By sacking Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan has embraced chaos
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s place in history is assured, if not by his becoming the first PM to complete a full term in office then at least by his becoming the first PM to be sacked thrice before he could complete his term in office. But in the process of making history, Sharif is now probably history.
History
Pakistan also made history by becoming the only nuclear weapon-armed country in the world that had no government for over 100 hours after Sharif’s unceremonious ouster from the office of prime minister. That this fact didn’t seem to bother anyone either in Pakistan or in rest of the world only proves how little the civilian elected governments matter in that country when it comes to questions of war and peace, foreign and security policies, and all other issues of critical importance.
With elected governments having been reduced to glorified municipalities, it hardly makes a difference who replaces Sharif. In other words, the election of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as the stand-in prime minister, or even his possible subsequent replacement by Shahbaz Sharif — there is some talk that Shahbaz might eventually stay in Lahore to ensure victory in the party’s bastion Punjab in the general elections next year — is neither here nor there.
If an ostensibly popular and powerful prime minister like Nawaz Sharif could be sacked in what is clearly a summary judgment by a kangaroo court — the judges seemed to have pre-determined Sharif’s fate and the pretext for his sacking was an after-thought — then it is probably a waste of time to go into long winded analysis of who will don the mantle of the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Predicting the political demise of any politician is always fraught with risk. But the manner in which Sharif was politically guillotined by the judiciary, coupled with the forces arraigned against him, makes it very unlikely that he will be able to, much less allowed to, play a political role even from behind the scenes. The fact that Sharif remains popular and his voters feel he has been done down isn't going to be enough to save him.
If anything, this is precisely the reason why he will be finished — Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s popularity became the reason for his judicial murder by the usurper, Gen Ziaul-Haq. The grapevine in Islamabad is that Sharif, who was planning to drum up support in Punjab by travelling by road from Islamabad to Lahore, has been advised (or even warned) against any such political roadshow, lest it prepones the fate that has been reserved for him.
Military
The courts have already initiated criminal cases against Sharif and his immediate family members and the odds are that within six months they will all be convicted. His brother Shahbaz, who has always been ready to acquiesce to the diktats of the military and play a subordinate role, could become acceptable provided he is ready to play the proverbial Aurangzeb to Sharif’s Dara Shikoh.
Of course, if he doesn’t, then he too could be ensnared either in the corruption cases lodged against Sharif or even in some thing more drastic — the infamous Model Town firing case in which 17 people were killed in police firing.
The game plan isn't just to fix the Sharif family, but also dismantle the formidable party machinery and patronage network built by the Sharif clan over the last three decades. This will require engineering defections and desertions from the party, which isn’t such a tall task in a province like Punjab which is steeped in obsequiousness, provided of course the "establishment" makes its preference and dislike clear.
If a tightly controlled party with a cult following like MQM could be broken into three factions, breaking a party like PML(N) and doing an Altaf Husain on Sharif is kid’s play for the establishment. A fragmented polity with no strong, independent and popular political leader will make the job of the ‘establishment’ so much easier to get things done the way they want.
Maverick
While the goose of the Sharifs seems all set to be cooked, it isn’t quite clear if the establishment is ready to risk a maverick and megalomaniac like Imran Khan with the prime ministership. He has served as a useful idiot against the Sharifs, but because he is too much of an idiot, he also spooks the military. His popularity, as well as flaky ideas on governance and foreign policy, could become a headache for the establishment. It is therefore quite possible that Imran too could fall victim to the controversial constitutional provision that was so cavalierly used against Sharif.
Pakistani politics, for whatever it is worth, over the next few weeks and months appears to be heading for a big shakedown, even a possible meltdown if not just the Sharifs but also Imran Khan and other top politicians start getting disqualified for not meeting the standard of probity, honesty, sagaciousness and non-profligacy mandated by the constitution of Pakistan. This political unravelling, instead of strengthening the hands of the "establishment", could end up severely destabilising the country.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)