LAHORE: As the tempers are getting high while election fever rises in the country, the pertinent question has been raised about the interference of the army in politics in the inaugural session of the ThinkFest Afkar-e-Taza at the Alhamra Art Centre here on Saturday.

The session, titled ‘Reimagining Pakistan: Do we need a new social contract?,’ had former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, former finance minister Miftah Ismail and Jugnu Mohsin.

Abbasi stressed the need for a new social contract and amendments to the 1973 Constitution. He supported the current constitution and the parliamentary system, saying that according to the basic constitution, Pakistan was not supposed to be a security state though it had become so with the passage of time as the security paradigm took over.

To the question of how to put the genie (army) back in the bottle, Abbasi said the deterioration had been a gradual process so the fix would also take time and it could not be done in one day. He said the first thing was to identify the issues and move forward in a collaborative way to fix them. He stressed the need for massive reforms in the country where the federal officers were working at tehsil level where they should not be.

ThinkFest begins with the big question of army intervention in politics

Miftah said that during his term as the finance minister, the issue had never been the army budget and he compared the $8bn defence budget of Pakistan with more than $64bn of India. “The issue is not that the army is spending money but the army’s interference in politics.”

To this, Jugnu replied that India was spending more money compared to us because India was making more money than us.

The former finance minister said the question that who was supposed to run the country had not been answered. “The issue is not the constitution but not following the constitution. There is a lot of mistrust between institutions and the provinces that don’t trust one another.”

He took on the behaviour of the politicians vis-à-vis the army’s interference in politics, saying that those (PTI) leaders who were against military’s involvement in politics today were very happy with the military’s involvement in politics from 2014 till 2018 and those (PML-N, PPP) who were lamenting army’s involvement in politics from 2014 to 2018 just have switched sides. “The politicians really live in a very myopic world and I think we need to have a leadership that thinks beyond one election”.

At the end, Jugnu taunted both the former PML-N leaders for avoiding the question regarding the army’s involvement in politics, implying that it was not an issue. To which, Abbasi replied that if the army always came when the politicians ditched the people and if the politicians improved their performance, the army won’t intervene.

Miftah reiterated that the central dilemma of Pakistan was the question that who would run the country, the people or the institutions. “It needs to be decided who would run the country and warned that “Chiragh sub kay bujhain gey hawa kisi ki nahi,” he said, indirectly referring to the current state of affairs.

Abbasi spoke about the ongoing ‘blame games’ in the country, emphasizing the need for leadership that would break the cycle. He underscored the importance of finding a balance between institutions and the constitution for effective governance.

When asked about how the party he was planning to form would be different from others regarding solution to issues and reimaging Pakistan, he said, “We know the issues and we know the fixes, spending 36 years in politics.”

Earlier, Dr Yaqoob Khan Bangash, the founder of ThinkFest, discussed the theme ‘Winter of Discontent’ and highlighted the importance of intellectual discourse in the country.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2024