have two choices: whether they opt to nurture and capitalise on their support in powerful quarters and use their liking for him to political advantage by manipulating the system, or whether they opt to fight against this culture where the personal likes of men at the top influence their call of duty. Choose the first way and Mr Khan has a fair chance of unseating current insider favourites, the PML-N, the existing masters of the game. Choose the second and he has the power to usher Pakistan into an era where he can depoliticise the administrative conduct of the state of Pakistan. Only time will tell if his fight is for “go Nawaz go” or “go system go”.

The author can be reached on twitter at @aalimalik