The Truth International magazine article
One year has passed since the vote of no confidence against the PTI government led by Imran Khan succeeded in dislodging the government and ushering in the government of the sitting opposition as on April 9, 2022, PPP and PML N cobbled together in PDM.
Pakistan has been traditionally used to such regime changes since the revival of democracy after the exit of the late General Zia-ul-Haque in 1988. The political parties were apparently restored to contest the elections and form the government. However, the return to parliamentary democracy was not without the compromises forced down the throat by the establishment, which was in fact the successor of the late dictator. The winning party in the 1988 elections the PPP was not handed over the government, which was once enjoyed by the PPP founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, rather it was the proverbial ‘moth-eaten democratic order’ to borrow a phrase from the late founder of the nation Quaid Azam, for what he termed as Pakistan handed down by the British in 1947.
That type of politics; rather a ruthless brand of politics has been characterized by the fact that the opposition political party is ever ready to cooperate with the establishment of the deep state to upstage the treasury benches as and when the signal for the same is communicated.
The tug-of-war between the PPP and PML N during the period from 1988 to 1999 has been characterized by that politics. The opposition party organized long marches as and when there were signals from the establishment. Once the opposition was willing to cooperate with the establishment; all the tags of the traitor, corrupt, etc. were erased to make the newly launched government completely ‘fresh from the farm’.
That musical chair ended only when the 1999 coup sopped the process for the next 9 years. With the gradual return of democracy in 2008, the first two five-year tenures of PPP (2008-2013) and PML N (2013-2018) were characterized by unusual accommodation between the warring factions from 1988 to 1999.
However, the establishment had other plans in the store. The first salvo of street power via establishment was fired by the Tahir ul Qadri PAT, which organized a long march to bring in a revolution. Its ability to organize a political circus emboldened the PTI to repeat the performance in August 2014, teaming up with Qadri PAT and MWM. What happened during the 126 days of Khan’s long march and Dharna in Islamabad actually opened the doors for gradual but regular interventions by the establishment to have its own players in the corridors of power.
The 2018 elections actually ushered in what has been termed the ‘one page’ or ‘hybrid’ model of governance, where the face is ‘civilian’ but the voiceover is ‘military’. The PTI government was able to do many things which could have been termed a no-go area for any political government, not having the support of the deep state.
The roots of conflict of the current crisis over the so-called regime change can be safely traced back to the 2018 formation of the government in the center and other tiers of governance. The hybrid model was launched in the hope that apart from the political usefulness of the model, it will be able to solve the problems of a failing economy, bad governance, and a restive population. The makers of the model forgot that the governance issues are deeply embedded in the human factor, the leadership factor, and the cascading impact of the policies adopted.
What happened after 2018 was the air of fear of accountability with the revival of the economy given a back burner importance? In Pakistan in 2019, it was not safe to invest, as anyone earning more was liable to be called to account for his prosperity. It was in fact an EBDO in civilian clothing, aimed to scare away any opposition to the hybrid system. Many journalists were forced to go offline. Disappearances were a norm. Any person could be framed under laws primarily written for national security and now implemented on civilians.
Given the fact that dictatorships live on economic prosperity, like Zia and remittances etc. the period under Imran Khan had little to offer to the average Pakistani. The stage was set for the creators to make an exit from the scene and allow the other political groups to have their go for correcting the system.
At that point of time; as the establishment failed to account for the human factor for the success of their 2018 experiment. This time, when undoing the experiment, it failed to appreciate that the dislodging will even be more devastating.
On the count that it was not the regime changes of 1988 to 1999 period when the political parties quietly reconciled to live for another day. This time the fifth-generation comrades were not in the mood to lay down arms. Rather what was to be witnessed by the public was a complete counter-revolution. The Vote of no confidence, which otherwise could have been hailed as a democratic way to dislodge a government was now treated as a coup, which had to be fought tooth and nail by the PTI cadre.
Given the fact that the economic downward slide has been initiated during the PTI years, it was only a political miscalculation on the part of the PDM to take into its hand, an exploding projectile, called a stagflation economy. Coupled with taking the government when the economic going was all-time bad; faced with the PTI counter strikes, which evaporated any hopes for economic revival; it is precisely a catch-22 situation, not for the PTI or PDM alone.
As things stand, the regime change of April 9, 2022, which was perceived as a routine affair by the powers to be; has turned out to be a nightmare, not just for the Pakistanis, but rather for the establishment itself. It has in fact turned out to be the beginning of the trouble. The late scholar of Muslim Institute UK, an expatriate Pakistani Dr. Kalim Siddiqui, in his periodical Crescent International of 1981 issue once prophesized that the establishment would be defeated on the streets of Pakistan; this seems to hold true.
Despite the fact that the revolutionary vanguard, trained by that very establishment is imperfect to the core, having no planning or impressive record anywhere in the past, the only way out is, in fact, the undoing of the ‘established order’.
Conclusively, Pakistan is at the crossroads of its existence. Apparently, a frivolous political fight seems raging; yet the timing of that fight is so precarious that for the country, its populace, and the responsible people; it is a great debate moment; where does the country go from here? Leaving it to the esteemed readers.
