Khurram Dastgir Khan
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani owes his election to the hallowed spectre of PPP’s slain leader Benazir Bhutto, but he owes the anti-establishment tenor of his government to PML-N’s Nawaz Sharif. Sharif inspired PM Gillani’s first executive order by making PML-N the electoral sword of the lawyer’s movement. From the ashes of his unceremonious deportation less than seven months ago, Nawaz Sharif has risen phoenix-like to the centre of Pakistani politics.
Perhaps it is penance for the 1997 ‘attack’ on the Supreme Court, but Nawaz Sharif-led PML-N has made the judges’ restoration the ne plus ultra of its policy platform. In a commitment to principle unprecedented in Pakistani politics, all national and provincial PML-N candidates took a pre-election oath on February 6 to restore the judiciary and reject the Emergency imposed by General (retd) Musharraf in November last year.
The restoration oath electrified the electorate. A widely cited Gallup survey revealed that on February 18 the educated voters went for PML-N while the uneducated favoured PPP. Conducted nationally, the exit poll found 34 percent low education group voted for PPP and only half, 17 percent, voted for PML-N. Among those with college education, PML-N has a notable edge over PPP; 35 percent of them voted for PML-N and only 25 percent for PPP. Among the college-educated in the Punjab, PML-N obtained 81 percent against only 18 percent for PPP.
PML-N’s restoration oath was not the only unprecedented event. Just as a religious philosopher once said, “Do not search for miracles. It is your faith that is the miracle.” PML-N itself is an unprecedented entity in Pakistani political history: the country’s first right-of-centre anti-establishment party.
In an ironic twist of history, Nawaz Sharif occupies the anti-establishment space abandoned by the late Benazir Bhutto in her last two years. From his eight-year refusal to negotiate with General (retd) Musharraf to the Charter of Democracy of July 2006 to the Murree Declaration this month, Sharif has taken the lead on anti-establishment and pro-Pakistan issues that PPP reluctantly but ultimately decided to adopt.
The most recent example of Nawaz Sharif leading the pro-Pakistani camp came only two days ago in his meeting with the two Pakistan-related officials from the US State Department. While Prime Minister Gillani and PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari played defensive after meeting John Negroponte and Richard Boucher, the PML-N leader used the front foot: “Since 9/11 all decision were made by one man. Now the situation has changed. Every decision will be presented before the parliament that will review Musharraf’s policy in the last six years.”
Even his foes are now forced to admit that Nawaz Sharif has come through the crucible of the 1999 coup even stronger in favour of untrammelled democracy and rule of the demos. Despite eight years of absolute rule, General (retd) Musharraf and his cronies could not level, let alone prove in a court of law, a single allegation of corruption against the Sharif brothers.
Nonetheless, critics remain. They cite Sharif’s bouts with the press; alleged favours to his business empire; the attack on the Supreme Court; the ill-fated 15th Amendment; Kargil; and lack of success in grappling with Pakistan’s problems. But the positive side of the PML-N’s ledger is substantial: massive infrastructure development; a ‘law and order’ Punjab chief minister; first democratically achieved national finance award and water award; the 1998 census; subsidised flour; deregulation of financial and telecom sectors; ban on serving meals at weddings; abolition of chungi/zila tax; identification of ghost schools; the 1999 Lahore Declaration with Indian prime minister; merit in professional college admissions; and nuclear status.
PML-N’s July 2007 London conference that concluded by forming the APDM cemented Nawaz Sharif’s statesmanship. For the first time, almost all of Pakistan’s regional and nationalist parties moved from the margins into the political mainstream. Sharif’s chief success at the conference was to draw a pro-dictatorship versus anti-dictatorship line in Pakistani politics. It took Benazir Bhutto’s tragic sacrifice, but eventually the PPP also joined PML-N on the anti-dictatorship side of the line.
Nawaz Sharif has rewritten the rules of Pakistani politics. After the general election, he accepted unconditionally the PPP’s right to form the federal government. Instead of jockeying for cabinet positions, PML-N refused any share in power as long as PPP agreed to restore the judges. This principled refusal forced the PPP’s hand to the point of signing the Murree Declaration. Even after the new elected prime minister has assumed office, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif occupies the pole position far ahead of Asif Zardari on restoration of judges and impeachment of President Musharraf.
In the new Pakistan blooming in the spring of 2008, the demos is calling for an end to the stranglehold of the establishment over sovereignty of Pakistan, restoring the judiciary, and rejecting servitude of foreign powers. Notwithstanding all his past shortcomings and mistakes, in Pakistan’s political landscape today Nawaz Sharif alone embodies the voice of the people.
Email: kdastgirkhan@gmail.com
The Nation, 31/3/2008
Loading ...
Recent Comments