Pakistan’s ousted and sentenced Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is coming back to Pakistan from UK today, accompanied by his politically active and heavily painted daughter Mariam. Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Mariam, and her husband Captain (Rtd) Safdar have been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment in Pakistan. Prior to sentencing, Nawaz Sharif and daughter Mariam were allowed to go abroad to visit Nawaz’s ailing wife Kulsoom Nawaz, who is undergoing cancer treatment in a London hospital and was put on ventilator just as the Sharifs arrived in London. Kulsoom’s ailment soon became a political ‘stunt.’ Rumours of weather Kulsoom is already dead or alive circulate in Pakistan. Sharif’s opponents fear that Kulsoom’s death will be announced at a ‘strategic’ point in Sharifs’ lives, just before the ballot, or during the “arrest” upon arrival in Pakistan, and will be used for invoking mass sympathy and gaining political mileage.
The Sharifs seem to have done strategic planning to face the odds against them and to survive politically. They have woven an intelligent design and in so doing, have shown scant regard for Pakistan. Captain Safdar’s arrest in Rawalpindi on July 8 was a dramatic event. Safdar went into hiding after the sentence against him was announced. Then he arrived incognito in Rawalpindi, and was soon seen leading a procession on one of the busiest roads of Rawalpindi, where he was arrested, surrounded by dozens of supporters who tried to prevent the arrest. The nation saw the drama on TV screens for several hours. The nation also saw how the law enforcement was kept in a bind for several hours before they could lay hands on Nawaz Sharif’s son in law.
The episode seems to have been staged as reconnaissance. After having ascertained that the plot works, Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Mariam have now embarked on the same path at grander scale. They have declared that they are returning to Pakistan from London, leaving the ailing Kulsoom Nawaz on her death bed, to save Pakistan. The PML(N) has asked for a huge crowd to assemble to welcome Nawaz and daughter as they arrive at Lahore airport, from where a procession will be led by both the father and the daughter to Islamabad, where they will offer themselves for arrest!!
During the arrest, Kusloom’s death could be announced. It could be announced soon after the arrest, or just before the ballot. Playing with Kulsoom’s inevitable medical fate as a card in their pocket, the Sharifs have embarked on a path of face saving no matter where the chips fall. If a huge crowd actually assembles to welcome them, their arrest will cause fire works and will provide evidence for their narrative that the people of Pakistan do not favor the verdict against Nawaz Sharif and his daughter and son in law, that the verdict is being forced upon them.
If a large crowd does not assemble, (a likely scenario) and Nawaz and Mariam are arrested upon arrival, they will assert that they were simply coming to court arrest, to show respect for law, (unlike their opponent Musharref, the absconder) and that the powers that be over reacted to Sharifs’ arrival by taking extreme precautionary measures (cell phone jamming, road blockage, blockage of several airports in the country, arrest of several PML(N) workers, etc) which only shows how nervous they are about what they are doing to Nawaz Sharif and his family.
Either way, Nawaz Sharif hopes to present his ouster from politics as ‘martyrdom’ for a cause instead of the inevitable consequence of his actions while in power.
In case masses respond to Nawaz’s call in the same number they did when Nawaz Sharif commenced a long march for restoration of Chief Justice iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry in 2009, it will be Nirvana for the Sharifs.
But what will happen to the country in that eventuality?
The breathtakingly insensitive absence of “care” within the hearts and minds of the legally besieged Nawaz Sharif and family is frightening. It is frightening because such a group of individuals were able to place themselves as rulers of Pakistan for years!
Month: July 2018
BILAWAL’S FIRST CAMPAIGN RALLY MARRED BY STRANGE VIOLENCE
Benazir Bhutto’s son Bilawal Bhutto, a well liked young politician from the Bhutto dynasty and a personable individual in his own right, stepped out yesterday for his first election campaign ever for a seat in the National Assembly of Pakistan, in one of Karachi’s densely populated and down trodden area called Layari,(NA 246). Layari is known as a Bhutto strong hold.
Bilawal’s party, the PPP, has ruled Sindh since 2008. Senior members of Bilawal’s party, including the former Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, Sherry Rehman and others, accompanied Bilawal on his Layari campaign. As soon as the cavalcade entered Lyari, something happened that shocked everyone in Pakistan. A very angry crowd stood alongside Bilawal’s supporters and started pelting stones and sticks at the motorcade, chanting in one voice “go Bilawal go.”
For Pakistanis, this was the first demonstration of violence during this election season. The demonstration was condemned by civil society at large and by all political leaders. The fact that this should have happened to Bilawal Bhutto, Pakistan’s youngest politician who is Oxford educated, charming and a well liked ‘person’, has raised eye brows here. Bilawal has not held any political office, has entered politics only very recently, and therefore it seemed unfair that he should have been the only one targeted in this manner during the current election season.
As the violence was underway, and being displayed on nearly all TV channels in Pakistan, Sherry Rehman took to criticizing the rangers who were appointed to provide security in the area. She seemed to be pinning the blame on them not for managing security poorly but for “allowing” the violence to take place. This is an endemic disease in both formerly incumbent political parties, the PPP and the PML(N). During their terms in office at federal level and rather long terms in office at provincial levels in Sindh and Punjab respectively, both the PPP and the PML(N) never came up with a radical plan of action to serve Pakistan with better system of police. The PML(N) in fact, made mockery of police and created the term “guluism” when it used the Punjab police as hooligans during Tahir ul Qadri’s agitation for electoral reforms that lasted from 2012 to 2014. Instead of thinking outside the box for a better system of police to cater to the present day security requirements, both the parties are content to call in the military when ever serious security is required for any purpose. If some thing goes wrong, they are quick to accuse the very military personnel they ‘trust and prefer above all’ for providing security. What is incomprehensible in this affair is the fact that the accusation isn’t one of ‘negligence’ but one of ‘premeditated’ intent to harm the politicians during their public appearance in pursuit of political goals.
For ordinary Pakistanis, this consistent pattern of badmouthing the nation’s military, that too without a shred of proof, is cause for anguish. It is shaping a nation that has begun to feel closer ‘politically’ to its military force, when it should be reposing trust in civilian leadership because the smooth functioning of democracy rests on such repose. It is not good for Pakistan’s democratic eco system if the politicians are seen to be investing money abroad, maintaining residences abroad, harboring foreign nationalities or foreign permanent residences, and trashing the nation’s soldiers publicly who live in Pakistan, work in Pakistan and die in battles for Pakistan. The institution of the military is bath mouthed by the PPP and the PML(N) stalwarts with a degree of casualness and nonchalance that defies both wisdom and logic.
Bilawal was subjected to a potentially dangerous situation in Layari. But the same was planned and executed by his party’s senior leadership – one that has ruled Sindh since 2008. And yet, they point fingers at the military personnel who should not have been called in to provide security for civil purpose in the first place. What was wrong with the police that security had to be supplemented by the military for an election campaign – the third of its kind by the PPP personnel?
One wishes for more elegant behavior from one’s national leaders and greater emotional intelligence in the matter. The PPP and the PML(N) stalwarts behave in this matter like the proverbial insecure wife whose anxiety stems from always suspecting that her husband is disloyal, an attitude which serves as the cardinal cause of her husband’s emotional estrangement from her. Sure Pakistan has had martial laws in the past! The military has intervened in politics – but it also remains neutral for what is now the longest time in Pakistan’s history. Pakistanis welcome this evolution. Why cant the PPP and PML(N) leaders?
Force plays an important role in foreign relations. A country backed by a competitive military force sits relatively secure in the comity of nations. It can assert itself better against its enemies. Scandalizing one’s military, especially during trying times when its service ensures the survival of the nation, is at best breathtakingly stupid – at worst an act of hostility towards one’s own nation-state. It is a path to depriving Pakistan’s democracy of its ‘cognitive entrenchment’ within the masses. People do not like it when they hear their military being villified as an institution during times of existential threats to their country – and when the military is not in politics. Such dislike is heightened at present because Pakistani politicians’ foreign assets and foreign loyalties have recently been exposed in a series of shocking revelations.
Having said that, one cannot help but ponder why Bilawal Bhutto was targeted during his very first election in Pakistan and very first rally in Karachi. That the community in Lyari was angry because it has no water, little electricity and fewer jobs does not sit well as an explanation. All of Karachi suffers similar deprivation. Older PPP leaders who ruled Karachi directly for years, and are thus responsible for absence of essential services, have campaigned in the midst of equally deprived public with high levels of resentment. They have not been subjected to similar violence. No politician has been subjected to such violence anywhere in Pakistan.
A peep inside PPP’s internal power dynamic would be in order while contemplating this issue. There are forces in the PPP who want to extricate the party of its dynastic “Bhuttoness.” The tussle between Bilawal and his father Asif Ali Zardari is a real and present problem in the PPP. Asif Ali Zardari does not seem to want Bilawal to emerge as a leader in his own right. The father does not relish his son having a free hand in politics. He certainly does not want Bilawal to toe the line of his maternal grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, something Bilawal has shown a proclivity for. Bilawal broke down in tears when condoling the deaths of young Baluchi police recruits at the hands of abominable terror.
Could a segment of the PPP’s senior most and central most leadership have masterminded the Layari violence to deter Bilawal from campaigning the way he would want to – to reign in the young man? Those who know the inside story and are close to both Bilawal and Zardari are cognizant of the tension between the two. Given the fact, the Layari violence could have been an insiders’ job. Bilawal returned to Layari a few hours later to campaign again. He said his ‘deep love’ for the people of Layari can absorb their anger, no matter how violent it gets. This was quite a master stroke of populism. Bilawal’s genes seem to be carrying this expertise.
Let us set aside the reality of father son tension for a while. Layari episode could still be an insider job to create an excuse for Bilawal to manage his campaign and his personal security both, by moving away a little closer from the masses. In that case, demands for resignation of the interim minister for information could be PPP leadership’s bid for a bonus while they are at it.
Needless to mention, this analysis is merely in the realm of speculation. So was Sherry Rehman’s finger pointing at the Rangers, within seconds of being caught in the middle of Layari violence!
Pakistan’s Election Tempo
Pakistan’s election 2018 scene is in (not full) swing. Nominations for all constituencies have been finalized by parties. The Election Commission of Pakistan has completed the whetting process. There has been dramatic disqualifications and reinstatments, such as that of the former Prime Minister Shahid khaqan Abbasi. He was barred for life from contesting elections in his home town because the value he put down on the asset declaration form for his house in Islamabad was the paltry amount at which the house was purchased decades ago, not its current high value. Khaqan scandalized the media by calling the judge who disqualified him “mentally ill,” and proceeded to the high court against the latter’s decision. Khaqan’s lawyer argued that the form does not specify if the candidate is to describe current value of an asset, or one at the time of acquisition, therefore Khaqan can not be charged with asset concealment. Khaqan was reinstated. The next day, he was slapped with contempt of court charges. In its heel came treason charge because Khaqan met with Nawaz Sharif in London, and apparently apprised the latter of the conversations that took place between the civil military authorities in PM office while Khaqan was the PM. Verdicts in both cases are expected in a few days. Khaqan will likely survive the cases and continue to contest the election.
If Khaqan’s saga sounds ridiculous, the overall socio-political environment of election 2018 is no less ludicrous. It is too hot in Pakistan to hold electoral rallies in day time. Candidates eschew night time rallies due to heightened fear of India’s RAW waiting in the wings to sabotage Pakistan’s democratic process through acts of terror. Large posters are hung to attract voters. The same are mercilessly removed by law enforcement for being larger than the size prescribed in regulation. The permitted size seems too small for attracting adequate attention. You have to be able to read the smaller posters to understand the message. Country’s low mass literacy rate does not help as many voters can neither read words written on the poster nor are they able to see the candidate’s face on it clearly. Candidates have taken to campaigning door to door in their air-conditioned luxury vehicles. The constituents avail the unusual proximity to the leader to voice grievances against latter’s previous performance, and oft times take to booing mercilessly. Privately owned cell phones record the scenario and 24/7 media displays the same as ‘mass rejection of candidates.’ Usually, a day after the flashing of such a visual on TV, the candidate in question is seen on TV screen, clarifying his position and calling the crowd too small to matter. In the absence of verification through drone imaging, (a common practice during rallies) the candidate remains unconvincing. Instead of party manifestos, Pakistanis are thus getting daily dose of disgruntled crowds holding a candidate who has unsuspectingly landed himself in their midst to task for unfulfilled promises during previous term. The entire run up to the election on July 25 will likely be spent this way.
And yet, the contest is not likely to be hard this time round. The incumbent PML(N) is being perceived as the party of instability and vendetta. Nawaz Sharif, its former head and three time Prime Minister of Pakistan, who now stands disqualified for life on charges of money laundering, took to accusing the vital institutions of the state such as the judiciary and the armed forces of ………………………actually, its not clear what he is accusing the latter of. Nawaz Sharif has taken to calling the country’s premier intelligence service “alien creatures with mysterious powers” and has accused the judiciary plus the National Accountability Bureau of being ‘possessed’ by the same power. Nawaz Sharif’s younger brother and the current head of the PML(N), Shahbaz Sharif, a pill popping person who seems to be nursing various ailments, is calling for a new constitution. Thus, vague statements and pronouncements by Sharifs that are hostile towards Pakistan’s own institutions, instead of any enemy without, are making Pakistanis petrified of what the Sharifs may do to the country if back in power. Hence not many are thinking of voting the PML(N)back into power. They fear the top brass of the PPP, the other party that has ruled several times in the past, will likely become another casualty of the unprecedented accountability derive currently in top gear in Pakistan. This perception has decreased PPP’s electoral support in Pakistan.
Imran Khan’s PTI is a mess, but with a redeeming feature. The intra party dispute regarding party ticket allocation was played out in a novel manner. Workers ended up at Imran’s residence in great many numbers and staged sit in for days, demanding reconsideration of ticket allocation. The leaders they favored, by and large, remained out of sight themselves, as Imran pleaded with the workers day in and day out to go home and promised to reconsider his decision. Rangers were called in and in an attempt to save face, the PTI cadre declared it necessary for providing safety to the workers! Catering and music was arranged at Imran’s residence and the workers socialized, chanted slogans, ate free food, danced to music, slept, woke up, and seemed least intimidated by Imran Khan when he appeared at the gate of his own house to plead with the workers to end their sit in so he could tend to the election campaign. Finally, the workers left and some tickets were redistributed by the PTI. Thus, a rather impressive and unplanned show of Power to the People was seen within the PTI. Disputes of this nature, in other parties, are only fought out at the party cadre level.
Imran is being subjected to smear campaign but the very fact that instead of corruption, his opponents have tried to smear his image through scandals with women, etc., gives Pakistanis solace in the current circumstances. Imran Khan, they believe, may give them clean governance after all.
Zeenia Satti 