Brothers in Arms: Sharif dynasty takes hold

When ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif named his brother, Shahbaz as his replacement in a parliamentary meeting of the ruling party on Saturday evening (July 29) it compelled many of the central leaders of the party to evoke the memories of the latter’s cozy relations with the military establishment. While the elder brother, Nawaz was facing the wrath of the military after some unpalatable decisions of his government, the younger one was still on the right side of the military establishment. In fact Shahbaz acted as a troubleshooter for Sharif government whenever there was unease in civil-military relations in Islamabad. The younger Sharif’s regular meetings with successive army chiefs in the times of trouble were common knowledge in Islamabad.

In the words of a senior Muslim League leader, Shahbaz was always the first choice to engage with the military whenever the relations between the Sharif government and the military establishment soured, “Even General Musharraf—after the coup—suggested to the Sharif family (who were in exile in Saudi Arabia) to name Shahbaz as the prime minister as a compromise,” said the Muslim League leader, who served in the Musharraf cabinet.

Some Muslim League members still doubt just how  Shahbaz mysteriously escaped indictment in the case regarding the investigation into the Sharif family’s business, especially as, in the words of the senior Muslim League leader, were essentially about business dealings of the patriarch of Sharif family, Mian Sharif.

However on the surface there is little doubt that the ousted Prime Minister, Nawaz is still in control of his party and his hold on power has not weakened. He was given a standing ovation in the parliamentary party meeting on Saturday evening in Islamabad, “I will never leave you” he said to the parliamentarians, “I will visit each constituency before the elections……….but I have no desire to become prime minister again” he said.

Serious analysts, however, point out that by bringing Shahbaz as the next prime minister, Nawaz is in fact trying to mend fences with the military establishment.

One of the signs of this new strategy was in his first public address in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict. Nawaz didn’t utter a single word against the military, despite the fact that the second tier of his party leaders are clearly pointing their fingers that way and its intelligence services for managing his ouster.

During the past one and half years, the Sharif government’s relations was constantly deteriorating, mainly due to two unrelated developments.

A news report in one of leading newspapers had reported that a meeting presided over by Nawaz himself took note of the fact that Pakistani military intelligence’s involvement with militant groups was forcing Pakistan into international and regional isolation.

Official inquiry into the matter revealed that some of the government ministers and officials of the Secretariat were the source of this report in the newspaper.

Later the military directly accused the government for trying to defame the state institution. This definitely soured relations between the government and the military.

And then there was the visit of Indian steel magnate, Sajjan Jindal to Islamabad where he and his family met Nawaz at the hill resort, Murree. The Army made its annoyance known, both within the power corridors and in the media and streets over this meeting and saw this as an attempt to normalize relations with India in the face of continued tensions around the Line of Control and what was perceived to be atrocities in Indian controlled Kashmir.

By the time the Supreme Court announced its decision, government ministers were openly accusing the military and its associated intelligence agencies of conspiring against the PM.

Some independent voices in Islamabad lend credence to the government’s allegations against the military. For instance non-partisan human rights activists, Asama Jehangir, on a televised talk show, said that the fate of Nawaz is a message from the Pakistani establishment to anyone who dared to stand against them, “This is establishment’s message is that we will make example of your generation if you dare to stand up against us”.

The Pakistani military establishment has felt handicapped in the post-Musharraf period after the last PPP government repealed article 58(2) (b) of the constitution which authorized civilian but military backed Presidents in the past to dissolve the national assembly and dismiss the government at the whim of the military top brass.

This led to the invention of a new mechanism to oust popularly elected Prime Ministers—in the absence of a bureaucratic power to dismiss the government, the judiciary came up with the idea to disqualify the prime minister as member of the national assembly(the first Prime Minister to be disqualified in this way was PPP’s Yousaf Raza Gilani) at the hands of newly activist judiciary whose 60 judges were ousted by the last military ruler, General Musharraf in 2009 and later restored at the intervention of another Chief of the Army Staff, General Ashfaq Kiyani who succeeded Musharraf.

The restoration of judges and the Chief Justice of Pakistan at the intervention of a serving COAS led to forging (or the revival) of a tacit alliance between the judiciary and military. This was exemplified by the way the judiciary first took up the case of so called thousands of missing persons-who were kidnapped by military intelligence agencies over the years-and later forgot about the plight of these missing persons’ families altogether, to safe the military top brass from public embarrassment.

There are analysts who point out that the Pakistan Army establishment feels insecure in the absence of a powerful partner in Islamabad’s civilian setup.

The support for the institution of the President, who carries the power to dismiss popularly elected governments is inbuilt into the political DNA of the Pakistani military establishment.

According to a recent study of civilian-military relations in Pakistan (Army and Democracy by Aqeel Shah) the army’s hatred for “traditional parliamentary democracy” goes back to the days of the first military takeover in Pakistan in 1958, when first military ruler, General Ayub Khan, who, “was able to imprint his negative assessment of traditional parliamentary politics and virtues of presidential government on the army in the first two decades of independence with profound consequences for subsequent generations of officers”.

In 1973, when the country’s first constitution was enacted, a western style parliamentary and federal system was introduced into the country by the then Prime Minister, Zulifiqar Ali Bhutto.

In the subsequent two coups in 1977 and 1999, both military rulers reversed the move towards parliamentary democracy and restored powers to the office of President including the power to dissolve the legislature and dismiss the government.

Later after the ouster of the fourth military ruler, Musharraf, the former PPP government again removed all the contamination from Pakistani constitution and restored the parliament system of governance in the country. The Military backed institution of the President was deprived of all power to dismiss the government.

However the system received another shock when the Pakistani Supreme Court invented a new mechanism to dismiss PPP Prime Minister, Gilani on the flimsy charges of contempt of court.

Under Pakistani law, a member of national assembly loses his seat if he or she is convicted by the court on criminal charges. And if the prime minister ceases to be a member of the national assembly he cannot continue.

Since Nawaz assumed the office of prime minister, there have been rumours that he would be ousted much the same way Gilani was.

Since 2013 the military establishment has gradually increased pressure to oust Sharif from power. There have been two full fledged agitations against his government which were perceived by the government to be backed by the military and its intelligence agencies.

In August 2014, Imran Khan brought his followers to Islamabad to stage a sit-in which continued for more than two months. This was the time when Nawaz confronted the then-Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif with the evidence that his Director General ISI, Lt General Zaheer-ul-Islam Abbasi had spoken to Khan and coaxed him and his followers to attack his home and and at the secretariat. Later the minister who disclosed this damning information to BBC Urdu was forced to resign from his office.

Both the military and superior judiciary were facilitated, to invoke this invented mechanism to oust Nawaz, by the fact that Pakistani political class in the post-Zia period (General Zia was the third military ruler) has a tainted past with a history of loot and plunder of public funds and financial institutions. However both military and judiciary has historically remained engaged in disrupting the political process in the country with the damning consequences of endangering its security.

The author can be contacted @Umer_1967.