THE visible discord surrounding relations between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government and the army led by Gen Raheel Sharif, may have begun receding when Sharif presided over the passing out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) in an important symbolic gesture.

But Sharif’s appearance at the prestigious event in the Kakul suburb of Abbottabad, dedicated to graduating cadets heading to begin their army careers as second lieutenants, hardly marked a permanent end to the discord.

On the face of it, ruling politicians and army generals have seemingly been at odds recently over the fate of retired Gen Pervez Musharraf, the coup maker of 1999 and the prime minister’s former nemesis.

But the divide has not been helped by so far futile and controversial peace negotiations between Sharif and the Taliban — a force fought by the Pakistan army for more than a decade.

Visitors to the annual late-April event hosted by the army in Rawalpindi to remember its martyrs, easily become aware of the scale of casualties taken by Pakistan’s army-led security services following the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.

It is not hard to imagine the many young officers and soldiers who have returned from the front lines along the Afghan border after active combat with the Taliban, now find it hard to reconcile to a peace process with their foes.

As Pakistan grapples with the worst security crisis in its 67-year history, divisions between ruling politicians and the men in uniform will hardly serve anyone except the violent groups who seek to take charge of the country through brute force. Yet, bridging that gap may be easier said than done.

The prime minister’s own history with the army and vice versa creates elements of underlying distrust which will not go away easily. Sharif made a visibly historic comeback just last year following the 1999 coup led by Gen Musharraf. The prime minister has indeed acquired a place in Pakistan’s annals of history, becoming the first politician to return to Islamabad for the third time as head of an elected government.

That is no mean achievement in a country where prime ministers historically rode through turbulent and ultimately short-lived tenures. Hair-splitting aside, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the only popularly elected democratic prime minister to complete his tenure to date, eventually went to the gallows in 1979 and left behind divisions which haunt a part of Pakistan to this day.

While democracy indeed returned to Pakistan in 2008 with the departure of Gen Musharraf, the return of stability to this nuclear-armed nation located in a tough neighbourhood is far from assured.

To unlock the riddle of stabilising Pakistan, Sharif and the ruling structure need to work on many fronts with a single-minded focus. Notwithstanding Finance Minister Ishaq Dar’s oft-repeated claim of coming success driven by a stabilising rupee, the chartered accountant-turned-finance ministry czar risks failing to appreciate the superficiality of his claim.

Among Pakistan’s 200 million people, anywhere up to 40pc live in abject poverty. Economic success will remain a distant prospect unless the poorest of the poor feel a so far visibly absent difference to their lives.

Ultimately, solving the riddle of stabilising Pakistan must begin with tackling the worst internal security nightmare to ever confront the country. In the coming months as US-led Western troops depart from Afghanistan, the threat to Pakistan is likely to sharpen from an increasingly emboldened Taliban on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Going forward, an increasingly aggravated internal security environment will follow an apparently futile peace initiative with the Taliban.

As a multi-pronged crisis surrounds Pakistan, Sharif and the army clearly need to be on the same side. Though there are assurances from the army against a repetition of Pakistan’s dangerous history of civil-military tensions leading to another coup, ultimately just actions will speak louder than words.

While Sharif needs to lead as the elected top overseer of Pakistan, he must recognise that an antagonised army creates the risk of alienating a key institution just when the battle ahead will likely become bloodier.

Ultimately, the consolidation of Pakistan’s democratic and civilian institutions will set the pace for overcoming the many acute challenges surrounding the country’s all too obvious and divided domestic fabric.

Yet, that end result will come only after the fight against militancy has been won conclusively.

Clearly, Sharif has the opportunity to stabilise Pakistan. But the first step on that road must be a resolution to the civil-military discord. Short of that, Sharif’s hope of gaining space with his appearance at this year’s parade of graduating army cadets will just become a badly squandered initiative.

The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist who writes on political, economic and security issues.

bokhari62@yahoo.co.uk