PAKISTAN is close to Julian Barnes’s alternative definition of a net as “a collection of holes tied together with string”. It is less a country than a mesh of voids, bound by coils of self-interest.

A vacuum in leadership within each political party, for instance, is ringed by the loyalty of its electorate. Our economy is a mosaic of potholes, of gaping deficits: budget deficits, fiscal deficits, trade deficits, recurring deficits in the railways and PIA. Add now a trust deficit between the legislature, the judiciary and the armed forces.

Over the past 60 years, political analysts have viewed the balance of power in Pakistan as a seesaw, with an elected government at one end, a Bonaparte at the other, and the judiciary as a pivot. It was not always like this. Gen Ayub Khan admitted in the memoirs he wrote in 1967 while a civilian president: “The army has inherited a great tradition of loyalty, a sense of duty, patriotism and complete subordination to civil authority.”

Analysts have viewed the balance of power here as a seesaw.

Ten years later, Gen Ziaul Haq imitated his former chief by removing an elected government in a bloodless coup. On July 5, 1977, he felt impelled to explain in his first address to a dispossessed electorate: “The army takeover is never a pleasant act, because the armed forces of Pakistan genuinely want that the administration of the country should remain in the hands of the representatives of the people who are its real masters. The people exercise this right through their elected representatives who are chosen in every democratic country through periodic elections.”

Anyone who took their words at face value had not read the 19th-century pocket manual issued to the general staff of the Prussian army. Their officers were instructed always “to be more than you seem”. A parallel between the militaristic state of Prussia and modern Pakistan is often drawn by persons unfriendly to Pakistan. They never tire of repeating Prussian minister Friedrich von Schrötter’s remark that “Prussia was not a country with an army, but an army with a country”. Sadly, recent events indicate that Pakistan may well be sliding closer towards its Prussian precedent.

Our armed forces have not come fully out of the closet. Newspaper reports covering the ouster of Nawaz Sharif still refer coyly to “the security establishment”. Guardedly, they describe the invisible brokers of the shotgun marriage between the MQM-P and its rival PSP as “the powers that be”.

Now, even before it has formulated its manifesto for the 2018 general elections, the PML-N finds it necessary to announce that it is laying out “a policy of non-confrontation with state institutions, such as the army or the judiciary”. It is an all too obvious admission that the boundaries between the political parties and other organs of the state have become blurred and need, like constituencies, to be redefined.

Former president-general Musharraf’s announcement that he proposes to cobble together ‘a grand alliance’ of 23 political parties to contest the next elections has not helped. It has reinforced the suspicion that khaki remains an indelible smudge in our nation’s politics, the third colour in our national flag. Should Musharraf’s grand alliance be feared? Or is it just a forlorn hope of disparate parties, with more letters in their names than actual followers? Some feel that Musharraf should be more circumspect, that at his age he should change his diet. Flattery is known to be low on calories.

By the time of the next general elections, the configuration of contestants standing at the starting line may not be the same as those presently exercising themselves in the dressing room. Which avatar of the PML, for example, will contest the 2018 elections? The PML-N with Nawaz Sharif still as its damaged masthead? A PML-S, with Shahbaz Sharif holding a Chinese pen in one hand and a white handkerchief in the other?

Will the PML-Q and other ingots off the old PML bloc be forged together on the anvil of expediency? Will the MQM-P and the PSP be able to sink their differences in time to fight a campaign under the same initials? Will the PPP flog again its ideology of ‘progressivism, democratic socialism, social liberalism, Islamic socialism’, when the only –ism prevalent within the party is cronyism?

Whoever forms the next government should brace himself for a hectic period in office. He will need deep pockets to meet repayments of the onerous CPEC loans. He will need strong nerves to resist pressure from Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to join a Saudi-US funded coalition against Iran. He should be courageous enough to accept Farooq Abdullah’s acknowledgement that Azad Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of Pakistan, and not demand more. And he should be prepared to deal with an uber-conservative Mike Pence as the 46th US president.

The writer is an author.
www.fsaijazuddin.pk

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2017