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How will PM Khan’s removal affect Pakistan’s fragile democracy? | Imran Khan


As odd as it sounds, there has been a vote of no confidence in parliament, an emergency Supreme Court hearing, boisterous speeches, mysterious helicopter rides, and a meeting. secret between now-old Prime Minister Imran Khan and the military and intelligence chiefs were all around midnight local time, but nothing fundamentally changed in Pakistan this week.

The transition from Khan’s government to an opposition coalition was the result of a power struggle within the elites, not a mass mobilization based on popular power, as in the latter part of the decade. 1960s, late 1980s, or most recently 2007-08. The army went from supporting Khan to declaring neutrality. The so-called “elected people” of parliament changed sides. The opposition suddenly got in numbers and, unfortunately, Khan is gone – now.

Due to the lack of participation of many in Khan’s removal, the most egregious faults of his so-called “hybrid regime” – the forced disappearances of activists, the repression of toxic Cruelty to media freedom, the imprisonment and harassment of political opponents, the generous and welcoming space given to religious extremists – all unchallenged. As such, if any progress is being made on these scores, it is because of what happens from here on out, not because of what happened. Without such structural reform, this weekend would be the equivalent of rearranging the seats on the deck of the Titanic for a country whose political woes show the severity of the challenges, relationships its threat and potential.

Lessons for forming an army

The most important lesson of this weekend will accrue to the military: they will ideally end up technically ending political outcomes. The legitimacy or morality of extra-constitutional intrigues aside, their track record is astounding.

Half a century ago, military dictator Ayub Khan brought the rising political star Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto under his command. In the early 1970s, Bhutto was the establishment’s choice to balance between the “toppled” Sheikh Mujibur Rahman movement and the Bengali nationalist movement.

But the marriage ended badly: Bhutto was overthrown in a coup by General Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 and later sentenced to death under his regime.

Next, in the 1980s, it was Zia’s turn to nurture the rise of Nawaz Sharif, then a young industrialist. By the end of the decade, Sharif was the establishment’s choice against the “dangerous” Benazir Bhutto.

Sure, their divorce was a bad one too. Sharif was deposed by General Pervez Musharraf in a coup in 1999 and remove Since taking power for the third time under military pressure in 2017, has spent years intervening as Pakistan’s biggest voice against the military’s role in politics.

This brings us to the present. Military aligned with Khan starting in the early 2010s, first used him and his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), to pressure the government of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML -N) from the street and then, in 2018, installed him ruling in an election that is widely considered cheat.

But seasoned observers know exactly how this movie will end: in disarray, tearful and retelling, as it did this weekend.

The song remains unchanged: the generals promote someone they think they can do business with because they’re threatened by a popular alternative. A decade later, another general discovered his predecessors were wrong: the junior partner turned out to be not as flexible as the first assumption. A melee ensued, the army won, and the civilians were brought down. If the civilians were not killed but only imprisoned or exiled, they would belatedly discovered their democratic credentials and started politics against the military, demanding the next prodigal son. Rinse, repeat.

Now, the lesson for forming an army should be clear: let the system govern itself. The military, whose organizational culture and character is characterized by regiment, predictability, and orderliness, cannot understand the mess inherent in multi-party democracy. But (sign of) anti-disorder participants with such a system is necessary for a country as large, diverse and complex as Pakistan, to establish stability at the vast, system-level than.

Furthermore, if the utter chaos of the past week indicates one thing, it is that the architects of such policies do not know how to create order. Pakistan has enough security threats, internal and external, that its military and intelligence agencies do not get bogged down in elections, parties or politicians.

Reset the clock

Khan’s discord with the military is said to have set Pakistan back 30 years on its political development. To understand why, we have to step back in time.

The turn of the century saw Musharraf’s military dictatorship in power. The two major parties, the PML-N and the PPP, spent the last decade, the 1990s, acting like cat paws for the military whenever the other side got tired, operating in the stupid space between accomplices and the community. collaborator.

In 2006, at the height of Musharraf’s power, the heads of the two parties Sharif and Bhutto, both living in exile, signed the Democracy Charter. The document appears to mark a fundamental change. Among other things, the couple pledged never to conspire with the military if it destabilizes or displaces an elected government.

Many skeptics saw the signatures as mere theatre. But what followed was a pivotal moment in Pakistan’s political history. The time period after Musharraf is remove (2008-2013) saw major achievements such as the 18th Amendment, which gave Pakistan’s parliament stronger protections against dismissal or dissolution, a remarkable achievement. Through the apocalyptic floods, global recession, and brutal war against the Taliban, the PPP government gave the reins to PML-N. This is the first time in Pakistan’s history that the National Assembly has completed its term.

Political scientists who study democracy look for a free and fair election for the second time in a row, not the first, when considering whether a country qualifies as one. democracy or not. It is the peaceful and predictable transition of power from one elected government to another that truly marks a democracy. 65 years after its birth as a republic, Pakistan has finally achieved this.

During the PML-N term (2013-2018), the PPP more or less reciprocated the support, acting as the staunch opposition. The army has a lot of knowledge, but without a big side to play with, it cannot achieve its usual tricks. Foreign powers such as the United States, momentarily, were on the alert and signaled to the military that they would not interfere as unduly as they had in the past.

There is, therefore, genuine optimism that Pakistan has taken steps to erase its history as a military autocracy.

But this progress has always been fragile, with Imran Khan, the bull in this exquisite crockery store. Khan and his PTI, the third force in Pakistani politics, don’t care about democratic good: he came to power, replacing the fraudsters and criminals he claimed to have looted. country, and that’s really all it takes.

His willingness to cooperate with military and intelligence agencies, which other major parties have foretold, means that Pakistan’s hard-earned progress on the civilian-military front has been wasted on the table. worship of one’s ego. Pakistan may have coveted a second consecutive election that is relatively free and fair, but will not achieve a third.

Party and democracy

The staged election of 2018, and everything that came before, may have convinced the PML-N and PPP of the maxim “if you can’t beat them, join them” . To reach an agreement with the military this year to replace Khan – essentially tearing up what was left of the Democratic Charter – the PPP and PML-N played a disgraceful role of their own in Turning the clock back to the 1990s. The retrograde says a lot about the lack of ideological commitment of the major parties in Pakistan.

But, ironically, now that Khan and his PTI could actually deal a blow to democracy and civil supremacy, if he decided against his war on the terms so. For now, he favors blaming his departure on outsiders rather than within, adopting an anti-American conspiracy framework. But if he directly names the generals for which he holds responsibility, first of all Chief of the Army General Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa, and promotes stronger opposition against the military, Pakistan’s democracy could Something can be salvaged from these troubled times.

PTI’s social base, composed mainly of the urban middle and upper classes, is almost exactly the same base that has historically strongly supported military political interventions. If Imran Khan clearly targets Bajwa, the polarization of this class into pro-Imran and pro-military factions could inadvertently sow the seeds of democratic reform. There have been some signs that the PTI base is expressing more skepticism about the military’s role in politics. As long as that split doesn’t turn violent, with luck it could serve Pakistan’s interests in the long run.

But this is catching at straws. It ignores that Khan has no problem with the army, just a soldier. It ignores that in politics, memories can be brief. On top of that, it ignores that we’ve been here before, with the military seemingly going a step too far wrong, only to let its influence continue unchallenged.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the editorial views of Al Jazeera.



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