Islamabad: where facts meet fiction

DAWN.COM

Saturday may have been quiet in comparison to the crisis-ridden week that just passed but it had its fair share of political activity.

Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani met President Asif Ali Zardari for the first time since the heated outburst of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and the ISPR’s waspish reply. The COAS then went on to join the prime minister in the DCC meeting who then waxed lyrical over the Pak military.

Hence, many predicted that the latest crisis to shake the house of the PPP was over. But for others, this was just a peaceful interlude; war is the natural state of affairs in the Hobbesian civil-military affairs.

Welcome to Islamabad where theories flourish and facts are forced to fit pre-existing hypotheses.

An inexplicable development such as the prime minister’s outburst on Monday where he described Kayani’s and ISI honcho Shuja Pasha’s affidavits as legally shaky, can easily lead an entire city to predict the coup that it had earlier ruled out.

Everyone and his aunt were sure that the government was ready to remove the COAS and that in response the army was about to walk in.

But why would the PPP that too had paid the price of Nawaz Sharif’s foolhardy move in October ’99 consider a similar move? And similarly, no one explained how an army, which is battling a hostile Washington and militias and resentment from within the ranks over May 2, Salala and the extension of the army chief, contemplate a takeover?

Imagine a roomful of corps commanders who all remember the promotions blocked by General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s overly long tenure. They then got rid of him to bring in a professional soldier who too got glued to the seat. Would they now allow anyone to move and take charge a la Musharraf and stay put indefinitely?

In Islamabad on Wednesday afternoon, everyone thought so.

And of course, it’s now universally accepted that each time the military is about to move, it not only changes the command of 111 Brigade but also announces this through the media.
Such is the logic of the speculations and analysis that rule Islamabad.

We can and we do predict the future. And if we are ever proven wrong we simply plough ahead with more predictions.

Is the government going? And if so, will it go before the Senate elections or after the budget? Why is its departure imminent and how? The answers vary by the hour as well as the political affiliations of the person asked. But discussed they are everywhere — at dinners, the parliament house, over cups of coffee and tea, telephone conversations as well as BBMs!

It’s hard to find a ruling party member who does not believe that the judiciary, the military and Nawaz Sharif are colluding to send the government packing.

It’s a conspiracy on the lines of the Da Vinci Code.

It was under a grand plan that ‘memogate’ was unveiled and Nawaz Sharif petitioned the Supreme Court. In these hard cruel times the military is going to use the judges to send the government home.

If it is not the NRO implementation case where the judges have already inched closer to disqualifying the president or the prime minister or both, then it might go for the jugular (aka Zardari) with the memo case.

The commission will investigate and find the memo to be the real McCoy. This will give the courts the chance to then try and declare Husain Haqqani and the president guilty of treason.

The minus one formula is at work.

So what if both these options leave the PPP numbers in the parliament intact?

Not really, for once the president or the prime minister are rendered useless by the court, the fickle rats will desert the sinking ship, leaving the PPP government bereft of a majority.

And why these rats have not been given the signal to do this already so as to save the time and energy of first orchestrating a court verdict and then juggling numbers in the national assembly?

This silly question is not even worth asking. In Pakistan we are wont to never grab our nose directly when there is the option of stretching our hand from behind the head and then pulling at the nose.

The PPP is being targeted and that is the only script anyone is familiar with. Any new twists and turns in the old plot are not acceptable.

But of course the PPP can pre-empt this all by announcing early elections. That none of the other parties are agreed on a single date for the general election is irrelevant.

Fact and fiction are not just stacked up against the PPP but also the PML-N. For the very evil establishment that has colluded with Sharif and the judiciary on ‘memogate’ has also propped up Imran Khan as an alternative to the PML-N.

The Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf with its revolutionary message and open embrace of has-been politicians is the establishment’s latest ploy. As it once created the IJI to deal with the PPP, it has now created the PTI to deal with both the PML-N and PPP.

But is the establishment colluding with the PML-N or with the PTI? And is it going to throw the PPP out to put the PML-N in power or the PTI? Silly, small details.

The establishment, like the proverbial playboy, flirts with anyone and everyone. It also controls the MQM that blows hot and cold with the PPP. The party’s tantrums are another sign that the army has decided to send the PPP government home.

The theories are unending. And the scenarios they throw up are limitless.

But common to them all is an omnipotent establishment – despite being vulnerable to international pressure, domestic anger and resentment within the ranks.

So powerful that it somehow allowed a PPP and a Zardari that it hates to come to power and stay put for four years. But now it finally has a plan to send it home but no one knows why.

No wonder then that one is tempted to rephrase the anonymous proverb to say that those the gods want to destroy, they simply send to Islamabad to take its gossip seriously.