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WE aren’t Turkey, but we have a few things in common, especially the possibility of you-know-who staging a you-know-what. But in a week of wild chatter here, let’s take on a slightly different question: can he, even if he wanted to?
To ask the question before Turkey would have been to be dismissed as delusional. It is an article of faith that if the boys want to, the boys can. It is only because they have decided they don’t want to get rid of it that the rest of us get to keep our democratic project.
It is a further article of faith that the Turkey muddle cannot happen here — a coup, if it is to come, will only ever come from the very top. Organised, disciplined, unified, top-down. No funny business from the middle ranks.
It’s hard to imagine Nawaz pulling an Erdogan and flying back from London or taking to the streets in Lahore.
But can he, even if he wanted to?
For a while after the Musharraf ouster, it didn’t look like a coup would be possible, even if the chief wanted one. It wasn’t just the shadow of the Musharraf years, but also the rise of new, institutional impediments: the Supreme Court and the electronic media.
Then came the partial implementation of the Charter of Democracy with the cleaning up of the Constitution via the 18th Amendment. The concurrent list was abolished and power drained away from the centre.
Where once only the capture of parliament mattered, now there were five assemblies that had to be simultaneously moved against for power to be consolidated back in one man’s hands.
Overthrow had become more complicated.
But then it simplified itself again. The Supreme Court overcorrected for the hyper activism of CJ Iftikhar after he left and quickly slid back into anonymity. The electronic media, through wounds external and self-inflicted, became less of a threat.
And the provinces didn’t do much with their new powers, meaning the new system didn’t take root quickly enough to be firmly on the path to becoming an irreversible reality.
As the institutional obstacles receded, a familiar binary reasserted itself: the competent and the patriotic versus the venal and the corrupt. And once again it appeared that if the chief wanted to, he could. Like at the height of the dharna, with protesters spilling into the grounds of parliament and blood spilling on Constitution Avenue.
Raheel chose not, therefore we got to keep our democratic project. But that’s two years ago already. What if, like he was urged to this week, he and the high command decide that there is reason and need to take over?
Could he just do it? What would happen if he did?
Presumably, he wouldn’t be as amateurish as the Turkish mid-rankers have been. The ground would be prepared, a narrative spun and a chasm opened between the approval ratings of the ousted and the incoming. It would be sold as the necessary thing to do.
In response, it’s hard to imagine Nawaz pulling an Erdogan and flying back from London or taking to the streets in Lahore. And the N-League is no party of street protests, its voter seemingly the more passive kind.
But a subdued N-League supporter doesn’t mean support for the democratic process itself is subdued. The numbers actually suggest the opposite: the Pakistani electorate is the most active it has ever been in its history.
Between 1988 and 2002, turnout in general elections roughly ranged between 35 and 45 per cent. In 2008, it was 44pc nationally for parliament. An indifferent electorate is a would-be dictator’s best friend.
When more than half the voters are not voting, a dictator can plausibly argue that the average citizen is disgusted with a fake democratic system and is more interested in a system that works for the people. Numbers don’t lie. And dictators can produce results.
But then came the miracle of 2013: turnout sailed to a historic high of 55pc nationally. In Punjab, it was 60pc — a full 12 percentage points ahead of 2008.
What was not known then was if it was the Imran effect, a one-off aberration driven by frenzied competition. Three years on, we have an answer: it was not an aberration.
The local government elections ostensibly have been a litany of bad news: poorly organised, barely understood and lower voter turnouts.
But lower compared only to the historic high of 2013. Compared to the general elections of 2008 and before, the 2015 LG numbers were sky high: 46pc nationally, with Punjab crossing 60pc.
It’s possible to make too much of these numbers. Only the credulous would believe that high electoral participation would necessarily translate into citizen resistance à la Turkey.
There is also a worrying rural-urban skew in voting patterns, with significantly higher turnouts in rural areas. An apathetic urban electorate can be enough for a would-be dictator: rural protests are harder to organise and have less of a national impact.
But the numbers do mean something. At the very least, the public engagement with the democratic process is deeper and stronger than it has ever been. There is also no reason to believe 2018 will produce a dramatic downturn.
And so may be emerging a most unexpected of firewalls against the next coup, even as other institutional impediments fall away: the average voter may be coalescing into a mass that is significantly and consistently bigger than the non-voter.
You can sell acting on behalf of the people against an unrepresentative government. You can’t quite as easily sell acting on behalf of the people against the people.
We may not be Turkey, but we may have our own reason for cheer: the people are awakening.
The writer is a member of staff.
Twitter: @cyalm
Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2016
