PML-N's proposal

Talking to reporters on Monday, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif disclosed that he had made a phone call to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani two days earlier to help find a way out of the different crises the country faces. Making it a point to mention that he had done that on the instruction of Nawaz Sharif, he said he wished to cool down political tensions in the country, especially those between the PPP and the PML-N, and to refocus on the issues at hand.
Lest the proposal be seen as a political ploy, he averred there should be no point scoring. This nice overture though was a preface to a startling assertion that followed. The need of the hour, he said, is for "all stakeholders, including the political leadership, the Army and the judiciary to discuss the challenges faced by the country", adding that "the Prime Minister can call us or we can arrange a meeting in Lahore to develop complete consensus on finding ways to improve the deteriorating situation." Few would want to quarrel with the stated purpose of the proposal.
What is hard to digest is the description of the Army and the judiciary as stakeholders in the myriad political and economic problems the country confronts, and to invite them to sit together with the political leadership to find a way out. The Army, of course, is not an independent stakeholder in national affairs; it is an organisation subservient to the executive, and hence does not have a place on the High Table, except for providing input on security-related issues. The judiciary, though a state institution, at par with the parliament and the executive, must maintain distance, in accordance with the best judicial traditions, from the other branches of the state as well as politics, even social affairs.
Nawaz Sharif has a pretty impressive track record in asserting civilian supremacy during his two terms as prime minister. In the second term he forced the then COAS - Jehangir Kramat, to resign for advocating a role for the military in political affairs, via a supra-constitutional body, the national security council. He asserted his authority again when General Kramat's replacement, General Pervez Musharraf launched the Kargil misadventure behind his back. The ensuing confrontation led to disastrous consequences, both for Sharif and the democratic system.
The long years of exile seem to have further strengthened the PML-N leader's resolve to resist any kind of military meddling in civilian affairs. In his post-exile reincarnation, he has firmly asserted civilian primacy whenever controversies have arisen on the subject. The party strongly criticised the government for giving the former dictator an honour guard send-off. Equally strongly, it demanded punishment for General Musharraf, as per the relevant constitutional provision, for temporarily abrogating the Constitution to replace it with a Provisional Constitutional Order - better known as PCO - and ousting a lawful government. Nawaz Sharif has been consistently taking principled positions on issues concerning civil and military relations and judicial independence. So what has changed now?
This is not the first time that the Sharif brothers have invited various stakeholders to sit together to resolve the political, economic and security crises. Last November, Nawaz Sharif gave a similar call, asking the political parties and 'other stakeholders', counting among them the military and the judiciary along with the media and civil society representatives, to draw up a new social contract that, he said, should serve the basis of continuity in policy for the next ten years (at first he talked of a 25-year timeframe). It is hard not to see his desire in it for long term political stability. The present proposal has generated as much anxiety and criticism as it has, because it seems to recognise the Army and the judiciary (the latter apparently is included just by way of a good measure) as major stakeholders. But considering our checkered political history, at the back of these proposals, apparently, is an old concern that the establishment might exploit the increasing chaos and conflict to derail democracy and hoist a set-up of its choosing.
Rumours have been floating around for quite sometime that the establishment is unhappy with the prevailing state of affairs, and has been expressing the same to the ruling party's top leadership. Its interventionist impulse has been further encouraged by the government's incompetence, corruption scandals and confrontational stance towards the judiciary. The government has been undermining its position also by picking up unnecessary fights with the main Opposition, the PML-N.
Meanwhile, its ally in the Sindh government, the MQM, besides threatening every now and then to walk out of the coalition, has been repeatedly inviting 'patriotic generals' to intervene and help the people stage a 'revolution.' The ever-slippery Maulana Fazlur Rehman has been up to his own tricks, trying to cobble together a new opposition alliance. Last week, he hosted a dinner meeting for leaders from different opposition parties. They decided to form a 'loose' alliance "in the national interest".
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who quit the Federal cabinet over the US spy Raymond Davis's immunity issue, says he remains a PPP faithful, and yet has been addressing public rallies, election campaign-style, in Punjab and Sindh, and appearing in TV interviews to present views on the Davis issue that show the government in a bad light.
Pir Pagaro, a self-confessed 'GHQ man' has, in the meantime, been predicting the appointment of Qureshi as the next prime minister, saying also that elections will not take place for another twenty years. We can all see these discomforting developments unfolding before our eyes. A lot more may be taking place behind the scenes of which we do not know but, presumably, the PML-N leadership does.
It is worried, therefore, about possible damage to the democratic system. The present proposal is an attempt on its part to preempt any move in that direction. Presumably, the aim is to make the 'stakeholder' in question a participant, rather than a bystander in the resolution of the various problems. That would take away any excuse from it to accuse the government of mismanagement and replace it with some sort of an extra-constitutional arrangement, presided by a hand-picked politician or technocrat, pushing the real political players, once again, out in the cold.
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