Chessboard

GHQ: On November 28, 2013, General Raheel Sharif, a day after becoming the 15th Chief of Army Staff, had two choices. First: lay back and enjoy all the power, influence and clout that come naturally to the commander of one of the finest fighting forces on the face of the planet. Second: venture into the dangerous, treacherous terrain of breaking up deeply entrenched status quos that were bent upon ripping this country apart.
On June 15, 2014, General Raheel Sharif decided to break the status quo on North Waziristan just when both the ruling PML-N as well as the opposition PTI were bent upon ‘negotiating with the terrorists’. The results of General Raheel Sharif’s decision are for all to see: bomb blasts down by 70 percent; suicide attacks down by 60 percent and fatalities from terrorist violence down by 50 percent.
On May 11, 2015, General Raheel Sharif decided to break the status quo on the MQM just when the PML-N and PPP were bent upon maintaining the status quo. On June 15, 2015, General Raheel Sharif decided to break the status quo on the PPP just when the PML-N was bent upon maintaining the status quo. The results of General Raheel Sharif’s decision are for all to see: 2,507 murders took place in Karachi in 2013. In 2013, 174 kidnappings-for-ransom cases were reported. In 2015, average monthly killings are down from 95 to 45 and annual kidnappings from 115 to 14.
The Corps Commanders Conference of October 8 was an important one as this conference was followed by a one-to-one meeting between PM Nawaz Sharif and General Raheel Sharif the following day (October 9). The PM-COAS meeting was then followed up by a large civil-military meeting the same day.
General Raheel Sharif is riding high – higher than any other COAS in recent memory – because of two reasons: personal popularity and the institutional vigour of Pak Army. His weaknesses: neither time nor the law of the land are on his side.
PML-N: The party leadership has set three goals for itself: dodging accountability, keeping the gravy train on mega-projects running and offering only passive resistance to the GHQ (no active resistance). The PML-N’s political machine between Rawalpindi and Multan, with 100 National Assembly seats, is fully intact. The PML-N’s political machine between Multan and Rahim Yar Khan, with 48 National Assembly seats, is better oiled than any other party in the region.
The PML-N is halfway through its tenure but has next to nothing to show for it. Khawaja Asif and Khaqan Abbasi have already begun externalising their failure on to the Planning Commission and Nepra. Looks like time is running out for the PML-N to put its act together.
PTI: Thirty-five percent of the PTI’s voters are in the 18 to 29 age bracket. Fifteen percent of the PTI’s voters have graduate or post-graduate degrees. Outside of these two largely urban segments of voters PTI has not been able to put together rural thana-kutchery political machines in order to compete with the PML-N in close to 200 rural National Assembly seats. Yes, as income and education levels grow, the PTI does sound like a party of the future.
PPP: The party leadership had set just one goal for itself: money. And the party leadership has been very successful at that. Thirty-five percent of the PPP’s voters are illiterate; more than any other party. Twenty-two percent of the PPP’s voters are poor, extremely poor. In that sense, the PPP would want to keep Pakistanis illiterate and poor. It is, however, unfortunate that the only liberal political entity on the national scene has now become a Sukkur-to-Thatta party (this region has 40 National Assembly seats with high illiteracy and poverty).
The ‘brick strategy’ did not work and using Bilawal as Zardari’s bogeyman doesn’t seem to be working either. The PPP needs chemotherapy, not aspirin.
MQM: Altaf Hussain is in more trouble than ever before – murder charges plus money laundering. The MQM has its political face intact but the sector commander based organisational infrastructure has been badly disrupted.
For the GHQ, ‘time is flying like an arrow’. And for our political parties, ‘fruit is flying like bananas’.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad.
Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com. Twitter: @saleemfarrukh