It makes you dizzy. The interplay, the variables, the intensity and the undercurrents are so many and the changes taking place are so fast that you need a million eyes, ears and noses to keep you abreast. On the fast-moving political treadmill of Pakistan you can’t walk, you have to jog to make sense of things around you.
The civil-mil tiff got intense after the nuclear option of firing Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz Sharif and his heir apparent Maryam Nawaz Sharif locked in a tough war of nerves with the security establishment and the superior judiciary. You had the GT Road march followed by the NA-120 victory, bringing new actors to the forefront. Election Bill 2017 brought Nawaz back to the party’s steering wheel and the fracas at the accountability court added fuel to the fire.
In reaction to that we saw a spectacle in the National Assembly when roughly two scores of the treasury MNAs used a letter declared fake by the IB as an excuse to stage a protest against their own government. This was considered a signal of defection, earlier raised by the mercurial Chaudhry Nisar.
As if this were not enough, the day after he was arrested and then released on bail, Captain Safdar made an incendiary speech on the floor of the house, targeting a religious minority with a focus on the superior judiciary and the army establishment. This too caused quite a stir. The speech was disliked both by the reconciliation and the resistance groups of the party. On one hand it hurt Nawaz Sharif’s “national” credentials and on the other hand it hurt the reconciliation group by adding to the strain with the establishment.
Earlier, the issue of the Hudaibiya paper mills, the Model Town killings and the release of the Najafi report had already dampened the spirits of already reconciliatory Shehbaz Sharif and his family. Shehbaz, his wife Tehmina Durrani and his son Hamza, had already been urging Nawaz and Maryam to raise the white flag. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, already demoralized and compromised, was ready to throw in the towel any time. Now he has been effectively sidelined in his own cabinet where he used to act as the proxy Prime Minister. Now his cabinet colleagues turn the other way as the chips are down.
“It is not a matter of if but when Ishaq Dar resigns,” an important minister confided to me, requesting anonymity. Another cabinet colleague of Ishaq Dar added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Dar signed the old affidavit in the Hudaibiya paper mills case with a new date.”
The situation got so tense that the cabal of pro-establishment talking heads took to the airwaves predicting the removal of the PML-N government by hook or by crook. Last but not least was the seminar on the economy jointly organized by the ISPR and the FPCCI. This led to another spell of hot and cold showers between overseas-travelling Ahsan Iqbal and the spokesman of the armed forces. The situation got so tense that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had to intervene by activating his fire brigade to calm the situation. A hurried meeting was called with important ministers, including Dar and the irritated Ahsan Iqbal, in the name of a briefing on the economy. Does that make the problem go away? No, not so fast.
Consider:
Nawaz Sharif and his insistence on doing things about the economy and foreign policy his way was the main source of tension in civil-mil relations. Since he was chucked out, he and his heir apparent and a cabal of ministers kept hammering the security establishment and the superior judiciary, mainly accusing them of a judicial coup. As long as they keep hammering that, the tension between the twin cities persisted and kept the Shahid Khaqan government off balance and limping.
Several brainstorming sessions of the ruling party have finally reached the conclusion that they must work within the red lines dictated by the security establishment, hoping that it will provide them with enough space to at least go through the March Senate elections and complete some of the signature projects initiated by Nawaz Sharif.
“In a day or two you will see a policy statement from the party advising all and sundry to shut up [with] their anti-establishment and anti-judiciary rhetoric in the greater national interest as we are passing through a critical juncture of our history,” revealed a top PML-N source. (We went to print earlier in the week).
What does this mean for Nawaz Sharif and Maryam? It means their narrative has been put in the cold storage for now. So now, no Grand Dialogue and no rallying cry for the “sanctity of votes” for the time being. But how do we mute Nawaz and Maryam from speaking when they appear before the accountability courts?
“Neither the security establishment nor the Abbasi administration in Islamabad want the father and the daughter to appear before the cameras and address the media. They want them out of the public scene to release the tension between the twin cities. We are working on a formula to keep them away,” confided a top PML-N source.
“We will find a way to keep these cases moving but keeping the father and daughter away. We can’t function as the government and the opposition at the same time for long unless we hit a major accident,” confided a cabinet minister, requesting anonymity.
In the meanwhile, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who often acts like a Prime Minister on steroids, is trying his best to behave like a super efficient Chief Executive. Cabinet meetings, special meetings, CCI meetings are all are taking place on time. The Prime Minister, unlike the reluctant Nawaz Sharif as PM, goes to parliament regularly, attends parliamentary party meetings regularly. The Cabinet Committee on National Security that went into cold storage during Nawaz Sharif’s tenure has been activated and there has been hardly any month after the SC verdict that a meeting has not taken place.
The goal of all this is to gallop to the goal post of the March Senate elections and preferably to June as parliament’s term comes to an end and the caretaker set-up is installed. Come caretaker times, Nawaz Sharif and his party will dust the resistance side of the policy off, tweak it a little bit and jump into the election fray, showcasing its governance record. Whether circumstances will allow them to reach this goal post will again be determined by a variety of variables in a fluid situation. There is much haze now to precisely predict this but for now, a minus-father and daughter formula has been effectively enforced.
The writer is a broadcast journalist based in Islamabad. He tweets as @murtazasolangi
The civil-mil tiff got intense after the nuclear option of firing Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz Sharif and his heir apparent Maryam Nawaz Sharif locked in a tough war of nerves with the security establishment and the superior judiciary. You had the GT Road march followed by the NA-120 victory, bringing new actors to the forefront. Election Bill 2017 brought Nawaz back to the party’s steering wheel and the fracas at the accountability court added fuel to the fire.
In reaction to that we saw a spectacle in the National Assembly when roughly two scores of the treasury MNAs used a letter declared fake by the IB as an excuse to stage a protest against their own government. This was considered a signal of defection, earlier raised by the mercurial Chaudhry Nisar.
The situation got so tense that the cabal of pro-establishment talking heads took to the airwaves predicting the removal of the PML-N government by hook or by crook
As if this were not enough, the day after he was arrested and then released on bail, Captain Safdar made an incendiary speech on the floor of the house, targeting a religious minority with a focus on the superior judiciary and the army establishment. This too caused quite a stir. The speech was disliked both by the reconciliation and the resistance groups of the party. On one hand it hurt Nawaz Sharif’s “national” credentials and on the other hand it hurt the reconciliation group by adding to the strain with the establishment.
Earlier, the issue of the Hudaibiya paper mills, the Model Town killings and the release of the Najafi report had already dampened the spirits of already reconciliatory Shehbaz Sharif and his family. Shehbaz, his wife Tehmina Durrani and his son Hamza, had already been urging Nawaz and Maryam to raise the white flag. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, already demoralized and compromised, was ready to throw in the towel any time. Now he has been effectively sidelined in his own cabinet where he used to act as the proxy Prime Minister. Now his cabinet colleagues turn the other way as the chips are down.
“It is not a matter of if but when Ishaq Dar resigns,” an important minister confided to me, requesting anonymity. Another cabinet colleague of Ishaq Dar added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Dar signed the old affidavit in the Hudaibiya paper mills case with a new date.”
The situation got so tense that the cabal of pro-establishment talking heads took to the airwaves predicting the removal of the PML-N government by hook or by crook. Last but not least was the seminar on the economy jointly organized by the ISPR and the FPCCI. This led to another spell of hot and cold showers between overseas-travelling Ahsan Iqbal and the spokesman of the armed forces. The situation got so tense that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had to intervene by activating his fire brigade to calm the situation. A hurried meeting was called with important ministers, including Dar and the irritated Ahsan Iqbal, in the name of a briefing on the economy. Does that make the problem go away? No, not so fast.
What does this mean for Nawaz Sharif and Maryam? It means their narrative has been put in the cold storage for now. So now, no Grand Dialogue and no rallying cry for the "sanctity of votes" for the time being
Consider:
Nawaz Sharif and his insistence on doing things about the economy and foreign policy his way was the main source of tension in civil-mil relations. Since he was chucked out, he and his heir apparent and a cabal of ministers kept hammering the security establishment and the superior judiciary, mainly accusing them of a judicial coup. As long as they keep hammering that, the tension between the twin cities persisted and kept the Shahid Khaqan government off balance and limping.
Several brainstorming sessions of the ruling party have finally reached the conclusion that they must work within the red lines dictated by the security establishment, hoping that it will provide them with enough space to at least go through the March Senate elections and complete some of the signature projects initiated by Nawaz Sharif.
“In a day or two you will see a policy statement from the party advising all and sundry to shut up [with] their anti-establishment and anti-judiciary rhetoric in the greater national interest as we are passing through a critical juncture of our history,” revealed a top PML-N source. (We went to print earlier in the week).
What does this mean for Nawaz Sharif and Maryam? It means their narrative has been put in the cold storage for now. So now, no Grand Dialogue and no rallying cry for the “sanctity of votes” for the time being. But how do we mute Nawaz and Maryam from speaking when they appear before the accountability courts?
“Neither the security establishment nor the Abbasi administration in Islamabad want the father and the daughter to appear before the cameras and address the media. They want them out of the public scene to release the tension between the twin cities. We are working on a formula to keep them away,” confided a top PML-N source.
“We will find a way to keep these cases moving but keeping the father and daughter away. We can’t function as the government and the opposition at the same time for long unless we hit a major accident,” confided a cabinet minister, requesting anonymity.
In the meanwhile, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who often acts like a Prime Minister on steroids, is trying his best to behave like a super efficient Chief Executive. Cabinet meetings, special meetings, CCI meetings are all are taking place on time. The Prime Minister, unlike the reluctant Nawaz Sharif as PM, goes to parliament regularly, attends parliamentary party meetings regularly. The Cabinet Committee on National Security that went into cold storage during Nawaz Sharif’s tenure has been activated and there has been hardly any month after the SC verdict that a meeting has not taken place.
The goal of all this is to gallop to the goal post of the March Senate elections and preferably to June as parliament’s term comes to an end and the caretaker set-up is installed. Come caretaker times, Nawaz Sharif and his party will dust the resistance side of the policy off, tweak it a little bit and jump into the election fray, showcasing its governance record. Whether circumstances will allow them to reach this goal post will again be determined by a variety of variables in a fluid situation. There is much haze now to precisely predict this but for now, a minus-father and daughter formula has been effectively enforced.
The writer is a broadcast journalist based in Islamabad. He tweets as @murtazasolangi