Politics

Imran Khan Run Out By United Opposition. Will Shehbaz last till 2023? Can he deliver on the economy? Can he improve India-Pakistan ties?

Imran Khan Run Out By United Opposition. Will Shehbaz last till 2023? Can he deliver on the economy? Can he improve India-Pakistan ties?

No Prime Minister of Pakistan has ever completed a full term in its 75-year history as an independent sovereign republic. Many hoped that Imran Khan would buck the trend and herald a new era of democracy and political stability in Pakistan by completing his full term. That was not to be.

To use cricketing parlance, he was dashing to reach the crease but got run out by a united opposition. He enjoyed the full support of the one establishment that matters most in Pakistan politics, the Army.

Imran Khan was the Army’s blue-eyed boy, and he wore this as a badge of honour. Yet, he met a similar fate as his illustrious predecessors. In a midnight no-trust vote brought in by a united opposition, Imran Khan was ousted as the PM of Pakistan.

Imran Khan

Many believe the main reason for his downfall was his fall-out with General Bajwa on the issue of the appointment of Director General of ISI Lieutenant General Nadeem Anjum. 

Imran wanted Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed to continue as he had played an instrumental role in helping Imran win the 2018 elections. Imran wanted him to continue as he expected a similar help to win 2023 election.

This was seen as civilian interference in military matters and did not go down well with the army. The countdown had begun. There were differences in matters of foreign policy as well along with his arrogant style of functioning and unyielding nature. This was a battle he was never going to win.

The cricket world cup-winning Imran had met his Waterloo. The opposition solidarity is very intriguing as the two main opposition political parties, PPP (Pakistan People’s Party)and PML(N) (Pakistan Muslim League), are known to be daggers drawn at each other. Their apparent unity seems to have been engineered by the army, with the sole purpose of dethroning Imran Khan from the post of Prime Minister.

Imran’s electoral victory was viewed by the commentariat as a soft coup engineered by the Pakistan Army, the real rulers of Pakistan. They installed him in the position of Prime Minister hoping he would be a pliable civilian leader, but the script ran out differently.

He crossed one red line after another, undermined the army’s authority, and pushed back against their policies. His downfall is primarily the result of his confrontation with the army chief General Bajwa, the state of the economy notwithstanding. His refusal to play into the hands of the generals became his nemesis.

But every cloud has a silver lining. Imran Khan even in his ouster has given the people of Pakistan a glimmer of hope to fulfill their long cherished dream of seeing their country behave like a normal democracy.

This was the first time that any PM of Pakistan was voted out democratically through a no-confidence vote in the parliament of the country. All previous PMs were either booted out unceremoniously by a military coup or were eliminated through assassinations or hanged by the military.

After Imran’s ouster, Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in as the new Prime Minister. How different is he from Imran Khan, and what changes could he bring to the India-Pakistan relationship?

Shehbaz is the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif, the former and deposed Prime Minister of Pakistan. He has taken charge and recently announced a coalition cabinet. Shehbaz Sharif has lived a very colorful personal life.

He has been married five times and divorced thrice. At present, he has two wives. There is a debate as to who will be the first lady.

Having grown up in the lap of wealth, Shehbaz always had a liking for the high life. His home is a sprawling 200-acre estate in Lahore called Jati Umra, named after his ancestral village in Amritsar, India.

The Sharif family migrated from India to Pakistan during partition. Shehbaz Sharif after completing his graduation joined the family business of mining and steel production run under the brand Ittefaq Group.

Shehbaz and his brother Nawaz have been accused of indulging in wanton corruption through sweetheart deals to promote their business.

They have been accused of siphoning off government money by getting unsecured loans from nationalized public sector banks and investing them in their companies and later refusing to repay by declaring them as NPA.

They were helped in this endeavor by the rulers of Pakistan, largely Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the military dictator General Zia Ul Haq. Their corruption earned them the sobriquet of “The Godfather” and “Sicilian mafia” from the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Shehbaz Sharif used his ill-gotten wealth to get into politics and contested the 1988 election to the Punjab assembly and got elected. In 1997 he became the Chief Minister of Punjab.

As chief minister, he created a reputation for himself of someone who can provide good governance along with development. He focused on healthcare, education, agriculture as well as industrial sectors and infrastructure.

Many in Punjab view Shehbaz as the man who built today’s Lahore. He improved the transportation infrastructure of Punjab by focusing on connectivity and built many intercity roads and highways and initiated the first metro line in Lahore.

He is known as a diligent politician and a very astute administrator. A hardcore realist, he is known to deliver on his promises made to the people. This has made him very successful as a politician.

During the 1999 military coup by General Parvez Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif was removed as Prime Minister of Pakistan while Shehbaz Sharif was removed as chief minister of Punjab and both were put behind bars.

They were released after two years, in the year 2001, when the Saudi King intervened on their behalf and proposed to host them in Saudi Arabia where the family stayed for six years till 2007.

After returning from exile in Saudi Arabia, Shehbaz got elected as the Chief Minister of Punjab for a second term, a feat he repeated in 2013 as well when he got elected for a third term. In 2018, he was elected as a member of the Pakistan National Assembly.

He served as the leader of the opposition there till he became the unanimous opposition candidate for the post of Prime Minister and was recently sworn in as such.

As opposed to his more illustrious elder brother Nawaz Sharif who was known for pulling big crowds in his rallies and impressing them with his powerful oratory, Shehbaz is known for his practical skills in implementing policies and for conceiving ambitious development projects and translating them into reality.

After Nawaz Sharif was sent to London on forced exile, Shehbaz became the face of opposition, the leader of PML(N). Shehbaz has always had cordial ties with the army, but, unlike Imran Khan, he was not beholden to them as he has his own mass base. He neither antagonized the generals nor did he appease them.

He has clearly demarcated areas of interest of the army and the civilian government which has been acceptable to the army as well as the civilian disposition. The present hybrid arrangement of power sharing is something that Shehbaz is very comfortable with. As far as his stance on India is concerned, it is not much different from his predecessors, but he is not as hawkish as Imran Khan.

He has proposed dialogue to solve all outstanding issues with India. He believes in improving trade ties with India and bringing peace to the region. Given his track record, the security and strategic establishment in India is cautiously optimistic given the fact that no matter who is in power in Pakistan, when it comes to India, it is the Pakistan army that calls the shots.

edited and proofread by nikita sharma

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