By : Hassan Shahryar
Ever since Pakistan came into being. Our militant think tanks have been busy in shaping Political system in Pakistan. Since 1950’s our powerful army has been dominating the political system in Pakistan. Up till now there have been five cycles of military regime. The first four regimes were led by the top generals of Pakistan army.
1. Field Marshal Ayub Khan (1958-69)
2. General Yahya Khan (1969-71)
3. General Muhammad Zia- uL -Haq ( 1977-88)
4. General Pervaiz Musharraf (1999-2008)
During each of these eras the military leadership engaged itself in constitutional process. Trying to create a system that subordinated a powerful presidency led by its generals. Each of these attempts failed as the sole purpose of these militant elements was to keep the public under pressure and mold them according to their will. Despite the significant constitutional engineering, our army failed to sustain a political setup.
Fortunately, these horrendous experiments proved to be gamble with the nation’s future thus our military thought it to be wise to retreat into the background and allow democratic politics to make its way. Although the duration of these democratic constitutional politics varied from time to time, our army tried to contain the civilization by maneuvering from behind-the-scenes.
The first attempt to military-dominated political exclusion ended with Ayub khan. His successor Yahya Khan imposed martial law after Ayub khan was ousted from his power. Even though martial law was a self-destructing experiment, however Yahya Khan was able to hold free and fair elections in 1970. Which was the second phase of military experiment.
The result of those elections paved the way to civil war, when the Bengali Nationalist Party, Awami League won 160 seats from East Pakistan (i.e., Bangladesh today). Pakistan People’s Party won 81 seats. The refusal of handing power over to Awami League by Yahya Khan’s government stir-up civil insurgence. Which was attempted to vandalize by Yahya Khan using military operations. However, that hostility ended in December 1971 with the succession of Eastern side of the Country. Almost 100,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered to Indian Army who were supporting the rebels.
The defeat was shocking as half of the country’s population was lost. Yahya Khan stepped down from his designation and handed over the government to People’s Party leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This highlighted the end of the second military intervention.
Significant period of civilian rule paved its way in the history of Pakistan. Bhutto’s government crafted the constitution of 1973, which was signed by the political forces and was also recognized and endorsed by the parliament. However, the elections held in 1977 claimed a massive victory for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Political rivals rose the allegations of rigging which eventually gave our, dominating minded, military to mount a coup and impose martial law. This time Yahya khan imposed martial law for eight years. Which clearly represented army as its third attempt to dominate politics.
The nature of martial law is that it cannot endure, indefinitely, and its dilution is inevitable because of the validity of the military rulers. In early 1960’s Ayub Khan formally retired from military to lead a new presidential system. However General Zia clanged on to his post as Army Chief and managed to make a few changes in the 1973 constitution which allowed him to dismiss acting prime minister on a moment’s notice. Due to his sharp intellect, he did exercise that in May 1988. His death along with top end Military personnel’s, in a mysterious plane crash brought an end to the third cycle of militant chaotic regime. Which paved a way for civilian governance. However, for the next 11 years the country faced four elected governments.
- Benazir Bhutto (1988-90, and 1993-96),
- Nawaz Sharif (1990-93 and 1997-99).
Even in these civilians’ governance the proxies or puppets of establishment were imposed upon them and the whole country, as President had the power to dismiss those beneath them. A clause was inserted to the constitution, in Zia regime in 1985 that gave them complete supremacy over civilian political leaders. Civilians who tried to become a stepping stone in military’s authority were either forced to exile or were kidnapped by the agencies in the name of national security.
The most unfortunate thing was that each rival party would seek military help in over throwing others. However, with the help of military during the second term of Sharif, with the two-third majority in the legislature the 13th amendment was enacted which took away the President’s power to dismiss the government and dissolution of the parliament. However, the move did not favor civilian government which later allowed General Musharraf to stage a coup and ushered in fourth military regime.
Musharraf embarked with a unique formula as he established a new order that allowed civilian governance but since he was a sitting General so he established himself as President with powers to make changes in constitution as he saw fit. Since General Musharraf was popular, his system worked for a while till the time it did not.
A series of moves executed by him included scaling the supreme court’s chief justice, an army operation against Islamist militants, siege on a holy mosque in the capitol, contesting presidential election while still holding the post of Army chief, imposing state of emergency, forced him to step down in November 2007.
The new army chief finally saw some sense in pulling out military from politics. Which brought an end to the fourth regime attempt by the Pakistan Army. Election after that year were won by PPP (few weeks after assassination of Benazir Bhutto) restored democratic political process. However, military went behind the scene and focused on shaping the behavior of the civilian government, indirectly. After five years of PPP , PML-N won the election in 2013 and thus the chain of so-called democratic government began till the time when military intervened again and bring forth PTI’s Chairman, Imran Khan in 2018. Which turned out to be an exceptionally good decision on their part up to the point when Imran Khan wanted to do something good for the country. His statement as an acting Prime Minister regarding being neutral in the war of U.S with Afghanistan, conveying bluntly that Pakistan will not help U.S in that matter, which meant allowing U.S to operate from our Air space, shook their confidence right away. However the Masters of our military leaders in the Pentagon did not like the fact that Imran Khan sought out help from friends in the Kremlin, Moscow, for Oil, and natural gas.
Our Military superiors have been fond of ruling this country by any means they see fit. However, like they say every nailed that gets out needs to be hammered so our so-called Masters to our military personnels, in the pentagon did not like our Prime Minister seeking help from Russians. Thus began a chain of events which led to a point where classified personnel from the White House, in Washington D.C, delivered a message to our military officials to oust PTI’s Chairman, if Pakistan seeks forgiveness. Unfortunately, our military and civilian leaders believe that the public of Pakistan are beggars and so Imran Khan has no place in ruling beggars because only beggars like Sharif family and top military personnels who are living on the ventilators from the U.S are eligible to rule. Those officials who are enjoying their retirement in the U.S, building empire for their children and their children can not afford to be on the wrong side of the argument . Sadly nation’s pride was never their preference. There is no place for dignity and integrity in this Country. Hence, they conspired and ousted Imran Khan.