Political musical chairs once again
POLITICAL history of Pakistan is filled with trials and tribulations, it is a story of palace intrigues, treachery, back stabbing and the ultimate results of a military takeover four times in our short history.
Contrary to our own past India has always had a political change through democratic and constitutional means.
In India three elected Prime Ministers that is V.P Singh, H.D.Gowda, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee have all been thrown out of office by a no confidence vote in parliament.
No Pakistani Prime Minister has ever been thrown out by this constitutional method.
In our parliamentary history only two Prime Ministers have faced a vote of no confidence and survived.
01 Nov 1989 a no confidence vote against PM Benazir Bhutto failed by 12 votes and subsequently another no confidence attempt against PM Shaukat Aziz also failed to oust him in August 2006.
The latest no confidence move tabled against Imran Khan will be the third attempt in our history to remove a sitting Prime Minister.
Interestingly enough the Indian parliament has seen 27 no confidence moves out of which Indira Gandhi faced 17 no confidence motions and famous stalwarts of India such as Lal Bahadur Shastri, Narsimha Rao, and Morarji Desai also faced these constitutional challenges.
The first ever no confidence motion was tabled against a British Prime Minister Lord North in 1782 and since then about 100 heads of governments have been removed such motions by their respective legislatures.
Imran Khan took office in 2018 with his utopian dream of Riasat-i-Madina and unrealistic campaign promises to end corruption, provide ten million jobs, end terrorism and provide five million low cost houses.
He failed miserably to deliver on all of his promises and is now facing down the barrel of a dangerous no confidence motion that has the potential to end his short hybrid rule in Pakistan.
This time however all rules of democratic principles are being violated, decency, morality and ethical values have been forgotten and the entire political game is becoming uglier by the day.
Both sides are hitting below the belt and the contest has become a no holds barred contest.
Every political weapon from inducements to bribery and blackmail is being shamelessly used to achieve the required winning numbers in parliament.
Wheeling and dealing is rampant, adversaries are now friends and some friends have now become foes.
The name of the game in this high stakes drama is to win at any cost and this blatant shameless tug of war for power does not auger well for the future of democracy in the country.
The proponent of the Riasat-i-Madina has publicly threatened the opposition leaders of some very ugly consequences after winning the no confidence move.
He has called them thieves, robbers and looters of national wealth and to top it all has even accused them of being in cahoots with the enemies of the country.
Spin doctors of the PTI are now busy spinning their fairy tales of an international conspiracy to oust Imran Khan.
The Govt party has decided to hold the mother of all jalsas outside the parliament and some cabinet ministers have called upon the party workers not to let any dissenting PTI member enter the house.
On the other hand the opposition parties have also called for a march on Islamabad and this could result in an extremely dangerous and ugly situation on voting day in parliament.
The tragedy of this situation is that the ruling PTI party has managed to turn a constitutional contest into a street brawl.
The voting on the no-confidence motion will now take place on the 28th of March but the exact result of the vote is still being debated in the media and among the major political parties.
The result will definitely depend on the coalition partners of the PTI particularly the MQM, PML (Q) and BAP, they are still technically a part of the PTI government but they are politicians and are now considering their best options without committing their support to any party.
It appears that the Chowdries of Gujrat are gunning for the Chief Minister’s slot of Punjab and the MQM too has a charter of demand to support the PTI.
It is yet to be seen if the PML (N) will concede to their demands specially now when the PTI has categorically rejected the demand of the PML (Q) for the Chief Minister of Punjab.
With the shaky and doubtful stance of his allies Imran Khan now appears to be treading on thin ice.
The trump cards in this game of political musical chairs are held by the friends of Imran Khan that is Jahangir Khan Tareen and Aleem Khan two powerful dissidents of the PTI who are now in active negotiations with the opposition alliance.
Their position is still not clear but there are clear signs that they are now leaning towards the opposition and some other PTI MNAs doing side deals with the opposition parties.
Imran Khan is busy trying to placate his allies and to satisfy the PTI dissenters but it may be too little too late.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
