Daily Times

Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif Sahib is in trouble. This is the understatement of the year. But he has no one except himself to blame. Mian Sahib is notorious for putting people under the bus when his chips are up and gets burned for this folly when push comes to shove. This has happened far too many times before and one had hoped that he would have learned the lesson by now, not to be!

The recent fiasco of the removal of CM Balochistan and now the Senate chairmanship would neither have materialised if he had been simply cordial with Asif Ali Zardari. Mian Sahib’s refusal to allow Asif Ali Zardari to offer his condolences at his brother’ passing away and then not managing Chaudhry Nisar properly has brought about a lot of these recent back stabbings from Zardari.

Mian Sahib back then was showing a bit of attitude to appease the security establishment and Zardari, ironically, paid him back for the same reason. But you can hardly blame the latter; he had the opportunity to settle the score with Mian Sahib, and settle, he did.

Now, how does this tit for tat work for democracy and the people of Pakistan? Well, not so well. But we have been awarded with small men as leaders. And they are all that we have. So we have to make do with what we’ve got. These leaders, however, have to realize that they are being used as pawns against each other by the security establishment. And in the end, the only winner is the security establishment, the way it has been for 70 odd years. The losers are everyone else, including democracy, the huge majority of people of Pakistan, and maybe even the world at large.

The argument around “slow an steady wins the race” doesn’t make sense anymore either. We as a country are definitely worse off from a civil liberties perspective than where we were, say in the 90s. This is regressive; and only unity amongst credible political forces can put this back on track.

If Mian Sahib really wants the sanctity of the vote restored, then in real terms he will not be able to do this all by himself. Asif Ali Zardari should also realise this sooner or later. Both the PPP and Muslim League (Nawz) will fall out of favour like they did in 1999. And like in 1999, Altaf Hussein will be left with no other option than to sleep with the devil again, to make a comeback. And quite frankly I wouldn’t blame him.

So right now is the time when all the political forces who enjoy the real mandate of the people, join hands and insist that Pakistan is ruled by the spirit of the constitution. Security forces must be subservient to civilians. Turkey and Erdogan are a shining example of how this can be done through non-violence. Nawaz Shareef alone doesn’t have what it takes to be Erdogan, but only a team with credible political representation from all provinces will be able to push back on the lopsided clout of army and judiciary in matters of governance and politics.

And if we can’t do any of this, then for God’ sake, let’s stop the facade and just move out of the way, and let this country be ruled by the Chief of Army Staff. Because this hodge podge is a burden for common folks. When civilians get abducted, or when there is a major faux pas on the foreign policy front, there should be no confusion on who was calling the shots. A state of our size can not function when state institutions are actively and on a daily basis undermining the government of the day. Can you imagine the Pervaiz Musharraf’ army and ISI back in 2001 working actively to undermine Jamali and Shaukat Aziz? How would they have fared? And when the ISI finally did so in the Lawyers’ movement: how long did the government last?

This isn’t against the army. I am convinced that we need a strong army, quite frankly because of the policies of the dictators of the past; We can’t afford not to. But what we also can’t afford is the army being the captain of team Pakistan, as they have been for 70 odd years. This is because of the simple fact that we have tried them for 70 years, and this is where they have gotten us. If we want to even the slightest bit be marginally better off, we have to change the captain. If we don’t, we will have more of the same. And that should be unacceptable to all those who want a departure from the status quo.

The writer can be reached at ahmer23@gmail.com