Will the ‘imported’ train crash into the local station?
The stage is set for an enthralling season, and if one Canadian citizen does not do another flip-flop, a showdown by this time next week. But given security concerns, perhaps, this is one drama you’d rather watch from the sidelines!
The Cassandra Crossing-like entry of Dr Tahir ul Qadri, the Minhaj-ul-Quran International supremo, has stirred and shaken the pot.
With a proclivity for the unconventional, he issued a fatwa on terrorism, which grabbed headlines in 2010. Interestingly, Qadri also received endorsement or support from the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, British Prime Minister David Cameron and others for his multi-faith ‘Peace For Humanity’ conference attended by 12,000 participants at the grand Wembley Arena in 2011.
Qadri is not new to politics, of course. His latest coming, in an intriguing avatar and so close to the elections, has set the tongues wagging. It probably would have been dismissed as a nonstarter if not for the mammoth show of force he put up at the Minar-e-Pakistan.
Traditionally, the arena is difficult to fill for even the most battle hardened but Qadri’s gathering even put Imran Khan’s stunning show of 2011 in the shade!
Any show at the historical site is always watched for the numbers, first up. Qadri was able to create a tremolo immediately on this count.
However, if this was merely about numbers, neither of the two mainstream political parties — the ruling PPP and PML-N — would have set much store by it.
After all, in the peculiar world of Pakistani politics, numbers at a public gathering are hardly the barometer of judging success. While the math always fires the lay citizen’s imagination, those who are well versed with the system know there is a wide gap between these numbers and actual translation on voting day.
Politics in this country is still dominated by clan and administrative clout at the grass roots as well as financial muscle — the bigger the party in these aspects the brighter the chance a candidate would have of making the grade.
So why fear Qadri, then, especially after the chastening experience for Imran Khan, who is now struggling to hold fort?
The reason for the unease in Islamabad and elsewhere is because the arrival of Qadri’s timing coincides with the drawing room chatter about how forces inimical to the kind of government(s) elections usually throw up are going to behave in the weeks ahead. Rumours are rife that the likes of Qadri could not have pulled off the Lahore feat without some sort of understanding, nay backing from the security establishment, especially after he warned the government to announce a caretaker set-up and introduce election reforms before holding the vote, failing which he would lead a million (4m?)-man march on Islamabad.
The unstinted support lent to the cleric by the MQM, an ally of the ruling PPP-led coalition at both the Centre and in Sindh province but known for its deep connect with the security establishment, is what has aroused curiosity. This is a potential cocktail that has had a ‘cat on a hot tin roof’ effect on the PPP and PML-N.
As if the rich brew in the works was not enough to lose sleep over, General Ashfaq Kayani’s take recently could not have been too comforting even though it ostensibly came in a security context.
Addressing the 98th Midshipmen Commissioning term and 7th SSC Officers class at Pakistan Naval Academy, the General said: “Increasingly complex external environment and our rather precarious internal dynamics have created a myriad of security challenges.”
The security establishment has historically always used this as a pretext to step in and “set the course right”. However, it can be argued that today’s Pakistan has covered some distance in its journey towards a sustainable democratic system and, regardless of intention, hopefully, Pakistan may already be past being the rendezvous for such adventure.
Two related developments point to this changed environment. First was the epoch-making, if symbolic, decision by the Supreme Court to declare former army and ISI chiefs guilty of stealing the people’s mandate in 1990 before directing the PPP-led government — whose mandate those chiefs had stolen — to move against them.
In the second instance, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry appeared to shoot down the army chief’s warning last November following that verdict about how “no individual or institution had the monopoly over what is right or wrong in defining the ultimate national interest”.
The chief justice’s remarks were remarkable for their chutzpah. He observed:
“Gone are the days when stability and security of the country was defined in terms of number of missiles and tanks as a manifestation of hard power available at the disposal of the state. Today, the concept of national security has been redefined as a polity wherein a state is bound to provide its citizens with overwhelming social security and welfare nets and to protect their natural and civil rights at all costs.”
Having said that, the real test would probably come as another Islamabad march upends. Ironically, nearly four years ago, one was stopped after this very army chief intervened with the PPP government to restore this very chief justice and his brother judges, whom the PPP-led coalition was loathe to reinstating after their ouster by Musharraf!
So what will the same set of president, army chief and chief justice — all of whom otherwise complete their terms this year — do this time?
Watch this space!
The writer is Editor, Pique Magazine. He may be reached at [email protected]
