Daily Times

With the election of Senate and its Chairman and Deputy Chairman, the battle between democratic and anti-democratic forces entered its crucial phase. I say this at the risk of rebuttal as some may already assume that democrats lost their fortress but the anti-democratic forces made this gain with a huge price by exhausting all options, smashing the smokescreen and exposing their all pawns.

Some victory is worse than defeat, particularly if it is a cosmetic. The winning of election of Chairman and Deputy Chairman of Senate is going to be a politically pyrrhic victory for both PPP and PTI. However, PTI’s laughter is beyond comprehension, except proving its uselessness without Zardari’s PPP for the patrons in chief and relegating itself to the second tier.

Replacing praetorian democracy with genuine representative democracy merely with numbers’ game is a far cry. Why? Well, it needs political resistance on streets, exposure and sifting of the fifth columnists in the ranks and files of democratic forces which require a long, persistence struggle and commitment.

In Pakistan democracy had never been on a strong footing but dictatorships also did not survive and ultimately gave way to democracy. Tamed parliament and democracy itself became a problem for their architects after some time when it began to render huge cost to the country.

If history is anything to go by, the political machinations and engineering, though paid short term dividends, ultimately backfired on its orchestrators. The main challenge was the absence of commitment and element of resistance in the main contenders. In the past, Z. A Bhutto to Benazir and Nawaz Sharif made compromises and accepted powers with strings attached which would later become the bone of contention.

Replacing praetorian democracy with genuine representative democracy with a mere numbers’ game is a far cry. Why? Well, it needs political resistance on the streets, exposure and sifting of the fifth columnists in the ranks and files of democratic forces. This requires a long, persistent struggle and commitment

This time, though Zardari made a U turn by reverting to the politics of 1990s without the PPP of 1990s. In the last four and half years much water has passed under the bridge. The omnipotent security establishment has also lost its sting and truncated its tools due to excessive use.

They are gradually losing its monopoly over constructing unilateral narratives, shaping perceptions and forcing opinion into a specific direction through a hold on means of propaganda by using spurious tools.  Though tried relentlessly, the ‘militablishment’, as stated by Najam Sethi, is also facing problems in whipping up religious sentiments to channelize them for political use.

In the given international scenario and Pakistan’s bleak situation due to the militablishment’s policy choices, people are suffering as an outcome of extremism and terrorism which made the use of religion for political ends costly. The recent placing of Pakistan on grey list by the FATF and outburst against the politically mainstreaming of some extremist groups is a glaring example.

The excessive (mis)use of media in favour of a certain mindset and unrestrictedly badmouthing a specific point of view shattered its credibility. The beginning of crude controlling of media during and in the aftermath of the PTI dharna sundered apart the veneer of media freedom. Any iota of doubt in the mind of people regarding the media freedom washed away when gauged in the context of the blackout of the Pakhtun Long March and Pakhtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM).

But the blackout of a political event or phenomenon by the so called mainstream media did not mean that information was not reaching the people. Last week, Manzoor Pashtun’s address to a mammoth public gathering in North Waziristan, Zhob, Qilla Saifulla and Quetta, which was unprecedented in the history of those areas in terms of participation, was completely blacked out by mainstream media.  In spite of blanket blackout, a teeming millions of this country know about the Pakhtun Long March and Manzoor Pashtun, thanks to alternate sources of information dissemination.

Moreover, the narrative of War on Terror is a blowback against the militablishment. The edifice of ‘Thank You Raheel Sharif’ isThank You Raheel Sharif crumbling with velocity. The temporary delusion created by the War on Terror, used as an image building measure by the security establishment as an undercover to dub civilians incapable and a security risk, is subsiding rapidly.

The alternate narrative, mostly through the social media, is gaining currency. Today even the people of Punjab realize that the civilian has no control over policies that pushed the country into an impasse. But, in contrast, there is a growing realization that civilian, particularly, in the person of Nawaz Sharif is a victim of opposing suicidal policies of the security establishment.

The reincarnation of the theory of necessity in the form of theory of nastiness that mired judiciary in the political quagmire further exposed the pulling strings. Currently, the judiciary is busy fixing hospitals and questioning the acts passed by the parliament at a time where thousands of citizens are missing extra judicially.

The establishment’s opting for a man who bagged 444 votes, though contested, as chief minister and another nobody politically as chairman Senate speaks volumes of its desperation.  No one knows Sadiq Sinjarani! But in Quetta even a child knows who pulled all the strings from behind. Throwing of ink and hurling shoes on political leaders having alternate points of view are signs of desperation which force them to resort to such intimidating tools

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

Published in Daily Times, March 15^th 2018.