Playing dangerous games
Nature seems to be angry with Pakistan. The recent overnight storm in Lahore must have been the most severe in recent history and defies adequate description, the city of Lahore looks like it has been subjected to a low level nuclear strike, the aftermath of a firestorm. The tragedy at Ghotki that left over 50 dead and 300 injured was preceded by the blast in one of the ammunition dumps at Nowshera that inflicted scores of casualties. Somewhere in between, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr. Mustafa Jatoi, came up with a sophisticated bug in his Holiday Inn room in Islamabad. With an odd killing here and there, a bomb blast or two, the whole situation has been building up to a crisis. To add to this is the spate of rumours floating around Islamabad about everything under the sun, so much so that Nawaz Sharif has talked about “conspiracies” and the taking of action against the “conspirators”, giving truth to the fact that something is rotten and it is not in the State of Denmark.
With the recent heat wave in Pakistan, particularly in Sindh, causing widespread heatstroke fatalities as well as shortening of tempers, suddenly the Government edifice has begun to show cracks. As it is the Budget Session is usually the period when all incumbent Government begins to show the effects of tension. Within the Assemblies and in the streets, somehow the impression is being given about panic stations.
Sensing vulnerability, the Opposition has mounted a concerted assault on the Administration, it is their democratic right to bring the Government down, unfortunately the consequences of their ambition to do so may not unfold the way they expect, the scripts are usually doctored by vested interest to suit their own purposes. On the other hand, the objectives of PDA may simply be to bring down the Government whatever the consequences, reasoning that since they were not allowed to rule in peace they will not allow anyone else to do so either, democratically at least. The only problem is that once you open the floodgates, the men in uniform have lasted (and can) for decades in an authoritarian manner, with or without the ability to govern.
As any good strategist, military or political, can tell you, to gain victory you must seize hold of the enemy’s vital ground at the earliest opportunity. A variance goes that in case that fails you must at least deny the use thereof to the enemy. In the case of Pakistan, street demonstrations that have brought down the government spell trouble only when they repeatedly occur in the short mile from WAPDA House up the Mall. However, over the past decade Sindh has become the Achilles Heel of any Federal Government. Ms Benazir, steeped in political acumen, should have taken this into account when selecting her Chief Ministers. While the first time around it could be understandable to an extent, to replace Qaim Ali Shah with Aftab Shahban Mirani to cope with the Sindh situation when she had Jam Sadiq Ali in her camp is beyond normal comprehension, he was and remains a formidable and potent political force. People wrongly accuse him of Machiavellian tactics or being wily, Jam Sadiq is anything but fitting these two descriptions. He is forceful and direct, conceivably he would do anything for a friend, an enemy can expect anything from him, these are the rules Jam Sadiq lives by.
With a massive disinformation campaign under way including the playing up of various incidents to international stature, the PPP campaign is obvious, topple Jam Sadiq and the Nawaz Sharif Government is going to come down like a rotten apple. To that extent they have closely followed Clauseiwitz annunciation of the first Principle of War, “Selection and Maintenance of Aim”. Unfortunately for Nawaz Sharif (and Jam Sadiq) there are those within the IJI conglomerate that possess the same ambition, some openly and blatantly (a la Zahid Sarfraz), some more circumspectly. What is most surprising is that this phenomenon is peculiar to Pakistan alone, a very successful government with an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly and an economic track record par excellence is now besieged from within and without. Ms Benazir has repeatedly talked about “hidden hands” manipulating the controls, it gradually seems to become more believable as we see this Government, progressing satisfactorily on almost all other fronts, lurching from crisis to crisis, natural and man-woman made, till even the PM has talked about “conspiracies” (echoes of Ms Benazir pre-downfall?).
Nawaz Sharif may be the PM, he is not that important to himself as Ms Benazir is to him at this time. To unseat Nawaz Sharif, the willing tool must be the charismatic Leader of the Opposition. Carrying the prognosis even further, to unseat Nawaz Sharif, the first step must be to destabilize Sindh. In the absence of the coalition that Jam Sadiq has put together, which all the other King’s men are intellectually and capability-wise unfit (and unable) to accomplish, the Sindh scenario will go from bad to worse. Jam Sadiq has put disparate forces in Sindh together in a grand alliance, uneasy with each other, but functioning just the same. At this moment any pressure on him from the Centre will be fatal to democracy at the Centre, one does not fear the enemies that come with fearless eyes, one fears those that can reach under your strong right arm and stab you in the back. The ploy to send Nawaz Sharif home is typically Machiavellian, get rid of Jam Sadiq first, in this the PDA’s views and the IJI detractors (all and sundry) hoping to be PMs, is identical. The PDA’s moves are obvious and such they are willing tools of those that play safe while remaining always less than obvious.
One did not start as any great admirer of Nawaz Sharif, his charisma is rather wooden, no shivers down the spine because of his rhetoric either. But the man has performed and done so admirably in the economic and political field by some very fundamental moves that required courage and foresight. For whatever democracy is worth in Pakistan, the Nawaz Sharif Government represents the freedoms manifest in Constitutional Government and the survival thereof is synonymous with democracy. While Ms Benazir has a lot to be bitter about, she is after all a committed democrat, one would be very surprised if her political views are coloured by the Masada Complex. All politicians must be identical in their stance towards democracy, change must come the democratic way, through the elected in the Assemblies, not through subtle moves under the cover of darkness.
In the meantime those who are now coercing and cajoling Nawaz Sharif to jettison Jam Sadiq are doing so out of narrow selfish motives. Having had access to the cream of administrative largesse in the years of Martial Law and thereafter, they want to have another go at the public till, their political standing is not even worth one vote of the elected members in the Provincial Assemblies as seen in the aspirations for the Senate.They now hope to come to power through the back door. Nawaz Sharif must see through this playing of dangerous games by vested interest, trying to topple Jam Sadiq Ali from the CM’s chair is but a prelude to the fall of the present Federal Government. Such events will come and go, democracy will not survive such interruptions.
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