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WELL, at least now we know: he’ll take dictation. Nawaz I-won’t-take-dictation Sharif is dead, but what about this new fella? Post-Peshawar, now into a third calendar year of his third stint in power, how’s new, lame-duck Nawaz doing?
Not too bad, actually.
Forget all the could haves, should haves, would haves, let’s talk politics a bit. More obvious than ever, there’s two kinds of politics here: the meta variety; and what the civilians squabble over.
Let’s start with the meta kind. Post-Peshawar, the biggest, baddest, most impressive character in this blighted land of ours is, the other Sharif.
Raheel controls much, Nawaz controls little — everyone knows that. But here’s the thing: Nawaz isn’t competing with Raheel.
Through his various interventions Raheel has swung the system further towards the boys, but in those very interventions has been buried another message: the chief isn’t interested in taking over.
Because other Sharif isn’t interested in taking over, our Sharif can roll over and play dead. Because even though Nawaz has lost the meta game, it’s still looking pretty good for him on the civilian side of things.
Remember: check all those could haves, should haves, would haves at the door first. Now, let’s do this.
Post-Peshawar, Raheel may have trumped Nawaz, but Nawaz has done better than the other folk who matter, ie the civilian competition.
Post-Peshawar, Nawaz has dodged a bullet — thanks, ironically, to the boys — and managed to rise to the occasion — thanks, sadly, to what counts as rising here.
Post-Peshawar, Nawaz is sitting pretty.
Even though Nawaz has lost the meta game, it’s still looking good for him on the civilian side of things.
Let’s start with the dodged bullet. Military courts handed Nawaz a political lifeline — because it switched the conversation from governance failures to judicial incompetence.
Heck, the conversation on governance failure didn’t even start thanks to the alacrity of the boys — they wanted mil courts, they wanted them now and they weren’t going to let the Peshawar moment pass.
Remember: this is a government that was adamant talks needed to happen and believed they could succeed.
Remember: last Jan, Nawaz went to parliament to give a speech everyone thought would lead to a military operation and came out having announced more talks.
Remember: this is a government that pretended to invent an internal security policy and then didn’t even pretend to follow it.
But, post-Peshawar, few remembered any of that and even fewer cared. Because all anyone wanted to talk about was military courts.
Then, Nawaz managed to look busy. Real busy. Almost prime ministerial. He was chairing meetings, turning up in parliament, holding APCs, issuing statement after statement, working, working, working.
Reality seemed to match the spin for once. Nawaz brought the political class together. He manufactured consensus. He acted quickly when the consensus began to fray. He got a constitutional amendment done in double-quick time. He got the hangings up and running.
The critics may split hairs — it wasn’t because of Nawaz; it was all down to Raheel — and the critics may be right. But that’s beside the point.
Military courts are popular. Hangings are popular. Being hands-on, in front of the cameras and getting things done is popular. Nawaz has done all of that. Co-ownership is better than no ownership.
It’s been a good run. And that’s only the security side of things. Elsewhere, the gods have been kind.
A third of the way in, most governments here are usually just trying to paper over the cracks. No reforms, no structural changes, limp economy, rising prices, belt tightening, unpopular choices — the only things that grow around this time is public disillusionment and a government’s problems.
But Nawaz got lucky: oil happened. Prices start to fall. The economists and number-crunchers may argue over the real impact of falling oil prices, but economists and number-crunchers argue over everything. The political impact is clear: folk out in the street love it.
It doesn’t matter that the government here has nothing to do with falling oil prices. It doesn’t even matter if the average man in the street is aware that the government has nothing to do with falling oil prices.
What matters is that instead of entering a phase of rising anger and growing disillusionment, the public is faced with subsiding troubles — or the feeling of subsiding troubles, anyway.
Throw in a couple of billion dollars of savings in imports; metro bus coming online in Isloo; maybe some electricity and road projects grabbing headlines; possibly a sweetheart deal on gas imports — and it’s looking pretty damn good. By Pakistani standards, anyway.
Which is great for Nawaz because, well, we are in Pakistan.
The cherry on top of all of that: you only have to be better than the competition. Since Raheel isn’t it that leaves just one realistic threat: Imran.
But Imran’s had a poor month or so, politically speaking: Peshawar happened in the PTI’s backyard and forced Imran to halt his get-Nawaz campaign. Imran can restart his campaign — and probably will — but, so what?
Assume Nawaz is churlish and stubborn and refuses to give Imran his judicial commission. Imran takes to the streets again. Then what?
Even before Peshawar, two things had become apparent: Imran has enough street support to sustain his protest movement, but not enough to overthrow the government; the only real threat to the government is the government itself.
Post-Peshawar, the only thing that has changed is that the government would have to make an even more catastrophic mistake for Imran to be able to capitalise — what a limp, desultory government can get away with is much less than what a spry, populist government can.
Bottom line, post-Peshawar: Nawaz is weaker, but more secure. Old Nawaz wouldn’t have liked it.
The writer is a member of staff.
Published in Dawn January 11th , 2014
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