Ex-foreign secy Kanwal Sibal sees danger for India in the way the Pakistani establishment is sidelining opposition leaders, but other experts don’t agree.
New Delhi: The arrest and sentencing of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on corruption charges is being seen as a determined attempt by the Pakistan establishment to keep the opposition out of politics.
According to India’s former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal, the armed forces and Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf are closely collaborating to ensure that traditional parties like Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party remain “outside the game”, and that “their leadership is not allowed to participate in active politics, to try and kill their future political ambitions”.
“The army’s influence from behind the scenes will become even stronger because Imran Khan on his own cannot survive,” Sibal said.
Sharif was given a seven-year prison sentence Monday by an accountability court in Islamabad as he was held guilty of corruption in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference. The court ordered Sharif to pay a fine of $25 million, and another Rs 1.5 billion in the Flagship Investment reference, in which he was acquitted of corruption charges.
He had been given a 10-year jail term in July in another corruption case, but got bail after the Islamabad High Court suspended his sentence. He is also debarred from assuming public office for 10 years after he completes his jail term.
Meanwhile, a Joint Investigation Team probing a money laundering case has claimed evidence against former President Zardari and his family members.
‘The truth has come out’
PM Khan and information minister Fawad Chaudhry have said the fresh jail sentence has exposed the “real face” of Sharif.
At a meeting with party workers, Khan stated: “The truth has come out with the verdict against Nawaz Sharif.”
Chaudhry, who often takes digs at opposition leaders, said people who were still supporting Sharif should be ashamed of themselves, because the money involved in the corruption case belonged to the people of Pakistan.
However, Maryam Nawaz, Sharif’s daughter, has vehemently denied these allegations.
She said that it was a “blind revenge’s hiccup” and that “when they [court] did not find anything they announced the verdict on assumptions”.
She also accused Khan’s government of targeting Sharif, claiming that “the government officials head to work each day thinking ‘what do I have to do against Nawaz Sharif today’?”
Also read: Former Pak PM Nawaz Sharif gets seven years imprisonment in corruption case
Possible implications for India
The sidelining of the PML and PPP will also have implications for India, said Sibal.
“The radical Islamic forces in Pakistan will get more weight in terms of policy-making and the direction of the country’s foreign policy, especially vis-à-vis India, because they will be able to create problems on the ground for Imran Khan, as we have seen in the case of Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP), which launched its agitation and the government had to step back and yield to its demand,” said Sibal.
He was referring to TLP’s widespread protests across Pakistan after the apex court acquitted Asia Bibi, a Christian woman, of blasphemy charges on 31 October.
Sibal also pointed towards Khan’s repeated interventions in India’s domestic concerns.
“Another disquieting thing is Imran Khan’s tendency to interfere in India’s domestic politics openly and brazenly, as he has done once again by commenting on Naseeruddin Shah’s statement,” he said.
Pakistan is back in the 1990s
Sushant Sareen, senior consultant at the Observer Researcher Foundation, told ThePrint that “in terms of political bitterness, Pakistan has gone back to the 1990s”, a time when the “PML-N and PPP were at loggerheads with each other”.
Sareen said Khan “is the laadla (darling) of the establishment, i.e. the judiciary and the military establishment”, and therefore he doesn’t see “any great political turmoil in Pakistan”.
He also said that the likes of the PML-N and the PPP are “not shaping politics” anymore, as they have lost “street power”.
Commenting on the probe against Zardari, Sareen said though there are several allegations against the former President, they do not necessarily prove that he’s guilty.
Also read: Imran Khan’s Christmas message shows the fundamental difference between India and Pakistan
‘Sharif was and has been corrupt’
Unlike Sibal, Happymon Jacob, writer and associate professor of disarmament and national security at Jawaharlal Nehru University, doesn’t believe said such episodes will lead to “any upheaval”. He said he was not “very negative about the situation of Pakistan at this point of time”.
“There is no doubt about the fact that Sharif was and has been corrupt, and there is no doubt about the fact that Zardari has accumulated wealth beyond his means,” Jacob told ThePrint.
“You have the coming together of two powerful forces in Pakistan. Imran Khan has the support of the youth of the country and its middle class, and this is not a manufactured force, it’s a natural one. On the other hand, you have the Pakistan military.
“Now the army might not have done a great service to the Pakistani nation in terms of democracy and bringing peace and co-existence with India and its neighbours etc, but the reality is that the Pakistan Army is one of the most well-respected institutions within the country.
“When I visit and speak to Pakistani people, I get to see a great deal of positivity and enthusiasm, that the justice system has a certain validity. I see hope in Pakistan.”
A weakened ‘enemy’ in its adjacent neighbourhood is in India’s interest. However, it is in the interest of lasting world peace that all countries should work to strengthen democratic forces in Pakistan where recurrent turmoils and coups over the decades have undermined and jeopardised democracy.
Great writing