LAHORE: Some political analysts believe that the national political scene has changed altogether after the speech of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif at the multi-party conference and even reports of the opposition leaders’ ‘clandestine’ meetings with the army chief are not going to dilute its impact. But there are some who think otherwise.

“The national political history has been bifurcated into two since the speech – pre- and post-speech,” says Dr Rashid Ahmed Khan, former chairman of the Punjab University’s Political Science Department.

“The narrative given by Mr Sharif (at the MPC) will no more remain the sole property of the PML-N. Rather it will soon become a public property.”

Dr Khan believes that the news of opposition leaders meet with the establishment will fail to dilute the impact of the narrative and the question that who should have the powers to rule the country – the elected representatives as per Objectives Resolution of the Constitution or any unelected institution – will become a core issue in the national politics.

He asserts that the country will see (political) stability only after this core issue is settled.

“It’s unlikely that the PML-N will backtrack from the narrative of its supreme leader, who believes that he and his party have always gained from confrontational politics,” says Dr Amjad Magsi of the Punjab University’s Pakistan Study Centre.

“N League’s voters like this approach as we see in the 2018 general election when, notwithstanding the worst conditions for the party with its main leadership behind the bars, they stood by it.”

Endorsing Dr Khan’s views on the speech impact, he says the disclosure of the meeting between political leaders and military leadership right after the speech indicates its impact that forced the leakage.

The author of a thesis on Party Politics in Pakistan – Case Study of PML-N from 1993 to 2008, Dr Magsi terms it a decisive moment for the N League: if it deviates from the narrative and doesn’t come on roads from October onward in accordance with the declaration of the MPC it will mean that Mr Sharif’s aggressive tone was only to extract some ‘relaxations’.

Replying to a query about past two-year silence of Mr Sharif and PML-N voting for the law to give a three-year extension in tenure of the incumbent army chief, he says had political parties been doing politics on moral high grounds the country would not have seen the situation we were in.

But, he argues, Nawaz Sharif has been consistent in his views that only elected representatives should rule the country and initiated the treason case against former army ruler Pervez Musharraf though he paid a heavy price for it.

Nawaz Sharif’s damage-control move that none from his party will secretly call on the representatives of the armed forces or their agencies does not impress Dr Ambreen Javed, dean of faculty of Social Sciences of the Punjab University. She laments that politics has become the name of double standards. For politicians never give a true picture of any plan or event and one may always find skeletons in their cupboards.

“On one hand some central leaders of the PML-N are meeting secretly with the army top brass and on the other its supreme leader is giving an anti-establishment narrative. Politics had become the name of having dual faces here.”

She thinks Nawaz Sharif’s speech was aimed at “making a show” for the world as he got a chance to speak to a large audience after years.

She, however, believes that the so-called anti-establishment narrative will fizzle out sooner than later.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2020