The following situationer is based on exhaustive background interviews with all key power players, including the top civil and military leadership
ISLAMABAD: Can PM Gilani simply reshuffle the deck and stand pat? The answer is an emphatic no. A few new faces may pop up like croakers after a summer rain but the trio that really needs changing will surely continue smirking at the nation. Whatever the ultimate complexion, emptying the cesspool of incompetence and corruption from one end and refilling it from the other offers no panacea for the fundamental problems being faced by the people, and the state itself.
The time for such cosmetic touches a la transforming make-ups of ambitious starlets is long gone. Not that this ruling dispensation, seeped in perpetual denial, would have noticed. The need of the hour is for the Zardari-Gilani duo to conduct an honest catharsis of their own, which must lead to their own honest reinvention as selfless leaders. And since that appears to be an unlikely possibility, the next question: where are we going then in the coming weeks, or months? People are wondering if change is now inevitable.
But what change, how, and by whom? Can the absence of early general elections, pave the way for reluctant generals? These are but few of the myriad burning questions.
First, the harrowing economic scenario. That we are already on the precipice of financial ruin is an undeniable reality. Forget about tangible progress. We need to maintain a minimum annual average growth rate of 8% over the next twenty years just to maintain our present dismal standards of poverty, joblessness and economic stagnation. And what has been the annual average growth rate since the present government took over almost three years back? A lowly 2-3 percent. Billions of dollars have been taken out of the country by the wary and watchful investors and business houses. And what is coming in as direct foreign investment? Zilch! The bankruptcy of the national exchequer is only rivalled by the paucity of vision of our ruling leadership which is struggling with borrowed ideas and borrowed money. By September 2010, Pakistan’s public debt stood at Rs9.473 trillion.
Just try adding the zeros and you’ll have a fair idea of our collective zero future, lest drastic measures are taken. Will this trend change? Hardly, considering that during the period July-Sept alone our brilliant financial managers had borrowed a staggering Rs579 billion. Is the government betraying any signs of coming up with an ingenious indigenous independent economic plan? None. Any tangible demo of its intent to change its own free spending ostentatious misgoverning traits? None. Any chance of us being pleasantly shocked by government’s hitherto secret talent of conjuring out-of-box solutions to revive economy and dipped investor confidence? Not a chance in a million, or should one say Rs9.74 trillion.
On the political front, the game-changing PML-N shows no inclination of proving any catalyst of change. On the contrary, PML-N’s ‘political abstinence’ has proven the most effective retardant against any endeavours aimed at changing the ruling setup through democratic means. The federal government and the PML-N have been bundled together in a ‘reconstructive-dialogue’ in the wake of the 45-day reform agenda deadline rushed in by PML-N, again not by choice but literally after being compelled by the force of circumstances. But for the fear of being branded as a truly fake-opposition, and the JUI-F and MQM running Away with anti-government popular sentiment, PML-N surely would not have forced Gilani and Co into the negotiating corner. On one level, by doing so it actually let the steam out of the then about to burst political pressure cooker.
Detailed off-the-record conversations with PML-N insiders and its top leadership reveal the real internal dilemma of the second largest political party and its prime minister in waiting. PML-N leadership is cognizant of the political hit being taken in popularity terms by the party for being perceived as propping up the otherwise crumbling Gilani edifice. It realizes that even its own traditional supporters are furious at what they see as PML-N top leadership’s reluctance to take the PPP jiyalas and their government to the cleaners. The leadership grudgingly concedes that every passing month also depletes their support base further, albeit at a trickle pace, because even Punjab itself is hardly a success story and PML-N would be lucky to even maintain its current parliamentary seat count if the next elections are held on the original date. There are no squabbles either on the issue of whether the Gilani dispensation is sincere in reinventing itself and start governing in a competent and corruption free manner. They all agree that the possibility of this happening is as high as that of Hindu extremist Bal Thakray converting to Islam.
PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif makes no bones about his absolute disgust and disillusionment with President Asif Zardari and has little faith in Gilani’s ability to scamper out of Zardari’s shadow and rise to the occasion. The total lack of faith in PPP brooks no further proof as PML-N has already started securing its flanks in Punjab by getting the PML-Q renegade group in Punjab assembly to formally move for recognition as an independent entity. Once that happens then PML-N would not require PPP support to stay in power. So why even bother with these 45-day deadline gimmickries and 10-item agenda jokes? Why not band together with more than willing smaller political players and go for government’s jugular through an easily winnable no-confidence move?
The answer is not exactly surprising: mistrust of the army. The top PML-N leadership is convinced that in the event of early general elections being held in the current domestic and international geo-political conditions, the army would rig the polls and ensure that PML-N is not allowed to even retain its present parliamentary strength. And when it comes to the possibility of Nawaz Sharif reoccupying the prime minister’s office, the mistrust of the armed forces grows even deeper. There is little solace from the entrenched conviction that Mian Sahib is also not necessarily the most favoured name on the American dinner guest list. The mistrust of the Khaki’s is not confined to the institution alone. Attention was also drawn to the fact that Nawaz Sharif had been the lone national political figure to have publicly decried the three-year term extension given to the incumbent COAS. “You think Gen Kayani will forget that also?” argued a top PML-N leader who otherwise is quite rational in his judgements and discourses.
In fact, doubts abound about even any early general elections taking place at all in the event of Gilani dissolving the assembly. “It only takes a few bombs, some public clashes and one crafty petition in the supreme court to delay the elections till kingdom come”, was how another top Nawaz loyalist put it. In a nutshell, the PML-N leadership is convinced that its chances of coming into power remain alive only if the struggling PPP government can manage to crawl its way over the finish line of its constitutional tenure. The crux of the matter is that the hawks within their own ranks may fume and flutter their wings, the PML-N leadership may love to hate the PPP top gun(s), conviction may be there that PPP rulers will not change their colours and tack, but the overriding fear of khaki manipulation has stayed the hand of PML-N leadership against any political adventure threatening the existing uneasy status quo.
And now to the other elements of this national political equation. The Awami National Party (ANP) is caught between the crush of circumstances and a secret desire. The party is at the forefront of war against extremist elements in Fata in particular and cannot escape the confluences of domestic and international pressures. Its politics has become a balancing act between appearing to be a dependable moderate enough ally for the international powers directly and indirectly involved in this so called war against terror, and at the same time to save its patriotic and Pashtun credentials with the local population overwhelmingly looking in the other direction. So when the cards do fall, if ever, it will step back from the PPP led alliance line up. As for the secret desire, its top decision makers are fairly confident that their own party chief could emerge as a future compromise small-province presidential nominee. Before you shrug your shoulders, just think if you had ever imagined Zafarullah Jamali becoming the prime minister and those too in times much better than these. (Continued)