Pakistani politics has always been predictable because it revolves around a vicious circle and comes back to square one. The latest cycle started in 2018 and reached its climax with the vote of no confidence against Imran Khan. Why has Pakistani politics failed to come out of this vicious circle? Let’s replay some events of the past to make sense of what is happening in the political landscape of the country.
To start, it was a nightmare for the whole of Pakistan when Nawaz was disqualified for a lifetime over an “Iqama.” Nevertheless, Khan was extremely happy at that time as he had his eyes on power. Instead of supporting Nawaz, he went against him as political space was being created for him to smoothly land on the seat of the executive. With the use of JKT’s helicopter, a hybrid regime took birth as he brought independent candidates -who had won the elections – to the PTI’s fold.
The story of Nawaz did not end with his removal. In fact, it was the beginning of an era of political victimisation. Nawaz was put behind the bars along with his daughter and other family members. Meanwhile, his ailing wife died followed by his mother. The whole Sharif family was shattered for years. But there was no one out there to abett Nawaz to come out of prison. Apparently, Nawaz was seemingly suffering the darkest days of his political career. However, since he was a popular political leader, he braved the situation. His popularity reached the climax when he eventually took upon the people who had dislodged him. He started naming the names.
The relationship between Khan and the establishment began to unfurl, leading to chaos that ended with the vote of no-confidence.
Sitting in London, he rode the waves of Pakistani TV channels. He shaped a narrative based on the constitution of Pakistan, “Vote-ko-izzat dou,” and became even more popular. Though Khan tried to black him out, he kept coming through other ways via social media. He was heard by all and sundry. Nawaz had tried to bring the establishment under pressure but he failed to do so as Khan was the most loved politician. They were not interested in Nawaz. But then suddenly, Khan started to make mistakes and tried to meddle with the internal affairs of the military. Consequently, the relationship between Khan and the establishment began to unfurl, leading to chaos that ended with the vote of no-confidence.
Fast forward, Khan was removed and formed a narrative based on hashtags like “foreign conspiracy,” “absolutely not,” and so on. To save his political capital, he tried to meddle with the strategic relations (US and China) of Pakistan, putting the whole apparatus of the military in jeopardy because it solely depends on the mentioned countries for military equipment. Having destroyed relations with the US, he put a final nail in the coffin by going into public to exploit the Anti-American sentiment of the Pakistani people. Meanwhile, he also talked about Russia’s promise to Pakistan of cheap oil while there was no MOU signed between the two countries.
He kept asking for elections and doing rallies while our economy sank under the burden of the subsidy given at a time when prices were rising across the world due to the Russia-Ukraine war. The coalition government of PDM was under immense pressure as the country inched toward default. While the coalition government was cleaning the economic mess, Khan formed a narrative of “Mir Jaffer, Mir Sadiq” to win the support of the public. And he came out successful.
He built significant pressure on the powers that be and did not leave any stone unturned by constantly asking for a revival of help. But, inter alia, Khan’s final attempt to raise the political temperature backfired when his chief of staff, Shehbaz Gill, tried to instigate a mutiny within the rank and file of the institution. A message has been sent to Khan, that is, enough is enough.
Initially, though, Khan showed a slight retreat from the alleged statement of Gill that it was a written piece that he read out in his one-line beeper to the channel. But suddenly, Khan decided to never leave the ground, fearing that he would face the same wrath as suffered by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto if Gill were to break down.
Today, the situation has reached a deadlock. Khan has been booked on many FIRs, including terrorism. He has so many charges on him such as foreign funding, Tosha Khana, sugar scandal, medicine scandal, metro bus scandal (Peshawar) and so on.
Conclusively, it is true that a vicious circle that started with a hybrid experiment in 2018 has ended up creating chaos in 2021. It is time for Pakistan and its power centres to think before creating Frankensteins as creating them is easier, and handling them is tougher.
The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at [email protected]