Popularity and Terror Threats | Will politics in Pakistan follow the old script?

Pakistan

Pakistan’s cycle of events seems to have turned full circle. An Urdu news report notes with concern that Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has been told that she is under terrorist threat to her life.

Such a piece of news would hit banner headlines in most countries. In Pakistan, it’s unsurprising, given the number of political leaders who have suffered mysterious ends, including Benazir Bhutto. Also, a once-courageous media is tending towards ‘controlled reporting’, after a series of attacks on journalists, and the recent arrest of media tycoon Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman. Which is also why the hugely successful rallies of the opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) have gone virtually unreported. But they’ll soon have to sit up and take notice. Some large plans lie ahead that could threaten the Imran Khan government.

The PDM consisting of 11 political parties, very unusually combines both the left, centre and the religious right. This grouping’s rallies across Pakistan, started with Gujranwala in October, and roaring crowds are swelling with each successive event.

The most recent rally at Multan saw barricades torn down, and the provincial government buckling under pressure to allow the rally. It saw the maiden attendance of Asifa Bhutto-Zardari, the sister of 32-year-old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Bilawal has emerged as far wiser than his years in his deft dealings with the military, which shows him as not unmindful of the power behind the throne.

The star, undoubtedly, is the 47-year-old Maryam, who has emerged as a princess of political theatre against the establishment, with her father backing her in public addresses from London. Strangely though, it is not she who is the party president, but her uncle Shahbaz Sharif.

Father Nawaz seems to be reining her in, probably because the diehard members in the party are threatened by the woman, who put the dreaded National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to shame by appearing in person at a hearing and turning it into a political victory. Shahbaz didn’t attend the press meet then, and neither did senior party leaders. There’s trouble there.

Intra-party tensions will probably rise as the PDM gears itself up for the rally in Lahore, the political heartland of Pakistan, with 174 seats in the National Assembly, compared to 75 for Sindh, 60 for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 20 for Balochistan. Whoever wins Lahore, wins Pakistan. Unsurprisingly, this is where police have warned that ‘terrorists’ may try for a strike.

Why terrorists such as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) would want to kill Maryam is a mystery. But then it was equally strange that the TTP allegedly targeted Benazir in 2007, later denied by the supposed back up suicide bomber.

The question, however, is to who wants Maryam dead. There is the obvious suspect, which is the State in the person of Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has pushed a (not unreasonable) war against corruption of politicians past. This seems to have gone too far, with Senate Deputy Chairman Saleem Mandviwalla declaring that the NAB he held up ‘internationally’ for its witch hunt. Another 'leak' seemed to indicate the NAB judges were pressured to convict political leaders. Khan’s ‘war on corruption’ has also virtually decimated Pakistan’s business population which runs on the rails of establishment corruption. Now they’re backing the opposition.

Clearly, the ‘establishment’ itself would like to end this groundswell of opposition. The Pakistan Army has never had it so good, running the country from the shadows even while the Prime Minister takes the flak for misgovernance. It’s this model that will be shaken with the successful rallies and the call by all major constituents of the PDM for resignation of their members in Parliament, and in legislative assemblies by December 31.

The government has countered saying it will hold by-elections in seats vacated. Further down are plans for a march to Islamabad, which would seriously compromise Khan’s government.

The ‘establishment’ has the choice of doing nothing, and letting Khan fend for himself. Or it can create a national emergency by knocking off its main leader, and using the ensuing chaos to end the PDM on its own terms. Maryam should watch out. An almost identical series of events preceded Benazir’s assassination. ‘Terrorist’ threats from unknown sources, allegations of foreign funding, and an army intent on keeping the reins.

As nineteenth century French critic Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr once wrote, the more things change, the more they remain the same.