As Pakistan’s Army General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s term is coming to an end, the entirety of the country’s politics is wrapped up in the question of who will be the successor, Kunwar Khuldune Shahid writes in The Diplomat.
Currently, in Pakistan, it is ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan and the military, which are the two epicentres of the country’s multipronged political incoherence.
And this all started after Khan stated that any army chief not appointed by him will not be accepted by his party as well and even not his supporters who constitute a very significant section of the voting population, according to The Diplomat citing former Punjab chief minister and political analyst Najam Sethi, the author of “Trial of Democracy.”
In the seven months since Khan’s ouster, he has been at loggerheads with the military establishment, which continues to orchestrate its cycle of churning civilian leaders in and out of power. The central government, led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which itself was a victim of the military’s engineering in 2018, is currently tasked with doing the military’s bidding so as to reaffirm the army’s hegemony.
It is pertinent to note here that Imran Khan became the first Prime Minister in Pakistan’s history to be ousted from power after losing a no-confidence vote.
“The involvement of the establishment in politics throughout our history is known to all. Things remain stable only when [the military] remains within its limits and accepts civilian leadership,” Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Central Vice President Ejaz Chaudhary told The Diplomat.
Immediately after his ouster Khan’s narrative, which doubles down on absolutist populism, is destabilizing the country, despite the military’s historical manoeuvres safeguarding the institution’s own interests, The Diplomat reported citing PTI Chief’s critics.