TV talkshows in Pakistan are the news version of The Jerry Springer Show. Consider the latest flavour: ‘revelations’ regarding the meeting of Muhammad Zubair, former governor, Sindh, and a prominent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader with the Chief of Army Staff and Director-General, Inter-Services Intelligence. The thrust: while former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif hits out at the ‘Establishment’, publicly-known code for army and the ISI, the party is also trying to find space for itself and wants a reprieve for Sharif and his daughter, Maryam Nawaz Sharif.
The news was broken by none other than the Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations two days after Sharif spoke at the multi-party conference via video-link.
According to Major-General Babar Iftikhar, DG-ISPR, “Mr Zubair twice met the army chief, once in the last week of August and then on September 7 in the presence of director general ISI.” Babar further said that “In those meetings he (Mr Zubair) talked about Mr Nawaz Sharif and Ms Maryam Nawaz.”
Babar said that the army chief “made it clear to him [Zubair] that their [Sharifs] legal issues would be addressed in court, while political matters were to be dealt with [in] parliament.”
Interestingly, hours earlier on the same day (Wednesday) PML-N’s senior vice-president and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had told a news conference in Lahore that none of the party members had held a one-on-one meeting with the army chief in the recent past.
This, of course, is just the spice that drives television ratings points and it was a foregone conclusion that talkshows would pounce on this cheese like so many rats. TRPs are important for revenue and revenue is important for job prospects as well as hefty salaries. Plus, it is easy stuff. One doesn’t have to prepare. There’s no policy discussion involved, no quest for understanding why certain things are happening, what they mean for political stability or the lack thereof, how this impacts Pakistan which faces multiple challenges et cetera.
TRPs are immune to that. The winner is the anchor with the best attack dogs on all sides on any given evening.
Predictably then, the agenda was to run down the PML-N, mock it for its being hapless, ridicule it for its bluster while genuflecting to the army.
Earlier, on September 16, the army chief met with opposition leaders and some government ministers. This was in anticipation of the September 20 multi-party conference. We are told that the army chief counselled the Opposition leaders against dragging the military into political issues.
The original ground rules for that meeting were apparently Chatham House. But on Monday, a day after Sharif delivered a broadside, calling the army a “state above the state in the country,” Shaikh Rashid, the federal minister for TV talkshows and occasionally Railways, “revealed” that 15 Opposition leaders were invited by the army chief to discuss the constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan but the Opposition also spoke about other political issues and voiced its concerns.
So, what does one make of this? One way is to follow the news piecemeal and use it to heap scorn on the Opposition; the other is to try and make sense of what’s happening, why it continues to happen and whether this has redounded to the country’s advantage, especially at a time when, given many external challenges, Pakistan needs to put its best foot forward.
An eminent scholar in a private conversation had this to say: “In a system which historians call ‘dyarchy’ and political scientists call ‘hybrid’, political forces will negotiate with the crown and not his majesty’s loyal government. It is simple: power is held on behest of the emperor. These gleeful news items are nothing more than maintaining a facade. The ‘emperor’ stands in full regalia with all the pomp of power but naked in the public eye! It is evident that the aspiration of self-government remains elusive.”
This is what needs to be debated, not what was being debated and the manner in which it was being debated.
Is there a dichotomy between what Sharif said and what Zubair was reportedly trying to do? On the surface, yes; deep down, no.
As my scholar friend noted, who is the crown and who is his majesty’s loyal government? The answer to this question is obvious to anyone except those afflicted with the epidemic of blindness in Jose Saramago’s unnamed city.
The Opposition, especially the PMLN, is in a bind. The current government and its patrons know that given fair elections it will win. So the system has created a Daedalian maze to trap the party. It was easy because the PMLN has much to answer for its own acts of omission and commission. Sharif is trying to find the waxen wings to escape the maze. What are his options? Remember that his options have to be in relation to any negotiating compulsion on the other side. The other side doesn’t think he can do anything to create any meaningful negotiating space for himself. So, it continues with its maximum pressure campaign, forcing Sharif in a zugzwang: he must make a move, but making a move puts him at a disadvantage.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is very happy. A corrupt leader has got his comeuppance.
The problem with this schadenfreude is that it ignores the larger issue of what’s at stake, namely, to put simply, people’s power and their constitutional right to shape their destiny. In other words, it ignores the political but unconstitutional role of an entity that is not brought to power by the people and which they cannot oust through the power of the ballot.
So, while we might rejoice seeing Sharif in the jaws of Scylla, it is the Charybdis we are ignoring. And that threat won’t go away even after Sharif and his party have been devoured.
Oh, but I stand corrected: this is a situation in which Scylla and Charybdis are hand-in-glove! The PMLN is likely to lose its sailors and also get the ship sunk. So, help me Darwin.
The writer is a former News Editor of The Friday Times and reluctantly tweets @ejazhaider
The news was broken by none other than the Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations two days after Sharif spoke at the multi-party conference via video-link.
According to Major-General Babar Iftikhar, DG-ISPR, “Mr Zubair twice met the army chief, once in the last week of August and then on September 7 in the presence of director general ISI.” Babar further said that “In those meetings he (Mr Zubair) talked about Mr Nawaz Sharif and Ms Maryam Nawaz.”
Babar said that the army chief “made it clear to him [Zubair] that their [Sharifs] legal issues would be addressed in court, while political matters were to be dealt with [in] parliament.”
Interestingly, hours earlier on the same day (Wednesday) PML-N’s senior vice-president and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had told a news conference in Lahore that none of the party members had held a one-on-one meeting with the army chief in the recent past.
This, of course, is just the spice that drives television ratings points and it was a foregone conclusion that talkshows would pounce on this cheese like so many rats. TRPs are important for revenue and revenue is important for job prospects as well as hefty salaries. Plus, it is easy stuff. One doesn’t have to prepare. There’s no policy discussion involved, no quest for understanding why certain things are happening, what they mean for political stability or the lack thereof, how this impacts Pakistan which faces multiple challenges et cetera.
TRPs are immune to that. The winner is the anchor with the best attack dogs on all sides on any given evening.
Predictably then, the agenda was to run down the PML-N, mock it for its being hapless, ridicule it for its bluster while genuflecting to the army.
Earlier, on September 16, the army chief met with opposition leaders and some government ministers. This was in anticipation of the September 20 multi-party conference. We are told that the army chief counselled the Opposition leaders against dragging the military into political issues.
The original ground rules for that meeting were apparently Chatham House. But on Monday, a day after Sharif delivered a broadside, calling the army a “state above the state in the country,” Shaikh Rashid, the federal minister for TV talkshows and occasionally Railways, “revealed” that 15 Opposition leaders were invited by the army chief to discuss the constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan but the Opposition also spoke about other political issues and voiced its concerns.
So, what does one make of this? One way is to follow the news piecemeal and use it to heap scorn on the Opposition; the other is to try and make sense of what’s happening, why it continues to happen and whether this has redounded to the country’s advantage, especially at a time when, given many external challenges, Pakistan needs to put its best foot forward.
The Opposition, especially the PMLN, is in a bind. The current government and its patrons know that given fair elections it will win. So the system has created a Daedalian maze to trap the party
An eminent scholar in a private conversation had this to say: “In a system which historians call ‘dyarchy’ and political scientists call ‘hybrid’, political forces will negotiate with the crown and not his majesty’s loyal government. It is simple: power is held on behest of the emperor. These gleeful news items are nothing more than maintaining a facade. The ‘emperor’ stands in full regalia with all the pomp of power but naked in the public eye! It is evident that the aspiration of self-government remains elusive.”
This is what needs to be debated, not what was being debated and the manner in which it was being debated.
Is there a dichotomy between what Sharif said and what Zubair was reportedly trying to do? On the surface, yes; deep down, no.
As my scholar friend noted, who is the crown and who is his majesty’s loyal government? The answer to this question is obvious to anyone except those afflicted with the epidemic of blindness in Jose Saramago’s unnamed city.
The Opposition, especially the PMLN, is in a bind. The current government and its patrons know that given fair elections it will win. So the system has created a Daedalian maze to trap the party. It was easy because the PMLN has much to answer for its own acts of omission and commission. Sharif is trying to find the waxen wings to escape the maze. What are his options? Remember that his options have to be in relation to any negotiating compulsion on the other side. The other side doesn’t think he can do anything to create any meaningful negotiating space for himself. So, it continues with its maximum pressure campaign, forcing Sharif in a zugzwang: he must make a move, but making a move puts him at a disadvantage.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is very happy. A corrupt leader has got his comeuppance.
The problem with this schadenfreude is that it ignores the larger issue of what’s at stake, namely, to put simply, people’s power and their constitutional right to shape their destiny. In other words, it ignores the political but unconstitutional role of an entity that is not brought to power by the people and which they cannot oust through the power of the ballot.
So, while we might rejoice seeing Sharif in the jaws of Scylla, it is the Charybdis we are ignoring. And that threat won’t go away even after Sharif and his party have been devoured.
Oh, but I stand corrected: this is a situation in which Scylla and Charybdis are hand-in-glove! The PMLN is likely to lose its sailors and also get the ship sunk. So, help me Darwin.
The writer is a former News Editor of The Friday Times and reluctantly tweets @ejazhaider