That gentlemen want to hold the civilian government on a tight leash — come what may — is an open secret in Islamabad. And if we go by the latest ‘coup d’étweet’ — as a commentator has described it — made in the backdrop of so-called Dawn Leaks, there is no gainsaying the fact that the urge is not time-bound or era-specific. It has been the norm for decades and current democratic era is no exception.
The Dawn Leaks saga was a storm in the proverbial teacup from the day one — a means to arm-twist the civilian boss. To a prudent and impartial democratic mind, there was no substance in allegations raised following the publication of the original report. It seems that these allegations had been raised with the sole objective to reclaim the lost turf.
On the other hand, we have a civilian boss whose love for power trumps any other consideration — be it morality, propriety or even personal safety. He is aware that he has played his innings, but is now obsessed with bequeathing his political fortune to his heiress apparent. The boss has played the innings. His detractors know that and they also know about the fixation with passing on the mantle to the heiress apparent.
Panama Leaks was a godsend with the potential to obstruct this dynastic transfer of authority, but it was not sufficient. It was too risky to entrust the task to the judiciary given its chequered history well known to the centres of power that wield real authority in Pakistan. Time has proved their wisdom. The composition of the JIT formed in the wake of the Panama Papers verdict is an open invitation to them in case they wish to support cleaning up the mess. But the process is not under the direct control of the powers-that-be. The lordships hold the final veto power.
This is why Dawn Leaks is a useful crisis to perpetuate with the help of television channels and digital media. The civilian boss is doing what he is good at: evading, escaping, delaying, defusing, and, thus, hoping to rescue himself from the emergent situation. In the process a few scapegoats–close confidants of the Prime Minister such as the former Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed, former Principal Information Officer Rao Tehseen and Adviser on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi — have been sacrificed to make khakis happy.
It is difficult to guess who said what. But it’s hard to digest that Mr Fatemi may have leaked the proceedings of a sensitive meeting to the media. Fatemi, a trained diplomat aware of the surveillance web made it to the top of the bureaucratic hierarchy. He must have been privy to a lot of top-secret stuff throughout his career. It is nearly impossible to imagine that he spilled the beans to please his civilian boss.
The PM Office notification on the Dawn Leaks inquiry came just a few days after the Panama Papers verdict. And like the Panama Papers verdict, the notification was not good enough as it missed the vital target. PM’s camp knows it. One of the PML-N’s spokesmen has expressed this view on Twitter. His statement was endorsed by one of the five bloggers who had gone missing earlier this year. The blogger who returned to safety after weeks of disappearance posted a tweet saying that it was not the second but the third time that the target had been missed. He said that the bloggers were asked if they had a connection to PM’s daughter.
It’s only in this context that one can understand the seemingly angry tweet that made headlines not only in Pakistan but also abroad. But this was a faux pas as public outrage over the tweet could not be controlled. The reactions were strong and one could sense that a majority of Pakistanis had a ‘civilian’ conscience; and the usual self-censorship by democrats, bloggers, social activists and commentators dissipated in thin air.
Sadly, most political parties tried to fish in the imaginary troubled waters of civil-military relations, only to find out that they were making themselves a target of public ridicule. The powers-that-be miscalculated the reaction in a vibrant, noisy democratising country.
It’s the first time in recent memory that people have been demanding scapegoats from the other side of the divide.
The writer is a former diplomat and a lawyer based in Islamabad