The new dispensation of distribution of spoils has nothing new about it. It’s the familiar pack of old guards—partisans of the status quo — whose subservience and loyalty to the country’s Security Establishment has always been above board – Reddit

 

Denizens of Status Quo at Helm, again!
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

The Muslim world is in Ramadan mode, and so is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

There’s an old adage associated with Ramadan, i.e. that Satan is incarcerated during this holy month, depleting his capacity to influence or affect the pious fasting Muslims.

No pun intended. But, perhaps, with an eye on that, Pakistan’s notorious, and omniscient, ‘Establishment’ put the final touches to their over-weaning plan to hog political center-stage through their puppets, before the onset of the holy month.

Pulling the levers of power from behind the stage—when not in control, upfront, with the help of martial law—has been a familiar pattern of lording over Pakistan with its Bonapartes.

What they did on the night of February 8 and 9 was an act of outrageous theft, even by their own standards of usurpation of power—a game the Bonapartes are hopelessly addicted to.

But so brazen was their assault on the ramparts of Pakistani electorates’ power of vote that the whole world took notice of it, and called the generals’ bluff.

However, morbidly unfazed by the loud outcry of ‘foul’ the power-addicted company of besotted generals has gone ahead with their blueprint of how they wish to lord over a familiar terrain: taking no blemish for the failure of the puppet regime thrust over the people of Pakistan in utter disregard of their verdict.

So, the new dispensation of distribution of spoils has nothing new about it. It’s the familiar pack of old guards—partisans of the status quo — whose subservience and loyalty to the country’s Security Establishment has always been above board. That singular quality of their political persona is what endears them to the Bonapartes. They’re trustworthy factotums whom the men-in-khaki could count upon to deliver, according to the agenda handed down to them; the welfare and interests of the people of Pakistan are at the bottom of their list.

Asif Ali Zardari—with his worldwide reputation as a corruption genius—gets the top slot of President of Pakistan, succeeding a clean, though timid, Dr Arif Alvi.

Zardari’s elevation to the head of state is nothing short of an irony and a cruel joke with the people of Pakistan. He becomes the first civilian to become President for a second time. But more grating on the people of Pakistan is his reputation as a master of corruption. So, they would be entitled to bemoan that the worst amongst them has been chosen by their chess masters to lord over them.

The choice of the younger of the two Sharif brothers—Nawaz and Shehbaz—is out of the Bonapartes’ concern to give priority to absolute loyalty. Nawaz has been pesky and troublesome, to the distaste of the generals. Shehbaz, in comparison, has the reputation of an obeying factotum. Hence, the scales at GHQ tilted in his favor.

Shehbaz’ cabinet of Ministers is a pack of mostly old faces who have been coming in and going out of the revolving door of power over the past three decades. They’re mostly men of straw who did nothing good, as far as the welfare of the people of Pakistan was concerned. Instead, they were known for larding their own nests.

But there are surprises, too: Jarring surprises, as such.

The crucial portfolio of the Finance Minister has, mercifully, been taken away from the grubby hands of Ishaq Dar, who made a mess of it whenever he headed it. But this puny man, with no feather in his hat, has now been thrust over the sensitive and highly important Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

One wonders what sins were committed by professionals of the Foreign Office to have this joker as their new head. One is reminded of what that immutable bard, Shakespeare, said so graphically about pigmies like this Dar: ‘Some are born great; some achieve greatness; but some have greatness thrust upon them.’ Dar, the darling of the Sharifs and their masters-in-khaki belongs to the last category.

The appointment of Mohsin Naqvi as the new Interior Minister may be surprising to many who don’t know the antics of this social climber.

Who, if any, had heard the name of Mohsin Naqvi, until he was foisted over the largest province of the country as caretaker Chief Minister, less than a year ago? He was a stringer for CNN until his family connections with General Asim Munir smoothed his way to the top of Punjab. Backed by the khaki power, Naqvi let loose a reign of terror over Punjab, which was trying to steal a march over KPK in their support for Imran Khan (IK) and his PTI.

Naqvi turned Punjab into a Gestapo land, cracking down brutally on the partisans and aficionados of IK and PTI. His performance—obviously with the full connivance of the khaki-power—endeared him to those who have treated Pakistan as their fief.

Naqvi retains the trophy of Chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in addition to becoming the new czar of a Ministry which was turned into a rapacious killing mafia under that irascible Rana Sanaullah.

To those wondering why this upstart, show-boy, Naqvi has been installed in the Home Ministry, he has quickly bared his knuckles. The latest draconian order banning any visits to the notorious Adiala Prison—where the most prominent detainee is none other than the country’s most popular political leader and former PM IK—gives a clue to what mandate factotum Naqvi has been handed down by his khaki masters. He has to prove that he’s up to their expectations, if not exceeding them by a wide margin.

The obvious game plan of this puppet government is to take confrontation with IK and his PTI to a new level. The name of the game is to turn ever more screws on those who were given a loud and categorical mandate by the people of Pakistan on February 8.

This nihilistic policy of aggravated confrontation with democratic and liberal factions of the people of Pakistan is mind-boggling. It’s currency in a country teetering on the brink of an economic meltdown forces one to ponder what’s the bottom line of our military overlords’ agenda.

The Bonapartes seem frozen, hopelessly, in time. They still believe that their muscle power can muzzle the voices of agitation against their purblind paranoia of power. They’re repeating the same mistakes that truncated Pakistan, in 1971, in their pervert imagination that they wouldn’t face the same fate that befell the country in the East Pakistan fiasco. They’re the living embodiment of Albert Einstein’s acid test of insanity.

Another old dictum, the more things change the more they remain the same, is so apt and so timely in the case of Pakistan. It’s not the people but the country’s pompous and bloated ruling elite which seems hell-bent on committing Harakiri, en masse! - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com

(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)