Opinion Army corners Sharif

Something had to eventually give in the three-week old political standoff between Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the simultaneous but separate protests in Islamabad led by Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaaf and Tahirul Qadri’s Awami Tehreek. Khan and Qadri were demanding the resignation of Sharif, who was elected with a massive mandate last year. As the government negotiated with the protestors, a compromise seemed at hand Saturday. Sharif had apparently agreed to most of the demands of the protestors. The PM was ready to take a month’s leave of absence in which many of the allegations against him could be assessed by a judicial inquiry. Sharif was reportedly ready to step down and hold fresh elections if the allegations were found true. But Khan and Qadri insisted on Sharif’s immediate and unconditional resignation.

In a decisive escalation, Khan and Qadri decided to move their protests, until now peaceful, from the parliament house to the prime minister’s residence. The government ordered the police to block the marches and street clashes ensued.  A handful of deaths were reported by Sunday evening; hundreds were injured and the toll could mount as the confrontation intensifies. But it looks less likely by the hour that Nawaz Sharif will survive the present confrontation. There has been widespread suspicion that Khan and Qadri had the backing of the Rawalpindi-based army leadership, whose distrust of Sharif is well known. There have also been major policy differences between the PM and the army.

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The chief of army staff, General Raheel Sharif, stepped into the middle of the crisis a couple of days ago and met the PM, Khan and Qadri. But the general was no third umpire. Despite the opposition’s provocations over the weekend, the army seemed unwilling to bail out the PM. Until recently, it was widely held that the army was not interested in a formal coup, but just wanted to cut Nawaz Sharif to size and compel him to share power with Rawalpindi. The weekend’s developments, however, suggest other possibilities. These include an unceremonious ouster of Nawaz Sharif from power, the installation of an interim regime backed by the army, and a recasting of the political system with a greater role for the GHQ. Nawaz Sharif’s election last year raised hopes that the first transfer of power from one elected government to another would help consolidate fragile democratic foundations. Rawalpindi was having none of this. The army brass appears to have bet that the political costs, at home and abroad, of overthrowing an elected PM are minimal and entirely manageable.