Daily Times

Disappointing, but not unsurprising. Disappointing because, it was a huge climb down from Rabbani to Sanjrani. Unsurprising, because nothing other than what had transpired on the appointed date in the Senate could have happened after all the trouble that the powers-that-be had to go through fixing the match.

The tactics appeared to be brand new but the strategy was an ad nauseam repeat of the one that was employed for fixing political matches, managing ‘victories’ and ‘defeats’ at least since the toppling of the first PPP government of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

But then every time these non-political elements had succeeded in achieving their objective one finds blood on the hands of a significant number of civilian politicians as they contributed willingly to these political mayhems.

And from at least the date when(February, 2009) the Zardari-led PPPP government imposed a politically unwarranted Governor’s rule in Punjab we are witnessing a repeat of the PPP-PMLN rivalry of the 1990s during which both the parties had willingly taken turns playing the puppet in the hands of you-know-who.

In fact even the government of ZAB was toppled by General Zia with the help of a willingly manipulated conglomerate of nine political parties under the banner of PNA. They had also helped Zia along with a coerced judiciary to get ZAB hanged.

As they say two wrongs don’t make one right. Both, NS and Zardari, therefore, appear to be equally responsible for the sad state of current political affairs in the country

In the 1988 elections the PPP led by Benazir Bhutto had won the relative majority but the super-duper civil servant turned politician, Ghulam Ishaq Khan at the behest of the then COAS General Aslam Beg disingenuously delayed inviting Benazir to take oath of PM’s office until Nawaz Sharif had bought and bagged all the ‘Independents’ in Punjab to form the provincial government. The delay was motivated by the establishment’s fear that if she became the PM before Nawaz succeeded in Punjab the ‘Independents’ would have gone to the power in Islamabad and the PPP would then be able to take the largest province as well.

Unsurprisingly, once again it were the politicians from Punjab and urban Sindh led by Nawaz and Altaf Hussain respectively who choked the PPP government at the centre willingly deferring to the command of the Puppeteers. Both were rewarded appropriately with former ISI Chief General Durrani distributing billions among the leaders of the Nawaz-led alliance prior to the 1990 elections.

And when the time came in 1993 to get rid of a ‘defiant’ Nawaz, he was forced to resign with the manipulators getting a helping hand from the PPP leadership which at that time was operating under the conspiratorial leadership of Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao and Shafqat Mehmood as Benazir Bhutto was recuperating in London having delivered Asifa. In fact this three-some delivered to her on her return home a fiat accompli leaving her no choice but to go along with the GIK hatched conspiracy against Nawaz.

Benazir rewarded Farooq with the office of the President which she had to regret soon as President Leghari tempted by ‘you-know-who’ with perhaps more than continuity in the office, got rid of the PPP government on charges of corruption and bad governance. Then Nawaz returned to power a second time cooperating fully with the instruments of governance, now being led ostensibly by President Leghari.

The second term of the ‘defiant’ Nawaz ended in a military coup because PPP was in no position politically to be brought back as Benazir hounded by the trumped up charges manufactured by Nawaz government had gone into self-exile meanwhile.

And General Musharraf then ruled for nine long years with the help of the PMLQ composed of the estranged crowd of PMLN along with a group of willing ‘lotas’ from the PPP.

It was during the time when the two — Nawaz and Benazir — were in exile that they finally realized, each perhaps on his/her own that it was time to get together and vow not to be used against each other in future. The two signed and sealed what was known as Charter of Democracy (CoD) in May 2006. At the same time Benazir also signed a similar but not identical agreement with Altaf Hussain (this accord was consummated between Rehman Malik and Anwar Bhai).

It was because of this agreement with Altaf Hussain that BB had the late Makhdoom Amin Fahim who was representing her at the London All Parties Conference (APC) called by Nawaz in 2007 to write a dissenting note disagreeing with the clause in the joint resolution which had said in future not political party participating in the APC would cooperate with the MQM.

Around this time Musharraf had begun NRO negotiations with Benazir. It was Musharraf who had needed this deal more than Benazir because her first pre-condition in return for letting him continue as President without uniform was to let her contest the post of the PM for a third time. This was acceptable neither to Musharraf nor to the then all powerful PMLQ leadership — the Chaudharys of Gujrat.

One suspects that BB had kept NS fully informed about the progress of NRO negotiations because during the entire phase there is not a single statement of the NS accusing BB of violating CoD.

But then one saw NS violating the CoD as he sided with the ‘powers that be’ during the so-called Memogate scandal and then when PM Gilani was removed from office on being found guilty of contempt of court. This he did perhaps in retaliation for the short-lived imposition of Governor’s rule by Zardari in early 2009.

But the spirit of CoD appeared to have been restored when during the PTI’s sit-in of August 2014 the PPP stood along with the PMLN. But as things turned out later the PPP came under severe political pressure from the PMLN Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar. That perhaps is the reason why Zardari now seems to be willingly helping the instruments of governance in getting rid of Nawaz.

But as they say two wrongs don’t make one right. Both, NS and AAZ, therefore, appear to be equally responsible for the sad state of current political affairs in the country.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad. He served as the Executive Editor of Express Tribune until 2014

Published in Daily Times, March 15^th 2018.