Political temperature likely to linger on

Comment

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The political temperature is not expected to come down soon as the country’s two key leaders -- Prime Minister Imran Khan and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif -- have chosen to adopt extreme positions and are stubbornly defending their respective stances, making it difficult for any third party to mediate in order to cool things down.

Of all the opposition leaders, including those in the PDM, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s main focus of attack from day one has remained on Nawaz Sharif and his party, the PML-N. While the premier avoids even shaking hands with other opposition leaders, PTI sources confirm that displaying any sign of cordiality with Nawaz Sharif is even more unbearable for the PM.

It was not the case a few years ago, but the feeling is now mutual; today, Nawaz Sharif harbours the same feelings towards Prime Minister Imran Khan. It has now become more of a personal battle of egos than anything else.

While the Imran Khan government is trying desperately to bring back Nawaz Sharif from London and put him behind bars, of late Nawaz Sharif has conveyed to his key leaders that he has burned his boats and there is no point changing his declared stance vis a vis the Imran Khan government and the establishment. An informed PML-N source said that Nawaz Sharif has communicated to his party that he is neither ready to show any flexibility on his stance nor is there any room left for a dialogue process.

“The Imran Khan government must go,” a source quoting Nawaz Sharif’s message said.

Although Nawaz Sharif and his party leaders do not say it in public, PML-N sources do confide in background discussions that Nawaz Sharif’s pressure on the military establishment is meant to get the Imran Khan government removed. Nawaz Sharif, the leaders now say, has never demanded the removal of anyone representing the establishment. Instead, he seeks the removal of the “selected” by the “selectors” so that what he terms the “past wrongs” of the establishment can be undone.

This thinking, however, negates and contradicts what the PDM and its component parties, including the PML-N, stand for -- getting the military establishment out of politics and removing the Imran Khan government through constitutional means.

Interestingly, Prime Minister Imran Khan during his interaction with some social media activists on Sunday said that the PDM and Nawaz Sharif are attacking the army during the rule of a civilian government like never before in order to pressurize the establishment to oust his government. He said that the PDM is now desperate, hinting that they (the PDM leaders) would be sorted out soon.

The current bitter stalemate is very tricky for the military establishment. The establishment is being directly attacked by the PDM in general and the leader of its largest component – the PML-N-- for what the opposition alliance terms its ‘imposition’ of Imran Khan on the nation. Interestingly, the government is also citing the army's name repeatedly in its defence, perhaps more for political reasons than for anything else.

In such a situation, where Nawaz Sharif and the PDM are pointing fingers at the military establishment and urging it to remove Imran Khan, the PTI government wants the powers that be to back him and his government against the oppositions’ attacks.

Political observers insist that both the PML-N and the PTI have a substantial political following and the establishment does not seem to play a partisan role, like it has been doing in the past, that will only make the institution more controversial.

While both Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif do not seem to be in favour of a grand inter-institutional dialogue, it is the only way forward and could help resolve the many complex political issues haunting the nation.