Games People Play
Without a clear majority in the 1988 NA elections but with 90 seats plus, Ms Benazir anxiously (and successfully) sought the Army’s nod in making the Federal Government. Less than two years later, she was ill-advised in trying to retire the then Chairman JSCS, Admiral Sirohey, and kick the then COAS, Gen Aslam Beg, upstairs into this largely ceremonial post. Technically Chairman JCSC is senior in rank to the COAS but toothless in the measure of actual power. Even with her own nominee as the DG ISI, Lt Gen (Retd) S.R.Kallue, a very competent professional soldier, she was caught by complete surprise by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in an operation for her removal as PM overseen by the then DGMI, Maj Gen Asad Durrani, in collaboration with an Election Cell within the Presidency comprising luminaries such as Roedad Khan and Ijlal Haider Zaidi. One messes with the internal working of the military hierarchy in a third world Muslim country at one’s peril. There are some games one does not play.
A Bridge Called Confidence
With the death of Gen Ziaul Haq in August 1988, a decade plus of dictatorial rule came to an end. Before his death, the late President had dismissed the man handpicked by him to guide his version of partyless democracy, the “crime” of late Mr. Junejo had been to display signs of independence as Prime Minister. Gen Zia’s fears had been fed by the Establishment that had decided that Junejo was about to cross the fail-safe line of total control and needed to be cut to size. The enquiry into the Ojhri Camp disaster acted as the proverbial straw. Prominent advisors to Gen Zia were the Establishment figures Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Dr Mahbubul Haq, Roedad Khan, Ijlal Haider Zaidi, Mahmoud Haroon, etc. When the then VCOAS, Gen Aslam Beg, decided against the usual route to the Presidency and opted that the country go for the constitutional process, this was God-sent as it suited the Establishment and their chief, GIK, became President. With Ms Benazir Bhutto’s PPP running rampant politically, the IJI, the Islamic Democratic Front, was cobbled together around the ever available Pakistan Muslim League. PML leader Junejo, discarded unceremoniously only a few months ago, was now again resurrected as the pointman against a bigger threat. Ms Bhutto’s electoral momentum took her to Federal power but fell short of gaining the key Province of the Punjab. As a part of the package that elevated her to PM, Ms Bhutto was forced to abandon Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan as her Presidential candidate and swallow the GIK pill as the Establishment-dictated “consensus” candidate of both the major political groupings. As much as everyone would have us believe that this was “democracy”, the fact remained that it was an Establishment-contrived farce.
Ms Bhutto’s political demise was inherent from the first day of her first Prime Ministerial stint. Given that the PPP had been out of office for a long time, the Establishment policy was to allow enough rope to PPP to run berserk with respect to nepotism and corruption. Oxford and Harvard educated Ms Benazir was simply overwhelmed by the demands and trappings of third world office, exposing her severe limitations with respect to experience. Ms Benazir was also badly served by her close advisors, these stalwarts decided they were omnipotent and started to pick on the Armed Forces. By August 1990 the Establishment had the necessary strength (power flows through the barrel of a gun) to move against her.
The Empire Strikes Back
The political struggle between the President and the PM that initially commenced with having more to do with egos has subsequently developed into a vested interest in retaining power rather than the upholding of any deep-rooted principles. A mass of disinformation has been let loose by both the sides that has kept the masses agog and the intelligentsia on tenterhooks, the business community registering its nervousness at the prevailing uncertainty through a steep decline of the stock market. In a perverse sense the internecine conflict has been a net gain for Pakistan for it has exposed our Parliamentary system for the farce that it actually is, a weak and spineless mechanism prone to Presidential remote control. In the past five years two elected Prime Ministers had become victims of Presidential angst, a third PM has now bitten the dust. We might as well declare the Presidency as a monarchy and be done with such a sham for a democracy.
Despite their own reservations about both the primary personalities involved, sane elements (including this scribe) had been counselling rapprochement between the President and the former PM in the greater national interest till they were blue in the face but to no avail, egos having enlarged to the extent of taking preponderance over anything else. Given the fact that the world political situation has undergone major surgery and we are in the midst of a sustained economic transition, the present political tussle has added to the country’s roller-coaster existence. Despite attempts at appeasement by the PM and his colleagues, the President has been as unforgiving as ever, driving Nawaz Sharif into such a corner that in a most uncharacteristic and surprising move he declared independence of the Head of Government from the Head of State, not a bad thing in itself in a Parliamentary system. The President’s mood had blackened over the PM’s alleged “indiscretions” in deliberately delaying to nominate him immediately as the PML candidate for the next Presidential election as soon as he had the mandate from the PML and for suggesting a repeal and/or amendment of the 8th Amendment. Having learnt nothing from Munich and appeasement thereof, the former PM had backtracked smartly on both the issues but the trust factor had already evaporated and did not satisfy those around Ghulam Ishaq Khan baying for Nawaz Sharif’s blood, particularly those who felt left out of the political and administrative mainstream, a habit that fails to die among old bureaucrats. Attempting to hound the PM out of office by a combination of bluff and bluster, the President’s men made the cardinal mistake of crossing a fail-safe line of courage and self-respect that is an in-built quality in all human beings, the potential to fight back in extreme adversity. The President may now have the PM’s head on a platter by sacking him and dissolving the National Assembly but he should re-read Homer’s Iliad, the admonition of the mother of Achilles to Achilles was not to kill Hector as he would not survive Hector’s death by long. It is common knowledge that the President has an extremely pronounced Achilles Heel in the form of the Presidential sons-in-laws. The citizens of this country may be forgiven for feeling that the country is being held hostage on their behalf.