Daily Times

Eight years into Pakistan’s latest bout with democracy and it seems the country has been gripped by a quasi-coup. The process that started in the name of cleaning up the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and affiliates’ insurgency, soon transformed into operation clean-up for Sindh in general and Karachi in particular, and has since then seeped through the porous filters of Kashmore to engulf the entire country. It is the army that is now the custodian of national security through apex committees, not only in Sindh but also in Punjab. Needless to say, the institution has had complete control of the security of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan for over a decade. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has been reinvigorated again and is bent on ensuring “transparency and clean-up”. The media is abuzz with maestros blowing the usual trumpets of why democracy is a total failure in Pakistan while at the same time glorifying their (maestros’) credentials as champions of freedom, liberty, human rights and modernity. All this is happening at the speed of light primarily because of premier Sharif and his party’s shameless surrender of institutions to the military’s unquestionable dominance.
Ever since the PTI and PAT’s sit-ins last year, Mr Sharif and his government lost all credibility and had to seek refuge in appeasing the army. This has been in complete contrast to a government that was bent on settling scores with the security establishment, in most cases unnecessarily. However, in true Nawaz Sharif spirit, he has moved straight from being at the army’s throat to being at the army’s feet and, with him, has taken the entire system and constitutionalism along.
The army in Pakistan has had long-lasting tenures of being at the helm of affairs and seems to have enjoyed its regular stints of rule. However, it will be unfair to put all this down to the army’s desire to clinch power. The army, being a large stakeholder in Pakistan, surely has legitimate interests and concerns about security, foreign policy and other spheres of governance. It is only wise on the part of the civilian governments to accommodate those concerns and wise on the part of the army to shape, debate and define them through a collaborative process rather than doing so unilaterally, as has been the case for the most part of our national life. However, in the case of Mr Sharif, neither now nor earlier has he learnt the delicacies of getting along with the power players. And thus, post-sit-ins, we witness a complete surrender of the constitutional authority of elected governments in the most shameless manner.
The parties that supported Mr Sharif back then — the PPP, ANP, MQM and others — must be thinking whether it was a mistake to have saved Sharif. And was sacrificing Mr Sharif while saving the system an option back then and had they erred? Though it will be a tough now as it was then for the apparent alternatives to Mr Sharif were Imran Khan, ever ready to portray himself as the khakis’ boy, or Chaudhry Nisar, a man who would not shy away from outsourcing even the telephone exchange of his office to the army. Sharif, Khan, Nisar are all a breed that fails to understand what is needed of them. Thanks to their shenanigans the entire democratic process is under threat when even the army may not have wished that.
What are under threat now are the pillars of democracy and constitutionalism in Pakistan. Provincial governments have lost control over security and administration, not only in Sindh but even in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In this ever-crippled state, governance is likely to deteriorate further, only this time sitting governments will take all the blame without having any control or power. Needless to say, video-con governance will further damage the credibility of the civilian government.
So, will we head for a complete coup? The answer is no, but reaching that no is a little complicated. For one, why would the generals want to come to the fore in a minefield when they have a civilian setup that has completely surrendered? For now, the PML-N and PTI both are supporting and are in no mood to resist the assault on the 18th Amendment. Of course, being parties catering to central Punjab and business interests, a stronger Centre and a crippled Sindhi polity suit both. However, as the operation in Karachi proceeds, to counter the allegations of provincial and ethnic bias, the army will move in to encroach the space of the PML-N and PTI. This will lead to a new set of political manoeuvrings. But, more importantly, amidst the complete surrender of the Sharifs, the army is moving uninterrupted and at some point it will hit an obstacle that will make it realise the political implications of its actions and of the fact that the political reality of Pakistan no more remains conducive to sweeping military dominance.
If the recent past of the army is anything to go by, it will act swiftly to correct course and will compromise with a new status quo. However, in the process, thanks to Mr Sharif’s surrender, the next civilian government will have to waste a lot of its energies in reclaiming the space lost by civilians. Decades later, in hindsight, it will not be corruption, governance or terrorism that will define the recent regimes of Pakistan; they will be defined by one criterion: the establishment of a state through constitutionalism. And in this, historians will remember the Zardari regime as a regime that restored constitutional, institutional and civilian space to be followed by a Sharif regime that was marked by a shameless surrender of civilian authority.

The author can be reached on twitter at @aalimalik