Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Pakistan is turning into a Theatre of the Absurd. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif suddenly felt unwell and dashed off to London to consult doctors. His conveniently timed trip fell on the very day Army Chief and self-anointed Field Marshal Asim Munir was due to be elevated to the unprecedented post of combined Chief of the Army, Air Force and Navy. Fresh drama followed around Shehbaz’s return. Instead of flying back to Islamabad, he landed at Lahore. Whether by accident or design, Shehbaz’s vanishing act only added fuel to the speculation surrounding Munir’s impending coronation as Pakistan’s supreme military boss.
The turbulence began on November 27 with the retirement of General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. With his departure, the post was abolished. Under Pakistan’s 27th Constitutional Amendment, a new Chief of Defence Forces, or CDF, should have immediately taken over command of all three services.
Munir was poised to step into his oversized boots, baton polished and ready. That was precisely when Shehbaz flew to London, ostensibly for medical reasons but also to consult his elder brother, Nawaz Sharif, the family patriarch.
The whisper mill says there’s significant resistance within the military to Munir’s elevation. Dissent is not confined to the Army. Air Chief Marshal Zafar Ahmad Babar Sidhu is reportedly incensed as Munir will now wield authority over the skies.
At the same time, Pakistan’s Army is spreading the story that its nightmare of a multi-front conflict is inching closer to reality. The Army has long feared being trapped between India and Afghanistan. An early conflict with India and continuing tensions over Kashmir were accompanied by irredentist claims of successive Afghan governments, which questioned the British-demarcated Durand Line border.
Today’s situation is worse. Pakistan is now effectively fighting on three fronts. Alongside India and Afghanistan, it is facing a relentless campaign by the Afghanistan-based TTP. The TTP slips across the porous border, attacks Pakistani forces and retreats to sanctuaries where the Army cannot pursue them. Munir will soon have to deploy the full might of the Army to push back the TTP. That will be a long, difficult fight. Predictably, Pakistan continues to accuse India of quietly backing the group. Amid all this came another twist in former Prime Minister Imran Khan saga. For weeks, his family had been denied access to him, fuelling speculation he was gravely ill or even dead. In a dramatic shift, the authorities allowed his surgeon sister Uzma Khan to meet him inside Adiala Jail. Section 144 was imposed around the jail as Uzma Khan met him for the first time in weeks. She reported him well but furious as he was only being allowed out of his cell for 30 minutes a day. The Army and Government may be tightening the screws to push Imran Khan towards exile, as they did with Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.
Even so, perhaps the gravest threat comes from within Pakistan’s own power structure. By trying to consolidate unprecedented authority, Munir has antagonised too many elements, including the Air Force, parts of the Army, the judiciary, political players and the public. One thing is clear. This saga is far from over and Pakistan has rarely offered more dramatic political theatre.
