EDITORIAL: Isn’t it some change in the way the wind blows across the national political landscape that President Arif Alvi’s latest observations about his party’s positions on critical issues tend to put him at some distance from his party leadership? In an extensive interview with Asma Shirazi of Aaj News on Monday, he spoke with rare – newfound if you like – candour by suggesting that had he been consulted his party would not have arrived at such a sorry pass.
Most of it he said in the interview was not in rhyme with his earlier positions on a number of matters that had earned him the opposition’s charge of being the PTI partyman rather than a President of Pakistan. He emphatically asserted that he is not convinced the United States had launched a conspiracy to oust Imran Khan.
He had wanted a judicial investigation and for that he sent the cypher to Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial. In fact Imran Khan had brandished the so-called cypher at a public meeting on March 27, claiming that the opposition decided to go for no-confidence vote against him at the behest of Washington.
President Alvi also disagreed with Imran Khan’s decision to boycott the National Assembly proceedings. Had he been consulted “I would have suggested something else”, he told Shirazi, but did not spell out as to what was that ‘something else’.
But looking to the future he had a word of advice for both the government and PTI-led opposition. Don’t turn the appointment of next army chief into a controversy, and follow the past practice. Asked what role he would like to play in resolving the perceptional mismatch on this issue, he said he would approve the appointment in line with the procedure laid out in the Constitution.
The Constitution gives the right of COAS’s appointment to the Prime Minister, but as per precedent he takes all the stakeholders on board. That has happened in the past, but if history is any evidence the myth that the chosen army chief would be the chooser’s man has been shattered, not once but many a time.
Frankly, the entire guessing game as to who would be the next army chief is frivolous because he would be too independent to be under anybody’s influence. It is therefore problematic to agree with President Alvi’s quote that “broader consultations” on the appointment of Chief of Army Staff was a must so that consensus could be developed.
See, how different is today’s President Alvi from yesterday’s when he would avoid to administer oath of office to the newly-elected prime minister Shehbaz Sharif. Now, he told the Aaj News anchorperson, he is ‘impartial’ as President of Pakistan and that his affiliation with the PTI was thing of the past.
“The party is my past. It is a very good past”, he said. And had Imran Khan consulted him regarding his decision to boycott the National Assembly he “might have offered different advice”. It is increasingly clear that Arif Alvi has changed the course in order to remain relevant to the evolving political situation in the country. That he is first a politician and then the President of Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a fact.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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