POLICY is set by the elected government, it is to be followed by the army. In an election dominated by talk of voters’ immediate needs, corruption and change, it has fallen to Nawaz Sharif to underline what is perhaps the most fundamental of all fault lines in Pakistan: the civil-military divide. That Mr Sharif has been the first to speak out on the need for civilian control this election season is unsurprising given his history with the army leadership over the past decade and a half — first suffering at the hands of Gen Musharraf and then accusing the Gen Pasha-led ISI of supporting the PTI in a quest to undermine the PML-N. Just because the history is personal, however, does not detract from the legiti-macy of what Mr Sharif said on Sunday in an interview with an Indian TV channel.

From the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, through to the two terms of Benazir Bhutto and Mr Sharif’s own bitter experiences, civilian leaders have been taught over the decades that whoever among them desires to make the army submit to civilian control, that leader will suffer personal and political harm. That unhappy history has shifted slightly over the past five years for two reasons. One, for the first time the government of the day and the opposition, both in parliament and outside, have been in agreement that an elected, civilian-led dispensation is the only rightful choice for Pakistan. Two, the army leadership itself has accommodated shifting public and political opinion in allowing a non-military-sponsored, elected dispensation to try and learn to stand on its own feet.

With the gains of the last five years being real but slight, post-May 11 the need will be to press ahead with the project of righting what is euphemistically known as the civil-military imbalance. For that, all political parties should consider endorsing or reiterating Mr Sharif’s comments in the last days of campaigning — a sober and rational endorsement or reiteration rather than provocative statements that can be interpreted as unnecessarily antagonising the army. The greater task will fall to the next parliament and government, in that the civil-military imbalance will only be righted if the civilians themselves are more assertive in matters of national security, defence and foreign policy. That would require both engaging the army meaningfully and quelling its anxieties that a civilian-determined national security strategy would somehow damage the national interest. It can be done and after the election is the time for the civilians to finally start doing it.