Pakistani politics – the political and the personal
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From exiled political marginalization, Nawaz Sharif has improbably sneaked back into the political mainstream of Pakistan and fancies his chances to become prime minister for a fourth time. If this happens it will be a remarkable comeback story even by Pakistani standards of political vicissitudes.
Sharif has dodged impossible odds before to become prime minister three times – more than anyone in the country’s history. He was sentenced to a lifetime in jail in 2000 after being overthrown by then Army Chief Pervez Musharraf, but later negotiated a 10-year exile agreement in exchange for freedom from prison. Earlier in his first term in office, he was restored to power by the Supreme Court– the only prime minister to benefit from an appeal against their premature ouster by machinations of the security establishment after his government was dismissed by a president empowered by the military to dismiss democratic governments. He was promptly ousted again, but managed to storm back to power within three years to a second term in office before Musharraf struck.
Sharif was ousted again in 2018 after winning a third term in 2013 and sentenced to seven years in jail for alleged corruption involving buying an expensive flat in upscale London. He served for about two years in jail under this sentence before an acute medical condition forced his rival Prime Minister Imran Khan to free him to treat an acute medical condition in London.
He has since not returned to Pakistan but is now poised to do so as his fortunes have changed dramatically. His brother is prime minister, his daughter has just been acquitted in a corruption case in which he was sentenced to a prison term, and the country’s top judge has openly said disqualifying politicians for life is ‘draconian.’ This is the same judge who authored the verdict disqualifying him from politics for life. Sharif’s daughter is now in London after a three-year ban on her travelling abroad, saying she will bring him back home to renew his interrupted political career.
What are his chances? In many ways, the story of Nawaz Sharif with its ‘Lord of the rings’ and ‘Game of thrones’ shades is the story of Pakistan’s politics and democracy personified. People have repeatedly rejected military rule (four bouts of martial law, each an average of seven years), and a demonization of parliament to insist on democracy by mostly re-electing Sharif and Benazir Bhutto (who was assassinated in 2007). Their parties have been elected in eight out of 10 elections held.
30 years later, large-scale corruption by politicians has not been proven in courts, proxies are rebelling and the caricaturization of politics is failing to stick. The accumulative cost of this manipulation of state and society is economic ruin and social chaos.
Adnan Rehmat
While bitter political rivals in the past, the parties of Sharif and Bhutto have amended the constitution to make it impossible to conduct a military coup – Sharif instituted a special court trial of Musharraf, which convicted him for treason and sentenced him to death – and deepen plural and participatory parliamentary democracy. Each time the security establishment has countered attempts at strengthening representative democracy by promoting an exaggerated narrative of alleged corruption against repeatedly elected political leadership and installing and mainstreaming proxies such as Shaukat Aziz and Imran Khan. The current fallout between an angry Khan and an exasperated establishment has brought the country to a ruinous political halt and near economic collapse and prompted calls for an end to manipulated, non-productive politics.
After 30 years of this damaging narrative, any large-scale corruption by politicians has not been proven in the courts, the proxies are rebelling and caricaturization of politics is failing to stick. The accumulative cost of this manipulation of state and society is economic ruin and social chaos.
This is why Sharif’s expected return and possible route to power is more than just his personal story. More than that, it is a siren call for an end to extreme political polarization, a halt to manipulation of constitutional guarantees of representative rule by powerful non-political forces and undermining of democratic aspirations of people and an end to governance by proxy.
But because new beginnings cannot in themselves change everything, political healing instead of a crime-and-punishment cycle needs to precede sustainable political and social progress. One practical recourse could be embracing Benazir Bhutto’s proposal of a ‘truth and reconciliation commission’ a la Mandela’s South Africa model. This can allow all key power stakeholders including politicians, the judiciary and military to admit their wrongdoing and excesses of the past, forgive each other and move on under a normative rule-based system that is strictly enforced so that the people govern their own fates rather than be dictated by the interests of a few.
- Adnan Rehmat is a Pakistan-based journalist, researcher and analyst with interests in politics, media, development and science.
Twitter: @adnanrehmat1
