- And what he calls “the state above state”
Nawaz Sharif’s arrival has united the hawks and doves in the PML-N. The hawks mustered party activists while Shahbaz is to lead them to the airport. According to police 300 PML-N workers and leaders were arrested on Wednesday night while 300 more were to be nabbed on Thursday. After an edgy administration started blocking the main thoroughfares across Lahore with containers and sealing all roads leading to the airport, the issue of how many PML-N workers the party could manage to gather has become a futile academic exercise.
The establishment has over-reached itself. While in a headlong clash with the PML-N it has taken actions that have given birth to suspicions among a number of political parties. Suddenly a case that seemed to have been buried in 2015 was revived to bring Zardari under investigation. The PPP reacted strongly calling it an exercise in pre-poll rigging. Zardari meanwhile rejected money laundering charges, condemned the “torture” of Hussain Lawai and gave vent to suspicions about there being “something in the works hidden behind a veil”. Even more important, he declared that he would not join hands with undemocratic forces. In other words whatever possibility there existed of the PPP and PTI reaching an understanding is ruled out now. The PPP had already been complaining of agencies supporting its opponents in Sindh. A former PPP Senator has now come out openly with the names of various security officials involved in pressurising PPP candidates in different districts of the province. Whatever ambivalence was allowed to define agencies’ role in politics has been replaced by naming and shaming.
The killing of Haroon Bilour by the TTP along with over 20 ANP supporters has generated strong anti-establishment feelings in the Awami National Party and others contesting against the PTI which they see as the King’s party. The resentment has been caused because those who were supposed to provide security were nowhere in sight when the attack took place.
The brazenness displayed by the offstage players has created a likelihood of new political alliances coming into being soon after the elections with the aim of countering what many parties consider political engineering by the agencies.
