Game Over for Imran?

The establishment of a healthy democratic system in Pakistan will benefit the people of that country as well as South Asia. That will not happen so long as elected governments are unable to control the military. Are we now witnessing events moving on a regressive trajectory?

Last year, when the cabinet led by Imran Khan was ousted, the Pakistan military made an emphatic promise. It would henceforth act within the limits set by the constitution and laws. This meant that it would not intervene in the political processes. Right at this moment, members of Khan’s party the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaar are under threat of trial by military courts for violation of various national security laws. Hundreds have reportedly been arrested by police and paramilitary units supposedly under civilian control. But no one Is really bothering to cover up the military’s role in these proceedings. Is this tantamount to an undeclared martial law?

Khan has been verbally assaulting the military since he lost a confidence vote in parliament. Until November 2022, the main target of his vitriol was the former army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. As the most powerful man in the country, Bajwa should have blocked the opposition from moving the vote was the first line of criticism. Khan soon switched to rebuking the military for not restoring his government. This line of attack was continued after the new chief Gen. Asim Munir replaced Bajwa in November last year. Munir could not be blamed for the ouster but could be attacked for not reversing that outcome.

Other developments contributed to Khan’s growing desperation. In February, he had brought about the dissolution of provincial assemblies in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtoonkwa. By law, fresh elections should have been held within three months, that is by May 14. Sure about his popular support in these two provinces, Khan believed that he would easily win these polls. Such a result would have forced the central government to dissolve the National Assembly and prepare the ground for a fresh general election. The Election Commission did not oblige and instead indicated that no poll would be held until October and probably not for months after that.

Investigations into dozens of corruption cases against Khan and his immediate family had by then reached critical stages. After several court dramas involving bail pleas, stays and so on, Khan was taken into custody for questioning. By the time the Supreme Court annulled the custodial order and set Khan free, a first wave of protest riots had washed through a few parts of the country. Then came the events of May 9   that were so unprecedented as to make the military issue a statement calling it a black day.

On that day, protestors did the unthinkable. One group in Rawalpindi stormed the General Headquarters of the arm. In Lahore, rioters broke into the official residence of the Corps Commander and set it on fire. Another group broke in the office of Inter Services Intelligence in Faisalabad. Military installations in Peshawar and Karachi were also attacked. To go by its reaction, the army seems to have been infuriated by the damage caused to its prestige even more than by the material losses.

Over the fortnight that followed, Khan was to claim that those riots had been orchestrated. Even though he did not specify whether he was accusing the military or the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, circumstances suggest that he meant the men in uniform. In his view, Sharif and his cabinet are mere puppets who have no will of their own. He demanded that an enquiry commission be set up to look into the events of May 9.

Independent observers have ridiculed Khan’s assertion that his party-men did not participate in the rioting. Functionaries who are known to the public figured in the video-clips shot in the Lahore Corps Commanders house and other sites. Voice clips of other functionaries asking party workers to rush to trouble-spots were received in media offices. (This writer was sent a voice clip in which a PTI man claimed that senior military officers had mutinied). It appears futile for the PTI to insist that its people were not involved even though some of the points raised by the party are valid.

Was the rioting orchestrated? Did personnel of the intelligence services provoke gullible PTI workers into carrying out these acts. That is possible but what were the senior officials of the party doing when some pied pipers were luring masses of its followers to collective doom? When they have been relentlessly insulting the military for a full year, did they not anticipate that a backlash could come in any form. Did they forget that they belong to a country that has been under direct military rule for a third of its existence and indirectly so for most of the rest?.

Leading personnel of the PTI had constantly claimed that they were ready for any sacrifice. Their behaviour was very much to the contrary once the crackdown started. Fawad Chaudhary, perhaps the most bombastic of Khan’s side-kicks, was seen scurrying into a court room to plead for mercy. Other senior office bearers of the party and former Ministers came out after a single day in custody to condemn the May 9 rioters, proclaim loyalty to the military and announce their withdrawal from politics. Within days, the PTI’s structure below the top-most level ceased to exist. Khan seemed to be slipping into a delusionary state when he continued to insist that his party would fight on.

Left-leaning observers suggest that the PTI’s fragility could be explained by its social background. It drew support mainly from the urban, educated middle/upper class of Punjab. This social segment has always made for the privileged that had stayed aloof from politics until Khan appeared on the scene. A great majority of the PTI’s followers were clueless about the struggles waged in the past by sub-nationalities such as Bengalis, Pakhtoons, Baloch and Sindhis as well as the working people of all provinces. If the privileged had supported or even empathised with these struggles they would have learnt something about the pitfalls that needed to be negotiated by those opposing the powerful.

If nothing else, they could have tried to restrain their leader from claiming that the crackdown on the PTI is unprecedented. Both the other two mainstream political formations—the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League—have faced far greater repression for far longer. Despite their own weaknesses and failings, these parties have put in place some elements of a democratic order. They have at least demarcated areas where they can work together. Collectively, they have achieved a little success in making the military realise that it should stay out of certain spheres.

Khan could have worked with the older political formations to widen the democratic space. At the end of May, he offered to set up a committee jointly with other parties to fix a schedule for elections. It was too little, too late. Other parties dismissed the offer saying that they dealt with politicians not terrorists. This might or might not be a hint about even harsher treatment for the PTI in the days to come. It is certainly a reflection of the hatred they harbour towards the PTI for the way it treated them when it was in power.

Khan has no credentials for complaining about the violation of democratic rights. He came to power with the blatant support of the military and by echoing its charge that all other politicians were corrupt. In office, he threw opponents and media critics into jail without trial and abused them at every turn. He showed no interest in strengthening the democratic order or in curbing the military-mens’ hunger for self-enrichment. Even the protest movement that he launched was aimed at forcing the military to restore him to office. He had no interest in curbing the military so long as it allowed him to continue as Prime Minister.

While Khan deserves little sympathy on a personal basis, political forces in Pakistan should re-think the matter of letting the military run the crackdown. For a start they must insist that the May 9 rioters must be tried in civilian courts under the ordinary criminal law. Such a move would strengthen their credentials as democrats and also put a crimp on the military in real terms.