Prime Minister Sharif Tried to Emulate Turkey's Erdogan, Now Risks Sharing Fate of Egypt's Morsi

Ali Khurram Tirmezi

Councller (250+ posts)
Just found this:


http://online.wsj.com/articles/pakistan-leaders-predicament-shows-power-of-deep-state-1410282028

Pakistan Leader's Predicament Shows Power of 'Deep State'

Prime Minister Sharif Tried to Emulate Turkey's Erdogan, Now Risks Sharing Fate of Egypt's Morsi


ISLAMABAD—After winning elections by a landslide last year, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif quickly moved to emulate another budding Muslim democracy, Turkey, in neutering the army's political might.


Now Mr. Sharif is finding out the hard way that the success of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in defanging the generals is more of a rare exception than a workable model to follow. His predicament shows just how hard it is for elected politicians to challenge the "deep state" of the military and security establishment that forms a bedrock of power in countries from Algeria to Bangladesh.


With downtown Islamabad taken over by protesters baying for his resignation, Mr. Sharif increasingly risks following another example—that of Mohammed Morsi, the Egyptian president who was ousted by the army after similar protests in Cairo last year, just a year after winning the popular vote.


The Pakistani army, instead of unconditionally backing the elected prime minister as protesters overran Islamabad's government quarter in late August and erected a tent city modeled on Cairo's Tahrir Square or Kiev's Maidan, has positioned itself as an essentially independent third force, publicly demanding that both sides avoid violence.


"Even a message of neutrality in this game tilts the balance against the government. The dice is loaded against Sharif," said Rasoul Bakhsh Rais, director-general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, an Islamabad think tank. "He started out as an Erdogan, but I am afraid he may end up as a Morsi. Very likely."


Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, a civilian and a close aide to Mr. Sharif, said that despite recent "jolts," there is "absolutely no damage" in the civilian government's relations with the military. But he acknowledges that the Turkish model of asserting civilian control isn't applicable to Pakistan anymore, at least not for now.


Mr. Erdogan moved to strip the Turkish army of political power only after years of rapid economic growth and rising living standards solidified his support base. Pakistan's economy, by contrast, remains sluggish and Mr. Sharif can point to few major successes in his term.
WO-AT668_PAKIST_DV_20140909172505.jpg

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has stumbled in trying to neuter the political force of the Pakistani army.PPI/Zuma Press




"The Turkish ruling party has delivered to the people of Turkey, and this gives them a lot of leverage," Mr. Asif said. "If we are given time, as they had, for more than a decade, and we are able to perform and we are judged by our performance in the 3 years until the end of our term, then perhaps the political forces of democracy will be much more strengthened."


Whether Mr. Sharif has that time, however, is uncertain at best.


The Pakistani and Egyptian militaries are similar in many ways: Both enjoy huge U.S. funding and run vast business empires sheltered from civilian oversight. But the Pakistani army, which ruled the country for half of its history, is still recovering from the 1999 coup that ended Mr. Sharif's previous term in office. For now, at least, it is reluctant to openly seize power, knowing how unpopular such a takeover would be.


This means that Mr. Sharif could survive the current protests, launched by opposition politician Imran Khan and Islamic cleric Tahir ul Qadri, who claim that last year's elections were illegitimate because of fraud and violations of electoral law. Messrs. Khan and Qadri, as well as the army, deny allegations by Mr. Sharif's supporters that the protests are secretly orchestrated by the military.


Even if Mr. Sharif clings to office for now, he is likely to limp on as a much diminished figure, vulnerable to the kind of intrigues that the army, headquartered in the city of Rawalpindi, repeatedly used to unravel past Pakistani governments from behind the scenes.


Following the latest protests, "the balance of power…rests not in Islamabad, but rests unfortunately in Rawalpindi," Sen. Raza Rabbani of the Pakistan Peoples Party, which ran the previous government and backs Mr. Sharif in the current standoff, told parliament last week.


Mr. Sharif, to be fair, wasn't nearly as reckless as Egypt's Mr. Morsi. Within a few months of taking office, the Egyptian president alienated all the main political forces outside his Muslim Brotherhood, seized legislative powers and infuriated the Egyptian army by backing Islamist rebels in Syria. He even embraced Egypt's own former Islamist terrorists, including those involved in the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat.


Yet Mr. Sharif didn't come close to emulating Mr. Erdogan's patience, either. Almost immediately after assuming power in June 2013, Mr. Sharif stubbornly pressed for a treason trial of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the former army chief who ousted and imprisoned him in 1999 and who now faces the death penalty. Mr. Sharif also irked the army by trying to take over its traditional oversight of relations with India and Afghanistan, and by backing the Geo TV network that accused the military's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency of trying to assassinate its star anchorman. As a result, he has quickly found himself in open conflict with the army chief whom he picked in November. (Mr. Morsi, too, was overthrown by the supposedly pliable army chief he himself had appointed.)


"The prime minister is very fond of shooting himself in the foot," said retired Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, who was the Pakistani military's chief spokesman until 2012. "He has fallen out with the army, and the army has fallen out with him…In this environment, if you try to clip the wings of the army, the army will react—and the army has reacted."


 
Last edited by a moderator:

adil786

Minister (2k+ posts)
وڈا پٹواری جب طاقت میں ہوتا ہے تو گردن کو پڑتا ہے اور جب کمزور ہوتا ہے تو پاؤں پڑتا ہے
وڈا پٹواری جب جیت کر آیا تو اردگان بننے کے چکر میں تھا لیکن یہ بھول گیا کہ اردگان کے پیچھے اس کے لوگ کھڑے ہیں اور وہ لوگوں کی حقیقی ووٹ سے آیا ہے گھر بیٹھ کر ڈبے نہیں بھرتا رہا
پھر جب اپنی اوقات کا پتا چلا کہ میں تو ہوں ہی جعلی وزیرے عازم تو بھاگم بھاگ آرمی کے پاؤں پکڑ لئے

 

Saladin A

Minister (2k+ posts)
Is Nawaz Shariff indispensiable and irreplaceable as prime minister?

Is Nawaz Shariff the only man considered to be the best prime minister by these corrupt, dishonest and embezzling parliamentarians? If, that is the case then it is obvious that those who are backing Nawaz Shariff to stay in his office are defending the most corrupt and maligned status quo that benefits criminals, gangsters and looters of Pakistan.
 

PkRevolution

Chief Minister (5k+ posts)
Re: Is Nawaz Shariff indispensiable and irreplaceable as prime minister?

ن لیگ میں سب سے عقلمند لوگ یہی دوبادشاہ بھائی ہیں اور پاکستانی قوم کے نزدیک سب سے بے وقوف یہی ہیں

اب باقی آپ سمجھ گئے ہوں گے

 
Last edited:

intekhab

Chief Minister (5k+ posts)
Re: Is Nawaz Shariff indispensiable and irreplaceable as prime minister?

ن لیگ میں سب سے عقلمند لوگ یہی ہیں اور پاکستانی قوم کے نزدیک سب سے بے وقوف یہی ہیں

اب باقی آپ سمجھ گئے ہوں گے

You are from the qoum or noora league...but in my view they are filthy paindoos who are doing best in their view.
 

aazaad

MPA (400+ posts)
I feel sorry for PMLN, the thing they are not trying to understand is. With the media on the political grounds , old tectics will not be useful any more. The game rules has been changed, players has been changed everything has been changed. And they still want to fight with 1980 old dirty tricks and do not share. The key for Zardari's Success was to eat and let others eat. But PLMN is so greedy they want to keep it all among the family. How many portfolio of ministries he himself has, if few distributed among PPP. They would have sing much better in joint session. Still time is not over, otherwise in the next election they will be wiped out.
 

Back
Top