Will Nawaz Sharif be different the third time?

The recent elections proved yet again that Punjab decides Pakistan’s destiny. It is not just the elections; the overwhelming evidence in every sphere of life points decisively in that direction. The officer corps of the army is packed with Punjabis, the army and the ISI chiefs are invariably from Punjab, the civil services are dominated by Punjabis as indeed are the higher echelons of judiciary. Take the post-election set up; the prime minister, the army chief and the chief justice are all Punjabis.

It could be argued that with over 50% of the Pakistani population, Punjab should get a fair proportion of the spoils. One must concede that as a good argument but only if that share was really fair. Had it merely been a matter of electing its proportion of the National Assembly seats the matter would have rested there and no eyebrows would have been raised.

But can this be called a fair election? The fact is that the PPP, MQM and ANP were terrorised into staying away from the election campaign. The TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan) had declared its intention prior to the start of the election campaign, and every one of these parties suffered in human and material terms from the targeted terror attacks.

Punjab was the only province to be spared, as were the parties of Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. Surprisingly, despite the deployment of six lakh security personnel, the TTP cadres had virtually a free run of the Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces; planting bombs and shooting people at will. And very conveniently the TTP’s Karachi chief made himself available to the police the day after the votes were cast! Can this then be called a fair election?

In reality, it was a Punjabi election. Nawaz Sharif’s PML(N) won 116 of its 124 National Assembly seats from Punjab, making it virtually a single-province representation.

Moreover, can the role of TTP be dismissed as a mere coincidence, a fiery bluster by an extremist group that, for some reason, had taken a dislike to three provinces and three political parties? If we believe this hypothesis, we do so at our peril. The fact that the TTP kept a benign eye on PML(N) and the PTI cannot be without significance, and more importantly it could not have happened without a quid pro quo.

The rumour that both Nawaz and Imran and their parties have lines open to the Taliban has been gaining ground for some time. PML(N)’s possible alliance with Maulana Fazl ur Rehman at the national level and Imran’s alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami in the critically important Khyber Pakhtunkhwa may spell worry not just for Afghanistan but for USA and India too.

Yet, there is the other side too. Prior to, and during, the election campaign both Nawaz and Imran had made soothing statements that we in India would have liked to hear.

Domestically too, it suited them to sound reasonable and liberal because such statements would have appealed to the liberal sections of society and to the emerging middle-class. But these priorities change when you are voted to power; then the real politic and the pressures of strategic considerations take over. The establishment tightens its grip. In the case of Nawaz Sharif, besides links with the Taliban, his years in exile in hardline Saudi Arabia will have a role to play too.

Hence the contradictions in Nawaz’s political personality. He has undoubtedly matured during his nine years of exile and later in the five-year spell as the opposition leader. Yet, his old ties remain strong. As a protégé of General Zia-ul Haq, Sharif had maintained close links with all seven Afghan mujahiddin groups based in Pakistan during the 1980s. When they took control of Afghanistan on 28 April 1992, Sharif became the first and the only foreign leader to visit Kabul.

So, even as he professes to be sincere in his desire to open up political, business and economic links with India, it has to be remembered that he had vowed similarly during both his previous terms as prime minister. But his record proved otherwise. His first term must be remembered for the serial bomb blasts of Bombay in 1993 and the second for Kargil, despite Sharif’s protestations otherwise.

There are ample reasons, therefore, to be wary. We should certainly reciprocate any concrete move that he makes to improve relations. But we must watch our back all the time, lest another Kargil takes us by surprise. And given his links with the various Taliban and other Lashkar groups, there is a need for care in public discourse too.

A case in point is the hanging of Azfal Guru and the controversy against it initiated in part by the comments of a former senior security official. Whatever may have been his motivation for that tirade, it may unwittingly have led the Pakistani establishment to take revenge by killing Chamel Singh first and then Sarabjit Singh.

As the well-known Pakistani columnist Khalid Ahmed wrote recently: “Sharif will have to run the gauntlet of the establishment-propelled Defence of Pakistan Council led by the most powerful jihadi leader in Pakistan, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, whose former outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba killed the Indian secret agent Sarabit Singh in a Lahore jail.”

Khalid Ahmed concludes that article with the remark: “One overly pessimistic prediction on a TV channel is that the next government may not last beyond a year or two.”

If that were to happen, it wouldn’t be far off Nawaz Sharif’s record in his previous two terms. It might then make sense to respond to Sharif’s words of endearment with caution.

The author is a former ambassador. He is an artist and a novelist. Views expressed are personal.