Who are these leaders, adherents, proponents, champions, and protagonists fighting the battle in Islamabad and the ones who are playing the game of thrones in the shadows of Rawalpindi?
The focus will only be on three individuals, the following Prime Minister Imran Khan, the new Wazir-e-Azam Shahbaz Sharif and the conjuror, and the puppeteer the famous, powerful, and respected Army Chief General Bajwa.
We begin with the first Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran Khan, who was ousted from power with a no-confidence motion that was forwarded in Pakistan’s National Assembly by the opposition. Khan also became the 22nd prime minister to leave the office without completing a full term. All of his predecessors earned the same fortune. In the history of Pakistan, not a single Prime Minister has ever completed his term in office. Some of them fought back and returned to power yet again ended up with the same fate.
The critics of Imran Khan have already written him off, declaring the end of his political career, saying that it is only a matter of time before he is put down in history books, whereas his supporters have a completely different view, according to them Imran Khan is not a usual or ordinary politician, he will come back strong, they call his loss a prelude to a new journey and they see him coming to power again soon.
Elections will be held in Pakistan almost a year from now in May 2023. The PTI claims that they would not only win the election but will also sweep a two-thirds majority and which they say is absolute. The PTI has already started there election campaign. But do they have a chance? For this, they will have to campaign in Rawalpindi.
In Pakistan governments are not elected in fact they are selected. No one can form a government without the blessings of the establishment. Pakistani politics has an unspoken rule that the top generals can have a favorite Prime Minister but the Prime Minister cannot have a favorite general.
Imran Khan is accused of violating this rule, he tried to punch over his weight and interfered in the affairs of the establishment, and reportedly even conspired to remove the Army Chief. History has shown us all that whoever tried to oust an army chief without his consent was arrested, exiled, killed, or simply removed from office.
Imran Khan is ousted from the government and his troubles may have just begun. Some people are already accusing him of treason. They are trying to limit his activities; they are preventing him from going abroad and soon investigation for corruption will start on him. Several petitions have already been filed against him; some of them were rejected by the top courts of Pakistan and some are still pending. In plain words, Imran Khan will have to face a tough time now and also may have to bear the wrath of the establishment.
Now let’s shed some light on adherent # 2, the newly appointed prime minister of Pakistan Mr. Shahbaz Sharif. He will have to face a different set of challenges, the list tops with a stagnant economy, increasing debts, rising inflation, a weaker currency, escalating violence, and growing terrorism plus a damaged relationship with America.
Shahbaz Sharif came to power when the country’s economy is in a state of total disorder, inflation is at its all-time high which is more than 12%, and there is a foreign debt of $ 130 billion and a currency value of 190 Pakistani rupees per dollar.
Shahbaz Sharif must bring in some extreme reforms to reverse the situation and he has only a year to prove himself. The next challenge will be insurgency from the Pakistani Taliban’s as they are active again since March. A Militant group attacked Pakistan’s paramilitary security forces in the country’s northwest recently, triggering a shootout in which at least six troops and three insurgents were killed. Imran Khan tried to strike a peace deal, he signed an agreement with the Threak-e-Taliban, which did not last long.
Whenever there is a change of guard in Pakistan, terrorist groups increase their activities to buy more concessions. Mr. Sharif must control them and act fast.
The third challenge is foreign relations, the West is not happy with Pakistan and for the most part, Imran Khan is responsible. At first, he participated in the Beijing Winter Olympics, when the West boycotted the Olympics, then he visited Moscow on the day Russia invaded Ukraine, and then showed resistance in condemning Russia’s military operation. Pakistan’s relations with the west are not the same as in the past and Shahbaz Sharif would have to work hard to make up for the damage done by former Prime Minister Imran Khan and appease the US to keep the money flowing.
In Pakistan, the third protagonist the Army Chief has to face faces fewer challenges. The army has always been in control of the hybrid regimes in Pakistan. The army controls the security and foreign policy plus many businesses. If a Prime Minister does not fit their needs they engineer a soft coup and set up a new leader in office. This time by bringing the PML-N leader to power again, the army has played another wild card knowingly that Shahbaz Sharif is the brother of 3 times former prime minister Nawaz Sharif who still controls his party policies and was also ousted from power with the help of the same establishment. At present, there are no indications of a clash between the Sharif brothers and the army, although it appears that they have joined hands with them to oust Imran Khan.
Only Time will tell how the next season of Game of Thrones ends.