Commentary

Pakistan’s Garrison State-VI: General Musharraf’s Treason Trial and Civil-Military Divergence

July 19, 2023

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By Adnan Qaiser 20 July 2023

Editor’s Note: In this nine-part study, Adnan Qaiser, a foreign affairs expert having had a distinguished career in the armed forces as well as international diplomacy examines:

Describing the dynamics of civil and military players in a political order in his 1981’s scholarship ‘The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil–Military Relations,’ eminent American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington had counselled, “a healthy society must preserve the autonomy of the military while simultaneously integrating it into an important decision-making role.”

Huntington continued advocating the state “must create the right conditions of not only military participation in civilian affairs but also civilian participation in military affairs — call it both the ‘civilization of military’ and ‘militarisation of civilians.’”[1]

Article-6’s Traitor Generals

With the dilemma of “saving the state; or, the constitution,” starkly facing the Pakistan Army, the ‘Constitution of 1973’ remains the fundamental cause of civil-military divergence in Pakistan.[2] As highlighted in Part-I of this study,[3] framed by a feudal Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the constitution received its accent by the politicians through bribe and blackmail.

Bhutto had shrewdly picked up an ‘inappropriate time’ to keep the powerful Army out of the formulation of the national document that charted the nation’s destiny and its future path. Battered and beaten by the 1971 war against India, the Army at that time was struggling with the loss of East Pakistan and some 93,000 prisoners of war in Indian captivity.

Denying any military input, Bhutto did not safeguard the interests of the armed forces in the constitution. Bhutto knew full well the predominant role played by the military in stabilizing the domestic politics – i.e. the two martial laws by General Ayub Khan and General Yahya Khan – as well as defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a ‘national security state’ facing existential threat from neighbouring India and Afghanistan, since its independence. Yet the prime minister cunningly disregarded the crucial role the armed forces were to play in the future by becoming a formidable force not only in the country (due to their voluntary recruitment and deep entrenchment in the masses) but also regionally (owing to Pakistan’s geostrategic location and geopolitical weight).

Unsurprisingly, such an anomaly resulted into two more coup d’états in the country leading to imposition of martial laws on July 5, 1977 and October 12, 1999 respectively, in which the constitution was held in abeyance (suspended).

The constitution’s fundamental imbalance – or silence – in defining the roles and responsibilities, especially the checks and balances among the state organs of executive, legislature, judiciary and armed forces has resulted into Pakistan’s fractured polity and civil-military distrust.

The constitution’s Article-6 holds “Any person who abrogates or subverts or suspends or holds in abeyance, or attempts or conspires to abrogate or subvert or suspend or hold in abeyance the Constitution by use of force or show force or by any other unconstitutional means shall be guilty of high treason.”

Thus, the two army chiefs who imposed martial laws in the country – General Zia-ul-Haq and General Pervez Musharraf – remained preoccupied with indemnifying their acts of suspending the constitution through their handpicked parliamentary dispensations. It remains perplexing, though, but either out of moralistic consideration, sheer neglect or a legal restriction, both presidents carrying two-third majority in their respective parliaments to amend the constitution did not abolish Article-6 that had kept them viewed as traitors, constitutionally.

General Musharraf’s Treason Trial

While General Musharraf’s martial law of October 12, 1999 received indemnity from his pliant parliament through the Seventeenth Amendment (Article 270AA) in 2003, the general’s jittery act of “enforcing emergency” in the country on November 3, 2007 made him fall at the altar of Article-6.

Constitutionally, every martial law administrator needs the parliament to indemnify and validate “the enactments and actions of suspending the constitution.” Thus, despite incorporating his executive presidential “Constitution (Amendment) Order 2007” (Article 270AAA) on November 22, 2007 (providing legal cover to his emergency of November 3, 2007), Pakistan’s parliament did not immunise General Musharraf’s act.

Thus, General Musharraf’s act of constitutional violation (emergency) granted an opportunity to the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to avenge his dethroning in October 1999 and try sending the former dictator to the gallows through the court. Upon third time coming into power, Mr. Sharif had vowed in the national assembly on June 24, 2013 to hold General Musharraf accountable for subverting the constitution.

Finding the legal lacunae of General Musharraf’s 44-day emergency in the country, not receiving parliamentary immunity, Sharif’s government filed a reference in the Supreme Court in December 2013 for the general’s treason against the constitution and the state.

Owing to General Musharraf’s heavy-handedness with the higher judiciary, when he had not only sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on March 10, 2007 but also had house-arrested 64 judges upon imposing emergency, the special court conducting the treason trial carried a visible bias against the accused.

Thus, expectedly, after a high political drama lasting for some six years, the special court – that saw its six reconstitutions (when its heads were fired or quitted) and multiple prosecutions – found General Musharraf guilty of high treason under Article-6 of Pakistan’s constitution — sentencing him to death on December 17, 2019.

The judges’ partiality and vengeance against General Musharraf in a sham trial came out in public when one of the honourable judges directed the law enforcement authorities to apprehend the convict … and if found dead beforehand, “his corpse (should) be dragged to D-Chowk, Islamabad, Pakistan, and be hanged for three days.”

Even the new government of Imran Khan found the language of such a verdict nothing but “despicable.” Shocked and dismayed, the Army stated through its Inter-Services Public Relations that the “decision given by the special court has been received with a lot of pain and anguish by [the] rank and file of Pakistan Armed Forces.” “An ex-Army Chief, Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee and President of Pakistan, who had served the country for over 40 years, fought wars for the defence of the country can surely never be a traitor,” the military added. Vowing to stand by its former chief of army staff, the Army blasted the sentence as “against humanity [and] religion.”

Civil-Military Fissures

General Musharraf’s treason trial not only demonstrated the appalling state of acrimonious and spiteful relations between the civilians and the military in the country, but also fissured and fractured the trust and bond among the three main pillars of the state: the executive, judiciary and the military.[4]

Since a trial of a former army chief – who had not only led the sixth-largest armies in the world with a nuclear overhang but also had presided the state of Pakistan for nine years – had been unacceptable, the treason trial never had a smooth sailing and kept derailing.

First, the trial of General Musharraf’s all accomplices in the so-called act of ‘subversion of constitution’ was demanded. However, true to the turncoat politics of Pakistan, many of them were comfortably ensconced in Mr. Sharif’s cabinet as ministers.

Amid renewed civil-military frictions in the country, Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani had counselled, “If you want to fight with history … it’s your choice to do so.”

Censuring the civilians that, “No individual or institution has the monopoly to decide what is right or wrong in defining the ultimate national interest,” the general had warned, “As a nation, we are passing through a defining phase … Weakening of the institutions and trying to assume more than one’s due role will set us back.”

The charge of ‘high treason’ for an army chief who had sacrificed all his life in the service of the country was not only insulting to him but was also demeaning and disrespectful to the whole institution of the Army. It was, therefore, no coincidence that guarded by Pakistan Rangers, General Musharraf had found refuge at the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC) from where he was securely moved to Karachi and later to Dubai under the watch of former army chief, General Raheel Sharif.

General Musharraf’s mere appearance before a rancorous and revengeful judiciary and his indictment as a traitor by a highly prejudiced trial court through a sham judicial process might have satiated the ego of loathing politicians, but it had demonized the only disciplined and cohesive institution left in the country. The trial had not only discredited the Army in the eyes of the nation but had also demoralized every soldier defending the frontiers of Pakistan.

The trial demonstrated the government and judiciary standing at odds against the Army. Although, initiated by the federal government, the treason trial had actually been egged by the Supreme Court’s former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who harboured grudge against Musharraf (for his dismissal on March 10, 2007), only to be obliged by an equally vindictive Nawaz Sharif whose government was overthrown by General Musharraf in October 1999.

While the politicians naïvely wanted to set an example to discourage any future knight in shining armour from taking over the country; in light of Pakistan’s chequered history of civil-military distrust and brinkmanship the treason trial brought the Army in direct participation and control of the politics in the country.

With General Musharraf’s indictment on March 30, 2014, the army’s rank and file seethed in anger. Political scientist Jay Ulfelder’s mathematical model [5] ranked Pakistan at a high-risk of 14 among 40 countries most likely having a military coup in 2014.[6] Unsurprisingly, Pakistan narrowly escaped a military take-over during the political Dharna (sit-in) by the opposition Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf in the fall 2014.

General Kayani’s Democratic Coddling

In his desire to establish his legacy as the ‘only pro-democratic general’ in the history of Pakistan, General Musharraf’s successor General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani saw the near-collapse of Pakistan at the hands of its perfidious politicians.

Having initiated the avaricious culture of receiving full three year extension in service, the general in return granted a free rein to the civilian governments of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to run havoc with the economy and loot and plunder the national wealth at will.

Filtering out serving and retired Army personnel from the government departments, and letting his brother scam civil and swindle military housing schemes, General Kayani not only tarnished his own reputation but also soiled the good name of the military under his command.

Having served as former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s deputy military secretary in her first term, the general carried a soft spot for the PPP. While a lot of laudatory words have been said and written about General Kayani, the fact remains that he became the army chief after a political deal between General Musharraf and PPP’s Benazir Bhutto.[7] The general, as then director general Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a predominant role in the notorious National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) of 2007 – pardoning all criminal and money laundering cases of some 8,000 politicians (discussed in Part-III of this study).[8]

Chronicling General Kayani’s legacy, The New Yorker noted, “While Kayani deserves credit for declining to abbreviate the term of Zardari’s government, he took the unusual step of extending his own.”

However, from another angle, General Kayani’s studied silence and unconventional restraint as army chief – overlooking PPP’s financial corruption, misgovernance and military marginalization – thoroughly exposed the PPP among the masses, eliminating it form the national political scene.

Considered as “national security risk,” PPP leaders have a history of undermining the Army (as discussed in Part-V of this study).[9] Giving unconditional assurances to the foreign powers for their return to power, both in 1988 and in 2007, PPP has always kept its own political interests prime.

However, despite elections manipulation and forging right-wing alliances in the past, the establishment couldn’t stop a liberal PPP from repeatedly coming to power – befooling the largely illiterate masses and playing with their (sympathetic) sentiments through the slogan of “martyred Bhuttos.” Military establishment’s pull-back during PPP’s rule could be seen as a classic battlefield tactics of ‘withdrawal’ to let PPP discredit itself fully among the people so that the nation buries a political party forever (in the elections) without mourning its demise.

While nothing can be said about Pakistan, a military takeover in the present circumstances is not possible. Besides the military having weakened itself, the international pressure, an assertive judiciary, a vibrant social media, and an active civil society may not allow the Army to replay another martial law in the country.

However, at the fag-end of his term, while lauding the virtues of democracy in his address on Martyrs Day on April 30, 2013, General Kayani had ominously hinted another dictatorship. The general probably knew that the new army chief may not have his kind of patience to tolerate misrule, plundering of national resources, coddling of extremists and appeasement of terrorists in a country where concept of ‘controlled democracy’ – as discussed in Part-IV of this study – still remains kosher.[10]

This is another sordid story how the next army chief, General Raheel Sharif, too fell prey to his power lust – accepting a plum post-retirement job to head Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMFAT) through the good offices of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif – after allegedly hankering for his service extension.

However, despite his political latitude and a tumultuous relationship with the PPP, General Kayani and his Army stood at odds with the incoming Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the threat of terrorism in 2013.

Shifting the military’s doctrine towards fighting internal terrorism, while the army chief called it “Pakistan’s own war” he was promptly snubbed by the right-wing Jamaat-i-Islami’s leader Munawwar Hassan “not to own the United States’ war.” The divergent political-military thought on terrorism encouraged (a spineless) Mr. Sharif to “call for a dialogue with the militants as a best option to restore peace in the country.”

General Kayani’s three-hour long meeting with Nawaz Sharif on May 19, 2013 after the latter’s election victory was probably meant to outline the contours of powers to a former prime minister known for his erratic behaviour and a history of clashing with the powerful military. The outgoing army chief had further felt the need to convince the incoming prime minister about terrorist Tehrik-e-Taliban’s (TTP) irreconcilability needing kinetic force to establish the writ of the state backed by national consensus and government’s approval.

General ‘Raheel Doctrine’ of Hybrid Governance

Political-military relations remained stressed during the three-year tenure of Prime Minister Sharif’s handpicked chief of army staff, General Raheel Sharif (no family relation). The problem is that the politicians remain oblivious of military culture, in which a commander remains loyal first to the country and then to his institution.

Amid diverging outlook on issues of national security, defence policy and foreign relations, Nawaz Sharif’s decision to try General Musharraf for treason and subverting the constitution after immediately taking office in June 2013, took civil-military tensions to new heights.

As key government ministers started publicly berating General Musharraf (with the consent of a vengeful prime minister), army chief, General Raheel Sharif felt compelled to give a shut-up call to the political nonsense by stating on April 6, 2014, “Pakistan army upholds the sanctity of all institutions and will resolutely preserve its own dignity and institutional pride.”

The general carefully chose the venue to home his message: General Musharraf’s Special Service Group’s (SSG) Ghazi Base at Tarbela.

First of all, the politicians and the military did not see eye to eye on the issue of domestic terrorism. While terrorist attacks continued to bleed the nation, similar to his Kargil retreat, Prime Minister Sharif displayed his traditional lack of resolve and courage. Receiving life threats from the terrorists – as witnessed during the pre-poll carnage and mayhem (discussed in Part-III of this study)[11] – the government took refuge behind holding (unending) unconditional talks with the terrorists – ironically identifying them as “stakeholders.”

However, with the proverbial last straw on camel’s back coming through a terrorist attack at Karachi airport on June 8, 2014, General Raheel took control of the deteriorating security situation and started ‘Operation Zarb-e-Azab’ in North Waziristan (tribal agency) on June 15, 2014 to purge the country from the last remnants of terrorism.

Since then the general became the mover and shaker of Pakistan’s domestic as well as foreign affairs, rendering the civilians irrelevant through what was seen as ‘a soft coup.’ Despite Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif retaining the portfolio of foreign minister to himself (to ward-off military establishment’s pressure in foreign affairs), the negligent void led General Sharif becoming a de facto foreign minister representing Pakistan in all the major capitals of the world.

Having learned little from their past experience of losing federal and Punjab provincial governments to a military coup in October 1999, Mr. Sharif and his brother, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif went on a military collision course again upon returning to power. Speaking to The Guardian on February 13, 2014, Shahbaz Sharif derided the Army for blocking Pakistan-India trade.

However, adroitly playing ‘military diplomacy,’ – popularly known as the ‘Raheel Doctrine’ – General Sharif restored the Army’s image and esteem in the public. Taking authority and control – seen as forcibly snatched from the civilian government – the army chief galvanized the whole nation to support his ‘hybrid domestic governance’ and counterterrorism measures.

In the wake of a heart-wrenching terrorist attack at an army school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014,[12] killing 143 people including 134 innocent children, General Sharif:

1) Huddled the wrangling politicians together for a consensual and unified stance against terrorism
2) Lifted government’s moratorium on hangings of convicted terrorists
3) Obtained a consensus on military-courts for speedy trials of terrorism cases
4) Adopted a 20-point National Action Plan to exterminate terrorism on December 24, 2014[13]
5) Made the parliament pass Protection of Pakistan Ordinance (POPA) – later Act on July 2, 2014 – granting wide-ranging powers to the security forces against those threatening the security or waging war on the state of Pakistan, and
6) Formed ‘Apex Committees’ for provincial supervision with Corps Commanders sitting along-sides the chief ministers jointly overseeing the governance issues and progress on counterterrorism in the four provinces.

However, the phenomenal rise in the heinous crimes, with over 3.1 million reported criminal cases from 2008 to 2013, and 8,648 human rights abuses during a 20-month period of PPP and PML-N’s rule have been enough to portray the dismal state of society’s dilapidation under civilian governments of so-called ‘democratic era.’[14]

Nawaz Sharif’s Irritant Indian Infatuation

Another Sharif-military irritant remained Nawaz Sharif’s tendency of bending over backwards to please India. Disregarding military establishment’s concerns – not to mention Pakistan’s respect as a sovereign state – the prime minister kept calling for “warmer ties” with India, probably to leave behind a ‘peace legacy.’ However, the army remained at odds with a head of a government molly coddling an increasingly hostile and belligerent India.

Starting from unilaterally inviting then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh – which the latter thankfully declined – at his oath taking ceremony, without consulting the military establishment, Mr. Sharif kept diminishing Pakistan’s position.

Later, Nawaz’s imprudent decision of attending Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in May 2014 had further upset many stakeholders at home. India’s diplomatic masterstroke of inviting all the heads of SAARC states (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) to assert India’s regional hegemony – trumpeted as a ‘MODIfied’ and ‘Shining India’ – relegated the stature of a nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Mr. Sharif’s visit to India gave his opponents a chance to chastise his good-intentions to overcome mistrust and turn a new leaf in bilateral relations. Prime Minister’s shabby treatment by Mr. Modi who read him the riots act in their fifty-minute conclave brought nothing but shame and embarrassment to Pakistan.

Incredibly, Mr. Sharif did not utter a single word on the disputed region of Kashmir during his visit to India. Breaking away from the longstanding tradition of meeting the Kashmiri leaders of ‘All Parties Hurriyat Conference’ (APHC), the prime minister was accused of ‘selling the Kashmir cause.’

Moreover, Mr. Sharif’s mute response on Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) plans to strip Kashmir of its ‘special status’ granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution forced General Sharif to come forward and underline Kashmir’s significance as Pakistan’s ‘jugular vein’ in his address on Martyrs Day on April 30, 2014.

Finally, the grant of several unilateral concessions to India also did not go well with the military establishment, which stalled the prime minister’s ambitions to accord Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India, disguised as ‘Non-Discriminatory Market Access’ (NDMA) in January 2014.

Following PPP’s ‘military mudslinging campaign,’ and in line with establishment’s distrust, Nawaz Sharif’s defence minister and minister for climate change further blamed two former directors general ISI on the media for conspiring to topple the Sharif government during the opposition’s “Dharna” (sit-in) between August and December 2014.

As explained in Part-III of this study,[15] the sit-in that lasted for 126 days, protesting the rigging of 2013 elections, rocked the capital Islamabad when violence broke out and police’s heavy-handedness led to the killing of one person while wounding over 400 others. Although, a military intervention was widely rumoured to end the political deadlock, the Army kept its cool and counselled the government to handle the protests with political sagacity and restraint.

Karachi’s Political Crime Conundrum

Karachi, the biggest metropolis of Pakistan, has been notorious for its organized crime and political turf-war for decades.[16] Largely attributed to President General Zia-ul-Haq – who in his ten-year rule not only forcibly enforced “despotic Islamization” in Pakistan, but also created a fascist Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in 1983[17] to crush PPP’s political clout as well as Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) against the general’s martial law.

Unsurprisingly, some 16,509 innocent people lost their lives in target-killings between 1994 and 2015.

Representing the subcontinent partition’s migrant population of Karachi and Hyderabad, MQM – that changed its name to Muttahida Qaumi Movement in 1997 – has remained a violent militant political party. The party, which broke into factions and then reunited several time, has remained headed by Altaf Hussian, living in self-exile in Britain since 1990s.

Serving the military establishment’s purpose of weakening the PPP – as well as muting secessionist movement of SindhuDesh – MQM has thrived right under the establishment’s nose, often with the blessings of Mohajir army chiefs like President General Pervez Musharraf, who patronized the party fully and had planned to become its joint president after retirement.

Owing to political influence and lopsided priorities, the military has remained unsuccessful in ridding Karachi from ethnic violence and deep-rooted criminalization through several of its half-hearted “clean-up operations.” One, the military remains untrained in urban warfare. Secondly, it seems the establishment has deliberately kept the metropolis volatile and unstable to avoid any one political party establishing its foothold in the city, which remains Pakistan’s financial hub and a major seaport.

The first phase of ‘Karachi Operation’[18] by paramilitary Sindh Rangers to control lawlessness and organized crime that began in September 2013 and ended in August 2015 saw target killings drastically dropping by over 80%, with daily attacks falling to under 10 in June 2015 after having peaked at 73 in December 2013.

The second phase, which began in 2015 claimed more successes in eliminating target killings – moving the city from 6^th to 68^th in the International Crime Index by 2018. However, extortion, kidnappings for ransom, burglaries, and street crime in the shape of motorcycles and mobile phones snatching remain rife.

In his report, the director general Rangers startlingly revealed “powerful patrons” belonging to PPP and MQM involved in several cases of national security, terrorism, organized crime, target-killings, extortion, corruption and money-laundering to the tune of Rs.230 billion (US$83.24 million approx.) annual.[19]

BBC’s damning report of June 24, 2015 further disclosed MQM receiving funds, training and weapons from India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), for the past two decades.[20] Despite denying these serious charges, neither MQM, nor India, filed a libel suit against BBC.

In their show of street power and political blackmail, MQM’s militant wings had been notoriously torturing and killing their opponents and dumping their bodies in gunny bags, besides regularly shutting-down Karachi at an hour’s notice.

Furthermore, while it is an offence to defame or bring into ridicule the armed forces of Pakistan under constitution’s Article 63(1)(g), Mr. Hussain used abusive language many a times against senior Rangers officers and Pakistani generals during his phone addresses from London.

Publicly seeking India’s support (a treasonous offence), and blaming the paramilitary Rangers for “occupying the province,” Mr. Hussain also threatened to turn Karachi into Somalia, demanding a separate province for the Mohajirs.

As MQM turned into a fascist cult with Mr. Hussain’s virtual speeches charging his workers into instant violence, arson and rampage destroying public property, the Lahore High Court banned all public addresses of the MQM leader in Pakistan, giving people some respite.

On the other hand, feeling the heat of Karachi’s Rangers operation, which allegedly disrupted the ‘massive corruption’ of the PPP government in the Sindh province, Pakistan’s former president and co-chairperson PPP, Asif Ali Zardari also lashed-out the Army threatening it with dire consequences for stepping-out of its domain.

The arrests and opening-up of cases against several key PPP leaders – including two former prime ministers and many ministers – further led Mr. Zardari to end his policy of ‘political reconciliation,’ accusing Nawaz Sharif of returning to the politics of revenge during the 1990s. However, as discussed in Part-III of this study,[21] the hand in glove politics of PPP and PML-N that began with their May 2006’s “Charter of Democracy” as “friendly opposition strategy” continues to date.

Conclusion

Beset with a host of challenges, Pakistan continues to struggle with civil-military frictions owing to the divergent outlook – and priorities – of its politicians and the military.

The primary cause of conflict is Pakistan’s “feudal and flawed” constitution of 1973, which neither properly defines the roles and responsibilities of the organs of the state, nor enforces appropriate checks and balances on the executive (government), legislature (parliament), judiciary, and the armed forces. Consequently, each pillar of the state keeps trying to preserve, and protect, its own turf, perks and privileges and entitlements from the ever receding state resources.

Moreover, while the 18^th constitutional amendment has devolved the federal powers to the provinces, granting them legislative and financial autonomy, the constitution has failed to impose proper scrutiny and control over their utilization of resources and audit of funds. One of the reasons, Pakistan’s national debt shooting up is provincial powers to independently deal with international financial organizations and foreign lenders.

Those familiar with the architecture of Pakistan’s governance system know that the fundamental reason behind ‘not creating’ more provinces in the country is the abuse of power and misappropriation of state resources by less than honest politicians. Thus, 18^th amendment has not strengthened, but weakened the federation of Pakistan. There remains a perpetual conflict in the National Finance Commission Award (NFC) while distributing federal divisible pool.

Moreover, central to the spirit of the 18^th amendment is the devolution of power to the ‘local bodies’ by the provinces. However, the provinces foot drag on local bodies’ elections as such transfer of power takes away the authority, sway and development funds’ control from the hands of a Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) in his constituency.

Until and unless a new social contract is framed that imposes proper checks on political deceit – presently ingrained in the built and character of Pakistan’s elites (discussed in Part-III of this study) – neither democracy can come to the country nor civil-military distrust and frictions can go away.

Pakistan needs a constitution that:
1) Elucidates Pakistan’s rationale and its raison d’être;
2) Defines institutional boundaries and outlines the jurisdictional domains of each organ of the state;
3) Allows strict cross-institutional checks and balances, and monitoring and scrutiny, enforcing proper penalization for misconduct and misappropriation;
4) Protects the life and property of all segments of the society;
5) Ensures socio-economic justice to all its citizens; and
6) Creates a sense of “ownership of the country” among the people of Pakistan by granting them true democratic rights

The stark contrast of Pakistan’s civil-military predicament is visible in the opposing views of two eminent authors of Pakistan’s contemporary history:

In his scholarship titled ‘The Pakistan Military in Politics: Origin, Evolution, Consequences,’ Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed theorises, “Since the political class has been seriously wanting in its commitment to democracy … military takeovers were the result of the failure of the political process and a lack of clarity on ideology and societal objectives.”[22]

While Aqil Shah postulates in ‘The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan,’ “… the military’s tutelary beliefs and norms, a legacy of its formative experience under conditions of geopolitical insecurity and nation-building problems, have profoundly shaped its political interventions and influence by justifying the authoritarian expansion of its role in state and society.”[23]

Despite rigging charges in the elections of May 2013, the peaceful transition of power from one civilian government to another had been alleged as a ‘political deal of rotation in power’ between the two major political parties: the PPP and PML-N.

While the military establishment tried to introduce a ‘third force’ in the shape of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI), the experiment not only failed miserably to bring stability, but further fragmented and polarized the society, eroding the faith of people in the military establishment, as discussed in Part-I [24] and Part-II [25] of this study series.

More importantly, in the absence of any national political party in the country, the ‘provincialization’ of Pakistan’s politics has further pronounced ethnic fragmentation, linguistic divide, and ideological dissensions,[26] forcing 81% of its population’s tilt towards Sharia governed Islamic political order.[27]

If the politicians play foul, the generals have to step into the arena to defend democratic goalposts.

Disproving Sam Huntington’s theory, Pakistan’s politics has remained more circular than linear or progressive. It began with ABC and ended up at GHQ and ISI; and then keeps repeating itself.”[28]

Adnan Qaiser can be reached at: adnanqaiser1@yahoo.com and Tweets @adnanqaiser01. Views are personal and do not represent any institutional thought.

Pakistan’s Garrison State-VI: General Musharraf’s Treason Trial and Civil-Military Divergence

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