Tense times have marked the equation between the civil and military establishments even in the best of hours. The year 2014 was no exception to this critical count. — Online

It was to be the year of economic hustle and bustle. Mian Nawaz Sharif had been voted in to set the economy right, ensure efficient governance, and focus on business and peace.

It was all going to happen in 2014 because by January the hindrances were all gone – Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, with his suo motos had retired as had Chief of Army Staff Ashfaque Parvez Kiyani, the other big bad wolf who had kept the PPP paralysed.

They had all gone home, quietly, without getting another extension or another position.

The new chief justice was averse to interfering with the Executive and the new chief was (as each one of them is when he first takes over) a professional soldier with no interest in politics.

And now Sharif could govern, as the statesmen he had become (so we were told in May 2013). The chief justice would not question every decision and every project and neither would GHQ kick up a fuss. And then the inevitable happened. Politics happened.

The military took umbrage at Sharif’s heavy-handed attempts to bring Pervez Musharraf to trial and reaching out to India and Afghanistan. And PTI hit the roads to demand the justice it thought it had been denied in election tribunals.

Though the Musharraf issue has still not been resolved and the PTI’s demands are still being negotiated (even though it has called off the dharna), there is no doubt that Sharif and the PML-N juggernaut has been stopped short.

No longer will it race ahead on peace with India or the treason trial, and the alacrity with which he ended the death moratorium a day after the Peshawar attack shows who is really in charge on security.

But none of this should come as a surprise to anyone who had observed the five years of the PPP regime. Indeed, Sharif’s experience is quite similar to Zardari’s early days.

After all, the PPP head had promised no-first-use to an Indian audience, which too had upset the warriors in Pindi. His government too had tried to rein in the ISI. And in 2009, his government too had ignored the movement for the restoration of the Judiciary and imposed Governor’s Rule in Punjab.

After the ensuing Long March (led by the Sharifs, and not PTI) and the behind-the-scene arm twisting which led to the judges’ restoration, a new Zardari emerged, who bent willingly in the face of any ill wind.

From 2009 onwards, the president was focused on surviving and not taking any risks. Five years later, another government, another long march and another invincible leader has now been cut down to size.

For all the talk of scripts, this is the script that, like Hollywood sequels, has been replayed in front of our eyes. And to understand the predictability of this script, we have to begin at the beginning – in 2007.

It was back then that both the PPP and the PML-N decided to negotiate with the military for a return. Power was handed over to the civilians, reluctantly perhaps, but voluntarily by a weakened but not vanquished military.

And, as a result, this weakened military will continue to defend itself against civilian onslaughts on its space. Zardari was forced to learn this and it seems as if Sharif is also learning this lesson. In this context, 2014 was the year of educating Sharif, as a shorter 2009 was the year Zardari was educated.

That there may not be an end to the lessons taught to the civilian government is guaranteed by Zardari’s experience – after the long march, came the NRO, the Swiss letter saga and then Memogate. There is no rest for the wicked and none either for the politicians in power in Islamabad.

It was a never-ending rollercoaster ride and it will be for Sharif too, regardless of who prowls in the Army House in Pindi and whether Zaheerul Islam calls the shots at Aabpara or Rizwan Akhtar does. This, after all, is a fight for power and individuals are temporary while interests are not.

But this is not the only lesson Sharif has to learn.

Unlike Zardari, Sharif has a second lesson to learn – that the charter of democracy was based on the past, and the future is slightly different. The charter of democracy emerged from the experience of both Benazir Bhutto and Sharif during the 1990s.

They learnt that the military was able to oust one when it got the support of the other – so they came together in exile to promise that they would not play into the hands of the common enemy. Impeccable logic and the perfect solution to prevent future crises.

And it was a strategy that worked (occasional hiccups like Sharif trotting off to the SC in the Memogate affair aside) till the rise of the PTI. But Sharif now needs to understand that an accord cannot be limited to the PML-N and the PPP because there are now other major stakeholders – as the PTI protests showed – who can ostensibly create turmoil.

Let’s not forget that in the 1990s, the PPP announced a long march against the PML-N and the PML-N announced one against the PPP. And this time around, it was the PTI, which has established itself as a major player on the national scene.

In other words, 2014 witnessed politics – with some continuity (the civil-military friction) and some change (PTI as the new player that slipped into the role that the PPP and the PML-N had played and then discarded).

To a large extent, the opposition provided by the PTI is natural. If the two main parties of the country reach reconciliation, those who want to play the opposition will gravitate to a third centre of power. Opposition cannot die out anymore than politics can.

And the power jostling created by these two fault lines is going to continue whether or not there is an assertive chief justice or not and whether the man in khaki is a Kiyani or a Sharif.

But more importantly, 2014 also showed that progress towards democracy is not linear. Just because the 2013 elections took place smoothly and one civilian government replaced another does not mean that civilian governments will face no other challenge.

And some of the challenges will be far from democratic.

PTI’s demands in the beginning of the dharna were undemocratic undoubtedly. But as time passed, the PTI had to retreat from them – and its failure in achieving goals such as the resignation of the prime minister and the dissolution of the assemblies and the criticism it faced will teach the party and other aspirants that there are no short cuts (or rather mid-term elections) to power any more.

This is what the 1990s taught the PML-N and the PPP and this is what 2014 hopefully taught the PTI. Perhaps, 2014 can also be called the year of educating the Khan.