Punjab Situation Worrying Armed Forces
By Salahuddin Haider
Islamabad , Pakistan
The situation in Punjab has reached the boiling point and has begun to worry the armed forces of Pakistan. The result is that all kinds of rumors have been taking rounds, including those relating to political changes.
Verifying these rumors is difficult, rather impossible, but media has carried reports in bold headlines that the military has sent messages quietly to the players involved in the current confrontation to restore sanity in Punjab where imposition of governor's rule has whipped up a storm that is hard to control now.
Nawaaz Sharif, the main affectee, has not only toughened his language, and after openly criticizing Asif Zardari, has threatened to block the parliament from functioning. He had earlier asked the civil bureaucracy and police to refuse to accept illegal command of the PPP government, and earned the wrath of the party in power which described it as a call for "civil disobedience".
"We will not allow remote-controlled parliament and helpless judiciary to work," he told a huge rally at Faisalabad, the textile city of Pakistan some 100 miles from Lahore, the principal city and capital of Pakistan's biggest province.
Attempts by Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Asfandyar Wali, two seasoned politicians who lead the Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) and Awami National Party, and are coalition partners of President Zardari. But their approach and capacity to resolve the problem is seriously doubted by analysts, including some of the best known writers and journalists in the country.
While Wali has always been considered as an unhappy man, refusing to see eye-to-eye with Zardari on many an issue, Fazlur Rehman's credentials are open to question because of his reputation of being "not so clean" a person who can fall to temptations.
Army spokesman Maj-General Athar Ali has refused to be drawn into any controversy and requets the media to avoid pulling the army in politics, but insiders insist that the situation is being kept under close scrutiny.
Those close to Musharraf reveal that before bowing out as President of Pakistan and passing the buck to PPP-co-chairman, Musharraf had agreed that the new government will be ön trial "for one year" and in case of failure, the situation will be open to review. Former information Minister, intellectual and analyst Mushahid Hussain, too appears skeptical and told a TV interviewer that Zardari stands "isolated". The PPP is a divided house, and many new entrants and also Benazir loyalists, have been urging him to reverse his decision of governors' rule in the Punjab and remove Salman Taaseer from the seat. They openly argue that and some of them had said in the PPP central committee meeting that Taseer should be dismissed for making a mess.
Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother Shahbaz have put four pre-conditions for compromise with Zardari. These are conditions which will be difficult for the President to accept. The first of these conditions is reinstatement of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhury as the chief justice of Pakistan, a position from which he removed by Musharraf on November 3, 2007. The second calls for the immediate reversal of the decision to unseat Shahbaz as member of the Punjab assembly. There are two other conditions which can be accepted without much ado.
The situation is so bad that some people, and they include men of considerable reputation, have begun to count dates for the change to come in Pakistan. Musharraf supporters fell it will be possible in August because Zardari had taken over after Musharraf quit on 12th August last year. Even the USA and Britain seem worried about Pakistan. President Obama has sought the support of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to help resolve the issue. That is why the British Foreign Minister Milliband has been speaking to Zardari on telephone from London.
Pakistan is still being treated as a key player in the region, especially in the context of the Afghanistan situation. Obama does not wish to abandon it despite USA's major shift towards India in the new policy perception of his country.
Those close to Zardari do confess that he is ready to compromise with Sharif and they should adopt sanity in their approach. But if the March 12 long march which the lawyers are planning from Lahore to Islamabad with a sit-in in the capital city on March 16 does succeed, and ther are 80 percent chances of success because of the massive support coming from the Nawaz Sharif party, the Jamaat i Islami and Tehrik-e- Insaf chief Imran Khan, then the Islamabad will practically be paralyzed.. Fears are that the government machinery will be paralyzed and the Presidency will be in doldrums. Zarrdari has to act and act quickly; any belated decision will be only a spoiler. Analysts are keeping their antenna up these days.
