Daily Times

For seven decades we have been moving in a familiar circle. But this time with bizarre innovation to keep pace with the requirements, intricacies and sensitivities of the 21st century by jumping to the upper spiral of the circle that requires no declaration nomenclature and insignia.

Despite all the wishful thinking, declaration and affirmation of making the constitutional system impregnable, politicos had been outsmarted once again. Perhaps due to their turf issue, trivial sectional interests, tricks for easy political gains but mainly their timidity and loss of guts of timely resistance.

The politicos celebrated the short lived Charter of Democracy (CoD) and felt pride in the 18th Constitutional Amendment as a bulwark against the anti-democratic forces without constant vigilance and efforts for a robust governance system backed by a sovereign parliament. Nonetheless, they succumbed to the temptations of political manoeuvrings, compromising for crumbs of power at the cost of torpedoing the consensus of denying space to the third force and allowed them to pulverise the system.

According to a well known Pukhto adage, ‘If Akbar (the emperor) built Akbarpura (an outpost), the robbers encamped in Taru Jaba’. The powers to be came up with more sophisticated tricks of subtle subversion. Unlike the past, this time the system was not uprooted at once and thrown out. The strategy was to encircle democratic forces, followed by discrediting and paralysing the system gradually.

It became sufficiently clear when one connects the interspersed dots that the blueprint of this subtle subversion had been developed well before the 2008 general elections. The political circumstances rendered costly to maintain the status quo with visible footprints. Musharraf’s mask of enlightened moderation had been exposed as old wine in a new bottle and rendered him a liability for his power base.

A precedent had been established long ago. An individual, irrespective of rank, could be compromised for the sake of institution, and particularly, if he failed to understand that his continuity or stubbornness could endanger power and grip of institution over the system. A carefully orchestrated safe exit for the chief, rebuilding the image of the institution and controlling subsequent political environment were the issues needed to be handled with dexterity.

Democracy remains incapacitated. But even the replica of democracy, or the remnants in its present form, are obnoxious to the powers-that-be. The ongoing drama of political engineering and machination can be seen as a process of consolidation

The ‘No’ to resignation by the then Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and the subsequent developments led to the miraculously, if not mysteriously, organised movement to challenge the power of a dictator whose glove no longer held the fist of his institution. The politicos were kept away from the core of the lawyers’ movement but the hype of the issue was so designed that forced them to jump on to the bandwagon.

Chaudhry Iftikhar’s resistance to resignation and his subsequent restoration due to the lawyers’ movement inflated his image. But a judiciary with such enormous popularity without undoing its history of collusion with the deep state could prove too heavy for the fragile democratic system.

The War on Terror (WoT), particularly, dislodging Mulla Fazlullah from Swat boosted the image of the army that had been tarnished during the Musharraf era. While the PPP led coalition government recoiled due to restricted mobility because of the adverse reaction of the Taliban against it for pushing the military operation against them in2008. Though PPP and its allies got burnt for that but was denied a share in the credit.

Declaring Swat a success story of the War on Terror, though no one owned the responsibility of how and why Fazlullah got so much leeway to overlord the area that centre staged the military in the policy, particularly security, is a questioned yet to be answered.

The PPP government was manacled and heavily overshadowed by the assertive judicial activism of Chaudhry Iftikhar. The coalition government hardly managed to pass the 18th Constitutional Amendment and crawled to the finishing line of completing the five years term to hold elections on time.

Ironically, Nawaz could not either understand or probably misread that this newly constructed immense image of the institutions would be without political connotations and repercussions. Perhaps, he was too confident or too naïve to believe that the bells would only toll for Zardari and he might be able to overturn the tides once he came back with majority. Perhaps, presently Zardari is either thinking on the same lines or is terrified, vengeful and cruelly opportunistic at the risk of rocking the boat.

But this time things were not supposed to repeat the course of October 1999 because the script had been rewritten, not in simple terms with synchronisation of new ground realities. The strategy of a hound chasing the raucous chickens in the fields had abandoned in favour of the jackal’s sophistication of staring continuously at the chickens with rolling eyeballs to make them eventually fall from the brim because of the spinning motion.

Nawaz was equipped with majority in the parliament but the overgrown image of the institutions due to security environment provided enough space for manouverings. Moreover, the PTI was not in a position to rupture the parliament without the support of the PPP. Thus something had to be done from the outside. In spite of invocation of article 245 in the capital, the physical attack on the parliament and the PTV by the mobsters was perhaps a clear signal to a specific direction.

The PTI’s prolonged dharna was an initial attempt to paralyse the government if not collapse it altogether. Resultantly, the dharna left its ugly marks on the democratic system. After the formation of the Provincial Apex Committees (PAC), police powers for paramilitary in Karachi and Balochistan and ‘Action in Aid of Civilian Powers’ in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, the authority of the elected government in domestic affairs was diluted.

Currently, democracy is no longer a fist in its glove and stands incapacitated. But the replica of democracy, or the remnants in its present form are obnoxious to the powers to be. The ongoing drama of political engineering and machination could be seen as a process of consolidation.

However, this time my lords would not go under the agony of legitimising an outright coup and bear the stigma of taking oath under the PCO. My lords have assumed or rather exceeded the role of saviours of nation rather than arbiter of law and dispenser of justice.

Unfortunately, their observations during hearings and remarks in verdicts indicate that they are carefully listening to PTI’s speeches and TV talk shows. But my lords! How history will judge it without the fear of contempt of court? Perhaps, it is something not much complex to predict.

The writer is a political analyst hailing from Swat. Tweets @MirSwat

Published in Daily Times, November 15^th 2017.