WILL the motley opposition achieve its ambitious aims of toppling the weak PTI regime and the powerful establishment that allegedly props it up? In its favour is the fact that Pakistani regimes rarely complete terms. However, their past longevity has depended on their nature.

Civilian regimes that won power via the security establishment’s help in the 1950s and 1990s fell easily within three years or less once they lost its support. But assemblies coming from credible polls completed their five-year terms. Their legitimacy made them more immune to ploys. Overt autocracies lasted the longest, but only by becoming US clients. They each fell only after around a decade after they had stoked huge conflict nationally, caused economic trouble, faced internal protests, lost US patronage and alienated national elites. But their fall never permanently ended the intrigue of establishment circles and it was always back in politics within a few years. Thus, toppling a specific ‘establishment regime’ is tough enough. Toppling the establishment’s role forever, as the opposition now aims to do, is a Herculean task never achieved so far.

But the PTI is not an overt deep state regime; it is a civilian one that won polls though, allegedly, with some help. Such regimes fall easily once troubles brew between them and their patrons and the opposition sells itself as a better option to the latter. Given Nawaz Sharif’s long silence, the PML-N likely tried this option quietly but found the PTI would not be unwillingly dropped despite its poor record. Thus, the PML-N has now taken on the more arduous task of toppling the ‘hidden elements’. Can it do so when it couldn’t even achieve the easier task of toppling what they see as their civilian face?

Its success may need the recurrence of most of the factors given here that helped topple overt autocracies earlier. The first was simply longevity as after nearly a decade in power, the regimes ran out of tricks to stay in power. In contrast, the current one is only two years old. Huge violence was another factor. But violence now is much lower than near the end of the three past autocracies. The economic situation is worse. But economic turmoil usually topples regimes when huge twin deficits lead to currency collapse and hyperinflation. That seems unlikely in the medium term at least.

The aim of toppling the regime in a few months is unrealistic.

The loss of support of major states also sunk past autocracies. The current regime never had the strong support of any major state. It alienated the Saudis somewhat while ties with the US remain lukewarm. Internally, the regime has strong support among sections of the middle class that still hope naively for ‘tabdeeli’. But industrialists and rural elites do not appear to support or oppose it strongly. Finally, it is impossible to judge how second-tier officers in a key institution feel about the regime and the extent to which their institution is allegedly involved in politics and is being blamed for the PTI’s failures.

So the ‘hidden players’ are not as weak as past overt establishment regimes were before they fell. This means the scale of the last destabilising factor, ie, opposition protest, will have to be much higher than in the past for it to succeed. But protests even when they occurred together with other destabilising factors toppled such regimes and led to civilian rule only after a couple of years. The present set-up also has wide powers to undermine protests by arresting key opposition leaders under dubious NAB rules. Thus, the opposition’s aim of toppling alleged PTI backers or even the PTI government itself within a few months seems unrealistic unless it can get the overt support of media, bars and civil society, and the covert support of other powerful actors.

Despite its high rhetoric, the opposition may yet use its protests to try to strike a deal with elements in establishment circles given its past chequered history of doing so. Would it achieve anything then? As a firm believer in incremental change, I would say it would if it leads to free polls and more civilian sway than we see today. The current system has put Pakistan behind economically, politically and even security-wise. It has no positive results to show despite the high hopes and claims, and is surviving solely due to the stubborn ego and crude power of certain elements.

Left unchallenged for long, it too may run the country aground, like some of its predecessors. Thus, the sooner it ends the better it will be for Pakistan recognising fully that what will replace it will still be well short of a mature democracy. Still, such a development will put Pakistan closer to the two more realistic bars for judging democracies in developing states — regular fair elections and more civilian sway. This in turn will make society less prone to the huge conflicts that autocracies always spawn.

The writer is a political economist and heads INSPIRING Pakistan, a progressive policy unit.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

Twitter: @NiazMurtaza2

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2020