Challenges before Shahbaz as PML-N president

Islamabad: As Shahbaz Sharif has worn the mantle of the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), a host of questions have cropped up, the most important being whether he will be able to meet the monumental challenges faced by his party and those he keeps too dear to his heart.

It was in full public view that he accepted the top office apparently with a heavy heart as he sobbed while hugging his elder brother, ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, after he was elected uncontested. Such emotions were unusual when it came to blood relation. Personal sentiments aside, Shahbaz Sharif, as the PML-N president, who is generally billed as a “dove”, is confronted with several tests. He needs exceptional dexterity and deftness to tide over a multitude of complex behemoth impediments and hurdles.

First, as the overall scenario prevails for the PML-N with the potential of its exasperation, it will be a gigantic task for Shahbaz Sharif to get a level-playing field in the next parliamentary polls merely due to his perennial soft line compared to the aggressive approach of Nawaz Sharif. His job becomes tougher when the die is cast and the PML-N is going to encounter one hardship after another in the run-up to fresh elections. In this saga, efforts will intensify to engineer defections in the PML-N especially to wean away “electables”, who would be encouraged to contest the polls as independents or join either of the two major political parties that recently collaborated to win the election to the top Senate positions. Therefore, Shahbaz Sharif’s primary task is to stem and counter such attacks on the PML-N, using his “good offices”, and also keep it as a united and unified force going to the elections in its present shape and form, un-fractured. The PML-N’s detractors, lacking “winnables”, are bracing up to squeeze a share from its ranks. Presently, the PML-N has many more electables than any of its opponent.

The second demanding assignment before Shahbaz Sharif is to smoothen civ-mil relations especially keeping in view Nawaz Sharif’s strategy. This will be a very difficult project for him. Largely, he is considered pro-establishment, and this fact repeatedly came to the fore when his brother was the prime minister and even after that. He has mostly been working as a “firefighter”. How far he has been successful in his mission is a different story. How the civ-mil harmony was during Nawaz Sharif’s rule doesn’t need any comment and analysis as it has been known to all and sundry.

It is widely believed in the PML-N that Shahbaz Sharif will be successful in having a plausible civil-military bond if he became the prime minister should his party win the forthcoming polls. He always believes in non-confrontational policy, and it is for this reason that he has not been disapproved among the concerned circles.

The third question is whether Shahbaz Sharif will be able to take the centre stage in the PML-N as its president. It may be partially true that he will have a total control over the party. He has to do a lot of tight rope walking all the time. Assumption that he will not at all consult Nawaz Sharif in the party affairs will be an erroneous estimation. Some may interpret it as a “handicap” of Shahbaz Sharif, but this is a hard reality that can’t be discounted. The kind of firm grip and respect the elder Sharif enjoys in the PML-N is going to be there whether it will be a plus or minus point for Shahbaz Sharif. The fourth principal task before Shahbaz Sharif will be how to marry the two narratives – one being advanced by him and the other by Nawaz Sharif – and keep himself unbruised in the present and emerging set of circumstances, which is hardly conducive for the Sharifs. He will always have to do a tight rope walking. Since the Supreme Court-sanctioned disqualification of the former premier, the junior Sharif has firmly stuck to his perennial mild, meek strategy. There were a number of court decisions that hit Nawaz Sharif very hard, but Shahbaz Sharif maintained a total silence, avoiding even a minor reference to such rulings. During this hard time, Shahbaz Sharif tried and succeeded not to cross the “red line”. At times, his silence was embarrassing for the hardliners in the PML-N.

The two narratives are poles apart. One is docile, conciliatory and appeasing while the other is aggressive, bellicose and belligerent. Both sides have been religiously un-moved from their stands. It is not known but a safe guess is that the two brothers might have taken a conclusive decision to publicly pursue their respective viewpoints. Even after his election as the PML-N supremo, Shahbaz Sharif was cautious but did say that “excess” was committed against Nawaz Sharif, who would get justice one day. The fifth challenge for Shahbaz Sharif to tide over has been posed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), which is working hard to entangle him in one case or the other. So far, there is not a single corruption case against him although wild, unsubstantiated allegations being hurled by his adversaries are galore, and the one on which his detractors had attached high expectations was the Hudaibya Paper Mills that had already been trashed by the Supreme Court once and for all. His conforming policy and the clean administration he has run for the past ten years has not helped him save from the pointless hassle that the NAB is trying to cause to him in a bid to paint his government as shady on the eve of the fresh elections. The PML-N sees this as part of the “election campaign” against it.