Institutions' role

Chief of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Maulana Fazlur Rehman, apparently immensely encouraged by the size of the rally in H-9 Islamabad on November 1, 2019 and bolstered by the presence on stage of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leadership, reiterated his two main demands: the resignation of Prime Minister Imran Khan within two days and fresh elections. That hardly came as a surprise, but what he said next raised some ticklish questions. He said the protestors did not want any clash with the institutions as they expected them to be impartial. But if they felt that the institutions were protecting "these illegitimate" rulers who had 'stolen' the public's votes and been installed as a 'puppet' government that had suppressed the masses, then after the expiry of the two days deadline they could not be stopped from forming an opinion regarding these institutions. The Maulana's reference to the role of 'institutions' persuaded the Director General (DG) Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor to issue a strong response in a telephone call to a special transmission regarding the rally on a TV channel. He informed the JUI-F chief and the opposition that the army was an impartial institution and it supported the democratically elected government. In response to a question, Major General Ghafoor asked Maulana Fazlur Rehman about the institution he had referred to in his speech: the election commission, the judiciary, or the army? He went on to say that if it was the army, it believes in the rule of law and the Constitution. Instead of dragging the army into politics, the DG ISPR argued, if the opposition had complaints about the transparency of the 2018 elections, they should approach the concerned institution despite the passage of more than one year, in this case the election commission. He ended his remarks with the hope that all democratic issues would be dealt with in a democratic manner, not on the streets and without creating chaos and destroying the country's hard won peace.

Whether, however, the 'institutional' response of the DG ISPR will be sufficient to defuse the rising tension between the protestors and the government is a moot point. All the opposition leaders who spoke at the rally reiterated their two basic demands. The government, from Prime Minister Imran Khan downwards, retorted with threats of action if the speculations about the rally/sit-in attempting to move towards D-Chowk were translated into action in practice. Imran Khan in particular, while addressing an event in Gilgit-Baltistan on November 1, 2019, lambasted the opposition, vowing never to resign and threatening they would all be locked up. This added fuel to the fire of the incremental rise in temperature in the highly polarised situation. The DG ISPR's statement did not deal with the repeated charge that the 2018 elections were allegedly manipulated in favour of Imran Khan and the PTI with the help of the military. To the suggestion that the opposition should take their complaints about the 2018 election to the election commission, the opposition is likely to either maintain its studied silence on this suggestion or, if pressed, express its lack of confidence in the impartiality of the election commission itself on the touchstone of what they allege happened in the polling in that exercise. The emerging scenario therefore portends a clash between the protestors and the government, despite the negotiating team of the latter announcing on November 2, 2019 that they had decided to approach the judiciary in the light of the inflammatory speeches of the opposition at the rally, which they claimed violate the agreement between the two sides. Even if the judiciary were to pronounce on the issue of whether the rally/sit-in should be allowed to continue or not, it would be difficult to implement such a verdict without the use of force, an option that could open up a dangerous and destabilising can of worms.