The people of Pakistan had their own surprise in store for these powerful adversaries of IK and, in fact, of all those hankering to see a stable democratic flowering of their country. They foiled the nefarious planning of IK’s arrogant adversaries by coming out in droves on election day and voting for PTI’s ‘independent’ candidates

 

Generals on Collision Course, Once again!
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

 

The late Henry Kissinger’s famous adage, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” has never, quite, lost its absolute relevance as far as Pakistan’s bloated and pompous generals of the army are concerned.

Staying in the sphere of American intellectuals, these snooty and power-besotted generals also prove, in their Himalayan arrogance, the saying of that famous American philosopher, Santaya, absolutely right that those who don’t learn from their past are condemned to repeat it.

Following the February 8 general elections in Pakistan, which the whole world decried as heavily and obtrusively rigged—under unabashed patronage of the generals ruling the roost in Pakistan—a puppet PM has been installed, or rather thrust over the people in Pakistan.

All this drama has, so far, gone according to the last dot of the script prepared by the generals for what increasingly looks like their ‘captured and captive’ Pakistan.

Principal actors and characters in the drama have played their part to the liking of their master-directors.

The script first dictated the notoriously partisan Election Commission of Pakistan to engineer the dismemberment of Imran Khan’s (IK) political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf –-or PTI, as it’s known to millions of its aficionados and followers in Pakistan and abroad. This was achieved when PTI’s intra-party elections were found defective and insufficient.

The apex court of Pakistan, presided over by another of known IK-hater and PTI-baiter Chief Justice Faez Isa, then chipped in with its own PTI-wrecking exercise. The appeal, lodged by PTI against the arbitrary decision of the Election Commission, was contemptuously dismissed by CJ Isa. He also inflicted—what was clearly meant by him and his soulmates in the GHQ as the last nail in PTI’s coffin—the ultimate coup de grace against PTI when he took away its universally-known electoral symbol of Imran’s Cricket Bat.

But the people of Pakistan had their own surprise in store for these powerful adversaries of IK and, in fact, of all those hankering to see a stable democratic flowering of their country. They foiled the nefarious planning of IK’s arrogant adversaries by coming out in droves on the election day and voting for PTI’s ‘independent’ candidates.

Taken by complete surprise, the panicky conspirators then rolled out their Plan-B and, as corroborated by independent news media the world over, massively doctored the results in favor of their puppets—in PML-N, PPP and, not least, MQM, infamous for being perennial lackeys of the powerful ‘Establishment,’ In doing so, they brought back to memory what Joseph Stalin—the Russian iron-man, had famously said: the voters don’t decide the outcome of an election; it’s those who count decide.’

The brazen theft of the people of Pakistan’s mandate in favor of IK and PTI was universally denounced and ridiculed, triggering vociferous agitation from the overseas Pakistani diaspora. That their demand to hold the Pakistani Establishment accountable for their daylight robbery is having an impact is borne out from the joint letter addressed by 33 members of US Congress—mostly from the Democratic Party—to President Joe Biden beseeching him to not lend recognition to this puppet government installed by Pakistani generals against the mandate of the people of Pakistan.

But so infatuated with absolute power—and their infallibility—in the context of governance in Pakistan are these benighted Pakistani generals that they’re moving on with what they think should be the paradigm and endgame of governance in the country they have had in their stranglehold for well over seven decades.

Not content with installing in power a man with a stolen mandate as their puppet PM, the powers-that-be want him to have two-thirds majority in Parliament.

So, swiftly on the heels of this unabashed theft of the people’s mandate, the slavish Election Commission of Pakistan has been prompted to come up with its own hatchet job against PTI and the concept of genuine democracy. Pakistan’s often-neglected and disrespected Constitution categorically stipulates each political party in parliament to be allocated its entitlement of reserved seats, of minorities and women.

PTI, whose independent candidates have, judiciously, joined their ranks with the Sunni Ittehad Council were entitled to receive at least 25 to 30 of these reserved seats. But in another brazen theft of their right, PTI parliamentarians have been denied their share of reserved seats by an unapologetically-partisan ECP, in utter violation of the Constitution.

To add insult to injury, not only has PTI been deprived of its entitlement, but their quota seats have been brazenly distributed to the King’s parties, thus boosting their numbers to ensure a two-thirds plurality in parliament.

But the generals aren’t done with their diabolical scheme.

After packing the decks in favor of their partisans and puppets, the besotted generals held a Corps Commanders conclave at GHQ, on March 5 to take stock of the success of their doctoring of the February 8 elections and final act of their drama in the shape of the puppet government thrust on the people of Pakistan.

The harsh, strongly-worded, communiqué coming out of this conclave of Pakistani Bonapartes reads, infuriatingly, like a declaration of war against the people of Pakistan.

The haughty generals are adamant that they are not poking their fingers in Pakistani politics, Their claim is in total defiance of the history of Pakistan of the past seven decades, with their boots and footprints all over the political landscape.

They’re in total and brazen defiance of the universal uproar that they engineered the outcome of the February 8 elections and were responsible for overturning the vociferous verdict of the electorate in favor of IK and his PTI.

Ridiculing, with obvious contempt, the wave of agitation and protest, inside Pakistan as well as abroad, they’re threatening those daring to call their bluff to be prepared for receiving the thick-end of their batons and bullets.

Repeating the mantra that the army’s sanctity was violated on May 9—when they had their goons attack some military installations and monuments in a command theatrical, false-flag, operation—they seek to sow fear in the hearts of the people of Pakistan, by hinting at more kangaroo trials of the so-called perpetrators and instigators of what transpired on that day.

The communiqué is nothing but a lot of hectoring by those weaned over decades on wielding raw and absolute power as masters of the land.

But this purblind posturing brings back to mind what George Santayana said about a people ignoring the lesson of their history and repeating it, time and again.

What looks increasingly, and undoubtedly, as Generals-Occupied and Conquered Pakistan, stands, precariously and precisely where it stood in 1971, following the elections of December 1970.

The generals’ cabal, then in power, refused to accept the people’s mandate in favor of the Awami League, just as their progeny is resisting to honor the latest mandate of the people in favor of PTI.

The generals’ egregious defiance of that verdict, of December 1970, led to the dismemberment of the Quaid’s cherished Pakistan.

History is a merciless master and doesn’t spare anyone, no matter how powerful, defying its verdict. Pakistan paid the ultimate price of the country’s truncation on that occasion, in December 1971. Can it afford to pay the same price for the arrogance of power of the current bunch of power-drunk generals? - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com

(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)