A little known Punjab-based political party which calls itself Move On Pakistan (MOP) put up banners in 13 cities across the country urging the army chief General Raheel Sharif to take over and form a government of technocrats. The ISPR quickly distanced itself from the coup posters, saying that the armed forces had nothing to do with the highly controversial banners. The prime minister went into a family huddle to discuss the matter.
The MOP's Karachi chapter held a press conference at the Press Club trying to explain away the obvious suggestion made by the poster: that they did not want martial law, they did not want a new CoAS because they did not know what kind of a general he would be, that Pakistan Army should groom the youth how to run the country. Finally, about four days later on July 17 some persons were arrested for putting up coup posters in Islamabad. That, in a nut shell, is the whole story. Or is it?
The banners have generated rumours which may or may not be true. What was the real motive for putting up the controversial banners? We have already lived too long under martial law regimes. The claim of the MOP that the civil government is incompetent has always been an excuse for staging a military coup. Was MOP testing the waters to see if the public would agree and invite the army in?
Another rumour was to wonder who was really behind the MOP banners. Was it the army or was the government? In short, an attempt to smear the fair name of General Raheel Sharif? For one, it was a clear case of sedition which should have triggered a strong reaction condemning the banners, but it did not by either army or government.
The government did not take any action or voice its anger at the dastardly posters of the MOP. Their silence leads to suspicion. Now if Altaf Hussain and the MQM ever invited the army in, which they have done off and on, the government reacted strongly, condemning the political party, accusing Altaf Hussain of being anti-democracy anti-Pakistan. So why no such reaction against the MOP? It strengthens the suspicion the government was attempting to malign the army chief.
The MOP appears to be a fake party. Even though it is registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan the party claimed, at the KPC press conference, it was not really about conventional politics. So what is a political party if not political? From what barrister Fayaz Ahmed Samor, secretary general of MOP Sindh said at the press conference it appears MOP is not a political party at all. He said they organised seminars to discuss political issues and solutions. Then they are a civil society organisation, wanting to project their name by dabbling in controversial issues. The secretary general appeared quite pleased that once the banners were up the media took notice of them. So it appears the banners were for publicity. The MOP had tried the same trick in February when it urged the CoAS not to resign. That gambit earned the so-called political party a little attention which evaporated soon. The posters this month revived attention to the antecedents of the party but have already faded from the public discourse.
The MOP was registered with the ECP three years ago in Faisalabad. It has negligible grass roots support in that city. The persons arrested by the capital and Rawalpindi police on Sunday July 17 and what they revealed about the organisation shows clearly that the poster gambit was Punjab-based. The Suzuki pickup in which the banners were carried was purportedly registered by the Punjab Excise and Taxation office. The two arrested and the other two who paid them to put up the posters in the capital also belong to the Punjab. So why was a press conference held in Karachi - not in Lahore or Islamabad?