by Omer Farooq Khan in Times of India, Sep 25, 2023
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s powerful military has conveyed to former three-time PM Nawaz Sharif to stop accusing ex-generals and retired apex court judges of involvement in a “conspiracy” to oust him from office in 2017.
Since announcing his return home from London, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) exiled chief has taken ex-army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, former spymaster Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, and former judges Saqib Nisar and Asif Saeed Khosa head on, slamming them for “political engineering” to bring incarcerated former PM Imran Khan, their blue-eyed boy then, to power.
The renewal of such criticism now has caused unease in the establishment and his own PML-N’s ranks. Nawaz had halted his tirade against the ex-generals ahead of their retirement when his party formed a coalition government with younger brother Shehbaz Sharif as PM in April 2022 after Imran’s exit in a no-trust vote.The Army, reports suggest, has communicated to Nawaz through Shehbaz its displeasure at his fresh bout of criticism.
Speculation has also swirled that interim PM Anwaarul Haq Kakar, considered close to both Nawaz and the Army, headed to London on Saturday for a possible “secret meeting” with the exiled leader. Ahead of his departure from New York, Kakar parried most questions about such talks, only saying the former PM would be “treated under the laws of Pakistan”.
After suffering at the hands of generals in the past, Nawaz appears keen to resume active politics from where he had left off in 2017 after the top court disqualified him from electoral politics for life on graft charges.
Senior Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Khursheed Shah believes, however, that going after the two former military leaders “seems very difficult”.
“Did anyone touch the man (late military ruler Pervez Musharraf) who was sentenced under Article 6 of the Constitution (treason)? He was later hospitalised and transferred to Dubai. Let’s refrain from engaging in such conflicts,” Shah said.
With a sympathetic military leadership seen as helping him, several observers believe Nawaz’s abrupt change in stance is merely political rhetoric to grab votes in the upcoming elections scheduled for late January 2024.
“Why would Nawaz take action against former generals after mending ties with the military establishment? It seems just rhetoric and part of a strategy for the upcoming elections. Nawaz’s party had voted for Gen Bajwa’s third extension in 2020 and the same general had brought the PML-N back in power in April 2022 directing military-sponsored regional parties not to support Imran in the no-trust move against him,” said analyst Nazrul Islam.
“If it’s something more than rhetoric, it will have consequences,” he added.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/hold-fire-against-ex-generals-army-signals-to-nawaz-sharif-ahead-of-return/articleshowprint/103913722.cms
