Unsustainable political temperatures: Pakistan’s leaders need to be brought to a negotiating table

The gun attack on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday — the 7th day of his ‘long march’ toward the capital- has changed the political situation in the country and further raised the bitterness between the ruling coalition and the PTI. Protests are being staged by his supporters in important cities, and, undeterred, the former prime minister said in an address from his hospital on Friday, that after his recovery he would give the call for a march on the federal capital again, to mount pressure on the government to hold early elections.

Although a young man from the area near Wazirabad, where the attack took place, has made an unexpected confession, Khan holds Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan, and a senior military official responsible for the assassination bid. He wants all three to resign from their positions for the sake of fair investigations. He has also sought the Chief Justice of Pakistan’s intervention to make the culprits step down and give justice to the head of the country’s largest party.

Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing patient scrubs, the former prime minister alleged that his opponents had prepared a plan to portray the attack as one carried out by a religious zealot.

PTI leaders think the confession of the accused has been deliberately leaked by the police without any legal requirement. As a punishment, all police officials of the relevant police station have been suspended from service by the PTI-backed Punjab government of Chaudhry Parvez Elahi.

The national interest demands a facilitator-- and that these institutions go beyond the call of their duty and set the situation right.

ASHRAF MUMTAZ

The PTI chairman is getting treatment at the cancer hospital he founded in Lahore, and it is not possible to predict how long it may take him to fully recover and resume his mission against the government.

However, he said in categorical terms that Pakistan would certainly go through a revolution – peaceful or bloody – depending upon the situation.

“We want to bring about a revolution through the ballot box,” he said.

Aware of the political fallout of the attack on a popular opponent, many leaders from the ruling coalition have condemned the attack, but they will never accept responsibility for it.

Political observers are of the view that Khan’s statements have been growing in bellicosity since the start of his long march from Lahore on Oct. 28. This has puzzled both his opponents as well as his followers because in truth everyone is clueless about his real agenda and strategy. No one knows why he is so aggressive in his statements, what he knows and who is supporting him in his anti-government movement.

Khan has declared open war against Pakistan’s powerful military establishment, which has historically played a huge role in the politics of the country. Meanwhile, the ruling coalition of about a dozen parties-- being the beneficiaries of the widening gulf between the PTI and the military-- is quietly celebrating the situation.

At present, the PTI chairman is being supported by a majority of Pakistani people, mainly the youth. But his all-out war against the establishment is full of risks for the party, and his confrontation with the establishment may lead to the sealing of his party’s future. The weakening of the PTI will mean the rejuvenation of the PML-N and the PPP, the same two parties that have been ruling the country for the past many decades. A disappearance of the PTI from the political scene will mean the return of the same old (bad) days.

A former cricketing hero, Khan in his recent speeches to various rallies has also alleged that corrupt leaders of the incumbent ruling coalition could not be convicted during his four-year tenure because the control of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was not with him.

NAB is the organization that convicts politicians and bureaucrats involved in corruption. 

“Those controlling NAB let the thieves and dacoits go scot-free with the looted money,” Khan said, adding that some hidden hands were protecting the Sharifs and Zardaris from being convicted.

To assert his rights, the former prime minister compared his struggle for what he called real freedom with that of the Awami League of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, and recalled that the country had dismembered when his party was denied its legitimate mandate.

The emerging situation is very dangerous. To prevent it from further deterioration and political temperatures from shooting up to unsustainable levels, the establishment and the judiciary should, in the larger national interest, play their role to bring the government and the opposition to a negotiating table. The politicians should decide through talks when fresh elections should be held.

The national interest demands a facilitator-- and that these institutions go beyond the call of their duty and set the situation right.