Space for the Sharifs

Even though the political environment is Panama-leaks laden, the Nawaz Sharif government can draw comfort from the fact that it has got one front less to fight on.

Since the change of command in the army, there has been a visible shift in the tone and tenor of civil-military          ties. General Raheel’s civilian-government smash squads and the accompanying PR machinery have both peacefully descended into the dust-bin of history. A more normal and professional outlook has replaced the functioning of the armed forces, whose leaders are vowing to uphold the institution’s “dignity and credibility through selfless ‘performance’ of our role and duties”. This is a far cry from the state of affairs a few months ago     when cheap (and fake) ratings topped grace and propriety.

This has given the government space — a word that in the Sharifs’ world means that the army is off their political back. This, in turn, implies that they can be more emphatic and sure-footed in the exercise of power. However, this space isn’t guaranteed to last if the ruling family misreads its meaning and jumps to wrong conclusions about its implications. This space can certainly evaporate if the Sharifs try to harness it to their unfair advantage and attempt silly experiments. Understanding this space is, therefore, crucial for keeping civil-military ties on an even keel and ensuring that a good new beginning does not have a tragic ending.

What the government has to recognise is that the army’s command has changed but the army has not. It is the same institution that it used to be, whose professional upbringing since  independence has been nurtured by coup d’états and direct control over all facets of national life.

The more recent generation of officers has seen a more complex interplay of factors define their worldview. The war on terror and the attendant cost of slow victory have taken the spread of their idea of defence of Pakistan beyond borders. Now every district and every union council is considered an area of legitimate action meant to secure the country’s survival.

From financial matters to what is taught at schools, from media reporting to the performance of the stock market, the army’s eye surveys all. Their business and real-estate dealings have woven them directly into the fabric of the national economy. These dealings have built a huge financial stake in matters that earlier were considered out of bounds.

Mentoring of the last decade and a half has hardened the unflattering institutional view of the civilian side. The Musharraf years taught them that politicians were a dispensable commodity, bought, sold and discarded at will. The Kayani years brought home the lesson that politicians need constant help and hand-holding ,and without the army’s advice and protection they cannot even do as much as hold a electoral exercise much less steer the country’s defence and foreign policy in stormy international waters.

The last three years have made them think that it takes a Twitter account to beat down the entire political class, and that marketing fictionalised glory is necessary for keeping a upper hand in national affairs. All this has happened together with the eruption of bruising political battles among the civilians, ruining everyone’s reputation and popularising the legend that every closet is filled with dirty skeletons.  

COAS General Qamar Bajwa cannot rewrite this orientation of the armed forces over night. No commander can. He will not be able to change this mindset even in his full tenure. No commander can. The best that can be done is to create a more determined focus for this mighty force on pressing professional challenges, and insulate its functioning from the daily grind of politics regurgitated and projected ad nauseam through the national media. This is precisely what General Qamar Bajwa’s new team is attempting to do, even though this seemingly regular command communication itself has become a bit of a task.

This contextualises the space that the government has got for itself. More crucially, it highlights how limited this space is. Several things have to happen for this space to become the new normal. Foremost among these is enhancement of the capacity of the government to accelerate its decision-making process in key policy areas. It has to go beyond holding meetings and issuing re-assuring press releases. A calendar of activity with deadlines and marked areas of responsibility has to be created to speed up the process of gathering results in sectors that cannot wait.

The present agonising debate on proscribed organisations and military courts reflects nothing but poor commitment and shoddy planning. The interior minister’s bizarre stand in the face of growing national consensus on non-state groups is just one telling sign of the characteristic laziness that marks the prime minister’s exercise of his own command. Besides this, the style of governing the country continues to be slipshod and unmethodical. There is one Ishaq Dar for everything, and two foreign policy advisers and a defence minister for nothing. Prime Minister Sharif wants to run all affairs himself and yet does not want more than two persons around him as advisers.

His maximum time is consumed by debating the Panama leaks, and now recently on throwing loaves and fishes of development projects for political gains. Those designing the political strategy of survival of the government and defeat of its opponents are also deputed to design plans to manage and secure Pakistan’s interest in an extremely challenging regional and global setting.

Prime Minister Sharif does not have a team beyond his core team. The cabinet is a platform for endorsing pre-decided actions, and is dominated by the same individuals who control and call the shots outside the cabinet room. This is ad-hocism at its worst. No vision or reasonable plan of national action on strategic matters can be born out of it.

The coming months will test this system of running Pakistan through a kitchen cabinet. The new army high command must be making its own plans to tackle challenges they see as existential threats to or unique opportunities for Pakistan to secure its borders, and enhance its clout. These plans will not go very far if the political government does not own them or if it does not give its input for making them more realistic and achievable. This requires preparedness, sophistication in decision-making, a deep capacity to do follow up and, most important, constant attention to detail.

None of the above exists in the manner in which the Sharif government functions. It is chaotic and lacks professional depth that can only come from becoming genuinely inclusive in debate before planning. Fire-fighting methods have become innate to its governing instinct. The only exigency that it recognises is the exigency of survival in power.

If the government continues to skirt tackling core challenges to Pakistan and if it is consumed by daily politics, the space that it has vis-a-vis the army will not be of any use.   The space will shrink and eventually become a thing of the past, generating the same debilitating disbalance in the civil-military equation that has been the bane of this country for decades.

So far the new army chief has sent out all the right signals. The barracks are no longer platforms of pointless boasting. Media space is used for articulating institutional interests only and meetings under the prime minister’s command have become more productive and congenial. In other words, he is improving and changing his institution’s game.

Can the Sharif government use this opening to step up to the plate? Can it significantly alter its style of policymaking? Can it act like a government in charge of a strategically important nuclear-armed state instead of remaining satisfied with performing mayoral functions only? So far the evidence suggests that it is the same old government it used to be when it did not have space.    

Email: syedtalathussain@gmail.com

Twitter: @TalatHussain12

The writer is former executive editor of The News and a senior journalist with Geo TV.