Shuffling or wriggling?

Why N’s having to do what he’s doing

Why does Nawaz need the cabinet shuffle, really? Rearranging it means the arrangement didn’t work, which sort of plays into his opponents’ hands – not just the dharna/jalsa type, but also those in the assembly that helped him survive the storm. He carried the kitchen cabinet despite the two aborted terms, and the part some of them played in some of it. So why dump some of them now? Surely, shuffle means some, if not most, will go.

Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it means shuffling of the Musharraf and PPP times. Sh Rasheed from information to railways, information to-and-fro between Firdous Ashiq Awan and Qamar Zaman Kaira, etc. Reports that Ijaz-ul-Haq and Aftab Sherpao are being invited are also telling. As are signs that the Marvi Memons of the party are being ‘promoted’. She did, after all, say on TV that economic indicators were “superb” even as Dar sb was having a hard time explaining the growth rate discrepancy in the budget to the IMF – not highest in for years but lowest in three, or something. Ijaz-ul-Haq, too, was not short of heroic (and ironic) when he said, in the assembly no less, that he would fight any attempts to derail democracy to the death.

But in either case, Nawaz has been forced into a shuffle, or seeming to shuffle. Imran may have fallen well short of the resignation, but he can’t be denied credit for triggering a sharp change of the Sharifs’ fortunes. And how things have changed since the election. Time was when they were front-foot in everything. Clearly they had decided on a few things as the ‘heavy mandate’ was sinking in. Power crisis and economy were good campaign slogans, but the prime agenda was putting the executive in the lead. The country would benefit only if democracy strengthened, and that was not possible if all other institutions were not reined in.

Take the glimpses into the privatisation policy recently. No doubt they knew opposition parties and smaller provinces would be outraged at the news of OGDC’s privatisation, not the least because it is a rare profit earning entity. Yet they went ahead, without consultation

So came the lead in the Taliban talks. Remember N seemed ready to announce the operation then suddenly fell back on talks, much to the irritation of the military? Ch Nisar later emerged as the champion for dialogue when even N was beginning to feel action was necessary. Nisar’s opposition to the operation continued even when the military finally took the lead on Zarb-e-Azb.

And, of course, there was Musharraf’s trial. Nawaz knew what it meant, especially the way it was pushed through – Nov7 emergency instead of Oct12 coup, etc. And then there was the belligerence of Khawajas Asif and Saad, calculated, no doubt, to hurt the military. Later, after a meeting between the army chief and prime minister, there was also talk of N dishonouring a promise to Gen Sharif, that Musharraf would not be indicted, and even allowed to leave, if he appeared in court. The army, of course, was not happy. Yet clearly, that his precisely how N and his close circle wanted it.

His overtures to India helped nobody, of course. His assessment of Modi’s government differed with the military’s reading. The desire for peace not only rubbed the brass the wrong way, but also upset his core centre-right Deobandi constituency. Yet he stuck with it. And his ministers’ arrogance has been a subject of discussion throughout the last 17 months, as has their disregard for parliament; the prime minister himself hardly ever bothering to show.

Then the dharnas took the wind out of his sails. He had to be bailed out by the opposition his ministers had grown so used to ridiculing. And the sting towards the army is no more. Rumours of intervention did the rounds in Islamabad when there was talk of a ‘third umpire’ at the height of the dharna. And N, nor his ministers, were so front-foot with the military anymore. And then Go Nawaz Go began hounding them in public, at home and abroad.

The little said about matters concerning the power sector, the better. The latest inflated bills scandal is but one in a long list of blunders, starting with the unaudited half-a-trillion that was supposed to end the circular debt but itself disappeared into money heaven

But there’s little sign that the ruling party is in any mood of changing its habits, hence the doubts about the shuffle. Take the glimpses into the privatisation policy recently. No doubt they knew opposition parties and smaller provinces would be outraged at the news of OGDC’s privatisation, not the least because it is a rare profit earning entity. Yet they went ahead, without consultation. And the police was brutal with protesting employees when they tried to enter the same red zone that has been dharna city for more than two months. Once again, there were calls for Ch Nisar’s resignation.

The little said about matters concerning the power sector, the better. The latest inflated bills scandal is but one in a long list of blunders, starting with the unaudited half-a-trillion that was supposed to end the circular debt but itself disappeared into money heaven (the term Wall Street uses for lost investment). Or maybe it’s still parked in familiar accounts.

And now comes the shuffle. It’s pretty straight forward, really. It’s either the government admitting the need for a change in its style of governance and the people it trusts with the most important positions, or it is N just wriggling to avoid the axe. There’s been too much pressure about appointments, especially when there is not much to show after more than a year in power. The policy of placing family across the spectrum, too, just doesn’t sit well with the public anymore. But there isn’t much to show that N has realised his governance and his close aides are the problem. He must know, though, that merely rotating ministries will not cut it. The shuffle may trouble him even more than the dharna.