Few words about this guy

[That Guy]

Very comprehensive reply. Thankyou



What do you have to do with IK?

Why do you guys poke in every other thread?

I asked him to comment on an issue related to Modi. He's very fair in his analysis, and well respected. Please be polite.

 

[VCheng]

I fully concur, this is THE main issue in Pakistan IMO. A lack of democratic process with weak institutions, thus creating a fragile and unstable republic.

As for IK, I’m sorry to say he is no better in this regard, imo a lot worse. The same forces that always undermine democracy in Pakistan have done it again. In 1989, the establishment feared Benazir and they propped up Nawaz Sharif to help him win the 1990 election. That same establishment turned on Sharif a little while later much to his dismay. And we all know what happened to him in the last 3 years, and who he blames for it. IK will learn this the hard way too.

We still don’t have a democracy in this country and the constitution is still neither mature, nor is it completely the supreme law in practice (yet). This is one thing we severely lack and is the basis for a lot of the ills that cause us to be stuck in an endless loop of instability and slow progress.

The Pakistani system is based on intentionally maintaining an unstable and fragile republic on the edge, so that the nation can continue to pay suitable homage to its self-appointed saviors. The present setup is just one more in a long line of facades, and it won't be the last. It is well past the time to just accept that and move on.

 

[Jungibaaz]

Can you tell me what makes IK a lot worse (in your opinion) in this larger cycle?

Did he make more connections/lackeying with the "establishment" proportionately more to the rest before him...or should he just know better given things are fairly downstream (given the number of cycles that have happened and now crystallised as open fact if you just look)....or is this another reason?

To me, they are all more or less the same, I used "musical chairs" a few times on this forum for the politics below the establishment.

Sure, I can elaborate a little further. And musical chairs is one way to put it, good analogy but it's missing the puppet masters. So the 'establishment' is just a colloquialism Pakistani journalists and politicians use, but mostly they are talking about the army and some groups of subservient politicians, I'll mention who belongs in the latter later.

When PPP came in in 2008, they had many run ins with this establishment, tussles behind closed doors that might have led to their government being removed from power. They learnt early on to live with the establishment (do their bidding, not cross them etc.), still more tussles ensued later on in their term and especially around memogate scandal and the OBL raid. Back then there was a serious threat of a coup, and the army openly used thinly veiled statements such as saying that then PM Gillani's statements could have "grievous consequences". Only in Pakistan can a military spokesperson openly threaten a sitting PM and an elected government like this. PPP were subservient enough to let their tenure complete without too much tensions, and they didn't cross the army much at all. Current supporters of PTI on this forum are counting them out of the political calculus at their peril, PPP will easily make deals with the establishment if it secures them more power. This is no longer Benazir Bhutto's PPP that is around today.

Then came the PMLN government, they were a little less subservient, and Nawaz himself decided early on to pick some fights with the establishment. But even then, it didn't go unnoticed or unpunished. PMLN, the sitting PM, and a good deal of the judiciary together took years to try Musharraf for an otherwise open and shut case of treachery and subversion of the constitution etc. Nawaz's relationship with the establishment has changed a lot since 1988, today's he's openly defiant, some time after his disqualification (circumstances of this will reveal themselves in the future too no doubt) he talked about 'Khalai makhlooq' (you know who) and their games.

The PMLN tenure is the part of the story that includes IK and the establishment. In the 2013 election, I supported IK, even on this forum I was fervently in support of PTI, mea maxima culpa. IK after having lost the election alleged vote rigging, and boycotted parliament too. He basically became focused on removing the government which he saw as illegitimate. Meanwhile the first of the games which I mentioned began a little earlier, Tahirul Qadri planned a long march on the capital in the end of 2012, his aims and methods were anti-democratic and unconstitutional, plenty of critics alleged (and rightly so) that the establishment put him up to it. His initial march failed, and after the elections while IK was stewing, a meeting in London between Tahirul Qadri and IK was facilitated by the likes of the Chaudhrys (establishment lackeys), later MQM (ditto) also chimed in with some token of support. These lackeys are a good barometer of which way the establishment wind is blowing, currently they are in coalition with IK's government, propping up an otherwise fledgling minority, and they are very disgruntled with the status quo and unhappy with being associated with this government and its performance, but what can they do? Boss' orders are final!

IK and Qadri both had their long march and dharnas in attempts to unconstitutionally remove the sitting government, and it was basically certain army leader that urged IK to go this route. A plan was laid out for the protests, and a subsequent route through the supreme court to topple the government (usual smoke and mirrors), and an aspirational date of September 2014 for fresh elections were set. It didn't work out for IK that time, then APS happened and the dharnas were called off. But eventually IK got what he wanted, Nawaz Sharif was disqualified in a very timely manner, and plenty of wheeling and dealing, coercion and pressure on the media led to an atmosphere that marginalized the undesirable parties ahead of the 2018 election. Khan comes to power, and now he is surrounded by establishment types in his own cabinet, he takes dictation far far more than either PPP or PMLN, and his government and his premiership is propped up by establishment parties. And at the first sign from the establishment, these parties will dump IK and help overthrow him. IK won't even last a month in that scenario, and I think he knows it.

Another reason why I say IK is worse in these matters is what actions can be directly attributed to him and not just the establishment. In every government, media isn't allowed to criticize certain people or institutions, or talk about certain topics that would upset certain people from certain institutions. On top of that, IK himself has also victimised the opposition by employing the likes of NAB (a supposed 'anti-corruption' institution, that was originally the spawn of a dictator) to victimise opposition politicians, and the likes of PEMRA (press regulator) to remove any undesirable coverage. The former (NAB) has been used to imprison opposition leaders for weeks/months without a trial and without any evidence, and the courts have to subsequently throw these cases out as they are almost always baseless. The latter (PEMRA) removes TV channels from the air and threatens them not to be too critical, knocks their channel ordering to a lower number, the purpose is to threaten and coerce and then punish by starving the media house of ratings and ad money if they don't comply. So all this is happening in the supposedly democratic state, supposedly led by a sovereign civilian coalition government.

The Pakistani system is based on intentionally maintaining an unstable and fragile republic on the edge, so that the nation can continue to pay suitable homage to its self-appointed saviors. The present setup is just one more in a long line of facades, and it won't be the last. It is well past the time to just accept that and move on.

Correct, that's always been the game. But I'm not ready to accept this as a fact of life and move on. These people need to be called out and shamed for what they have done, are doing, and no doubt will do. It's just sad that we have such a massive uphill struggle to convince the people of Pakistan that some of those who they place on a pedestal are also the ones who deserve their scorn.

 

[VCheng]

Correct, that's always been the game. But I'm not ready to accept this as a fact of life and move on. These people need to be called out and shamed for what they have done, are doing, and no doubt will do. It's just sad that we have such a massive uphill struggle to convince the people of Pakistan that some of those who they place on a pedestal are also the ones who deserve their scorn.

I can only admire your dedication, given its futility.

 

[Verve]

And musical chairs is one way to put it, good analogy

It's interesting that the rules of your musical chair were dramatically changed for IK!

I totally disagree with your analysis. If this musical chair theory was applied to IK, then why didn't he get the 2/3rd as others did? Were Nawaz and Benazir ever dragged to courts before becoming PM?

Basically you like the many others are indirectly or directly calling IK selected by Establishment. IK asked for a fair chance at elections and he was given one. If he was selected, he would have been given same power levels as Nawaz and Zardari to get through poisonous amendments like the 18th and so on.

If you want to see real musical chair, look at UK! 2 parties swapping for decades!

IK has a huge supporter/voter base and Establishment didn't turn people like me towards him. He wasn't plucked out of air and made CM like that scum Nawaz. Bhutto's and Sharrifs are the bastard children of the past Establishments.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

If I remember correctly, it took about around a year after Trump got elected before he spoke about suspending aid to Pakistan.

US influence goes far beyond just direct aid. They have significant leverage over international financial institutions like the World Bank & IMF, and, if the US bracketed Pakistan with Iran, you can bet they would pull out all the stops to ensure we were blacklisted by the FATF along with various other economic sanctions.

 

[Jungibaaz]

US influence goes far beyond just direct aid. They have significant leverage over international financial institutions like the World Bank & IMF, and, if the US bracketed Pakistan with Iran, you can bet they would pull out all the stops to ensure we were blacklisted by the FATF along with various other economic sanctions.

All is well on that front for now. Foreign policy is one area where the current government has done a lot better than previous ones. We should be moved to the FATF's good books by next meeting, as you said, it's leverage that they use against us, and the FATF cards have been played already in our role in Afghanistan peace talks.

It's interesting that the rules of your musical chair were dramatically changed for IK!

I totally disagree with your analysis. If this musical chair theory was applied to IK, then why didn't he get the 2/3rd as others did? Were Nawaz and Benazir ever dragged to courts before becoming PM?

Basically you like the many others are indirectly or directly calling IK selected by Establishment. IK asked for a fair chance at elections and he was given one. If he was selected, he would have been given same power levels as Nawaz and Zardari to get through poisonous amendments like the 18th and so on.

IK has a huge supporter/voter base and Establishment didn't turn people like me towards him. He wasn't plucked out of air and made CM like that scum Nawaz. Bhutto's and Sharrifs are the bastard children of the past Establishments.

I think you've misunderstood me. First of all, the musical chairs thing isn't an analogy that I used, it's one I quoted from in the previous post, take another look.

I would say it's an incomplete analogy. And I'm not here applying some singular incomplete analogy to explain all outcomes we've seen. Pakistan's system is a militarily dominated hybrid regime, it ebbs and flows between full dictatorship and perverted hybrid regime and the facade of civilian rule. I honestly can't think of a single fitting analogy, I'd welcome anyone else to give it a shot...

IK's election/selection doesn't have to be so ham-fisted -- and indeed it wasn't. There are many ways to skin the proverbial cat. You can use the courts to undermine opponents, you can march your troops through to topple if the facade slips, or you can conspire with political elements to make alliances to prop one person up and split the vote of another, you can apply pressure to certain departments to minimize media coverage that is unfavorable to your candidate and favorable to the one you want to beat. You can instruct your lackies to form a coalition around your guy if he doesn't quite make it on his own. You can facilitate mass movements and election victories, it doesn't require vote rigging at all, the latter is a crass way, some seem to prefer the myriad of other more elaborate schemes.

I agree with your part in bold, no doubt IK has millions of admirers and supporters, his selection is only a part of the story, he was definitely elected too by millions, I should know, I was among them.

Nuance is what you need to understand from my last post that I believe you did not pick up on it. Actually, I wonder if IK now wishes that it had been better that he waited for his own opportune moment and won without all that extra baggage, he'd be more capable and less vulnerable/subservient. Who knows, establishment might change their minds in the medium term, if IK is forced out unwillingly, he might spill the beans on what he knows. His words on this issue will carry far more weight and reach farther than Gillani, Nawaz Sharif and others. I would hope that when that day comes his supporters will listen to what he has to say and try to read between the lines.

I can only admire your dedication, given its futility.

Pity might be more apt.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Nawaz Sharif was disqualified in a very timely manner

The 'timely' in this situation appears to be more 'coincidence', unless you're suggesting that the 'Establishment' was behind the Panama Papers leaks. The Sharif's botched their own responses to the allegations (especially in court) and while you could argue judicial overreach, that isn't something new and not something that should automatically be blamed on the 'Establishment'.

In my view, Pakistanis in general tend to have an over-inflated opinion about the extent of the Establishment's machinations, especially in the last decade or so. Former DG ISI Shuja Pasha (keep in mind he had been retired for a couple of years at that point) was suspected to be behind IK's dharna and attempts to unconstitutionally topple the PMLN government, but then former COAS Raheel Sharif is also given the 'credit' for stopping that unconstitutional overthrow.

The two claims appear contradictory - why would the Army allow serving or former senior officials to leverage their influence in favor of unconstitutional actions only to have the serving COAS step in (ostensibly with the support of the remaining Corps Commanders) and put an end to such machinations with no tangible gains? Either the Army has competing power centers (something that most familiar with the institution would strongly deny) or Shuja Pasha acted in his individual capacity and leveraged his influence, perhaps not in terms of tangible support from the military, but in terms of the psychological effect of a former DG ISI taking a position.

 

[Armchair]

Imagine the constant corruption for decades and decades before Imran Khan came to power. Corruption by the parties and personalities in power. That has changed for the first time.

The only person and party that could have brought this change alone is being attacked in this thread by a small number of supposedly Pakistani citizens. I can't imagine what alternative they want. Perhaps they deserve a Zardari or a Sharif to loot them. But curious, most people don't want to be robbed, why do these gentlemen want this? Could it be that their families benefited from this looting?

 

[Ace of Spades]

Sure, I can elaborate a little further. And musical chairs is one way to put it, good analogy but it's missing the puppet masters. So the 'establishment' is just a colloquialism Pakistani journalists and politicians use, but mostly they are talking about the army and some groups of subservient politicians, I'll mention who belongs in the latter later.

When PPP came in in 2008, they had many run ins with this establishment, tussles behind closed doors that might have led to their government being removed from power. They learnt early on to live with the establishment (do their bidding, not cross them etc.), still more tussles ensued later on in their term and especially around memogate scandal and the OBL raid. Back then there was a serious threat of a coup, and the army openly used thinly veiled statements such as saying that then PM Gillani's statements could have "grievous consequences". Only in Pakistan can a military spokesperson openly threaten a sitting PM and an elected government like this. PPP were subservient enough to let their tenure complete without too much tensions, and they didn't cross the army much at all. Current supporters of PTI on this forum are counting them out of the political calculus at their peril, PPP will easily make deals with the establishment if it secures them more power. This is no longer Benazir Bhutto's PPP that is around today.

Then came the PMLN government, they were a little less subservient, and Nawaz himself decided early on to pick some fights with the establishment. But even then, it didn't go unnoticed or unpunished. PMLN, the sitting PM, and a good deal of the judiciary together took years to try Musharraf for an otherwise open and shut case of treachery and subversion of the constitution etc. Nawaz's relationship with the establishment has changed a lot since 1988, today's he's openly defiant, some time after his disqualification (circumstances of this will reveal themselves in the future too no doubt) he talked about 'Khalai makhlooq' (you know who) and their games.

The PMLN tenure is the part of the story that includes IK and the establishment. In the 2013 election, I supported IK, even on this forum I was fervently in support of PTI, mea maxima culpa. IK after having lost the election alleged vote rigging, and boycotted parliament too. He basically became focused on removing the government which he saw as illegitimate. Meanwhile the first of the games which I mentioned began a little earlier, Tahirul Qadri planned a long march on the capital in the end of 2012, his aims and methods were anti-democratic and unconstitutional, plenty of critics alleged (and rightly so) that the establishment put him up to it. His initial march failed, and after the elections while IK was stewing, a meeting in London between Tahirul Qadri and IK was facilitated by the likes of the Chaudhrys (establishment lackeys), later MQM (ditto) also chimed in with some token of support. These lackeys are a good barometer of which way the establishment wind is blowing, currently they are in coalition with IK's government, propping up an otherwise fledgling minority, and they are very disgruntled with the status quo and unhappy with being associated with this government and its performance, but what can they do? Boss' orders are final!

IK and Qadri both had their long march and dharnas in attempts to unconstitutionally remove the sitting government, and it was basically certain army leader that urged IK to go this route. A plan was laid out for the protests, and a subsequent route through the supreme court to topple the government (usual smoke and mirrors), and an aspirational date of September 2014 for fresh elections were set. It didn't work out for IK that time, then APS happened and the dharnas were called off. But eventually IK got what he wanted, Nawaz Sharif was disqualified in a very timely manner, and plenty of wheeling and dealing, coercion and pressure on the media led to an atmosphere that marginalized the undesirable parties ahead of the 2018 election. Khan comes to power, and now he is surrounded by establishment types in his own cabinet, he takes dictation far far more than either PPP or PMLN, and his government and his premiership is propped up by establishment parties. And at the first sign from the establishment, these parties will dump IK and help overthrow him. IK won't even last a month in that scenario, and I think he knows it.

Another reason why I say IK is worse in these matters is what actions can be directly attributed to him and not just the establishment. In every government, media isn't allowed to criticize certain people or institutions, or talk about certain topics that would upset certain people from certain institutions. On top of that, IK himself has also victimised the opposition by employing the likes of NAB (a supposed 'anti-corruption' institution, that was originally the spawn of a dictator) to victimise opposition politicians, and the likes of PEMRA (press regulator) to remove any undesirable coverage. The former (NAB) has been used to imprison opposition leaders for weeks/months without a trial and without any evidence, and the courts have to subsequently throw these cases out as they are almost always baseless. The latter (PEMRA) removes TV channels from the air and threatens them not to be too critical, knocks their channel ordering to a lower number, the purpose is to threaten and coerce and then punish by starving the media house of ratings and ad money if they don't comply. So all this is happening in the supposedly democratic state, supposedly led by a sovereign civilian coalition government.



Correct, that's always been the game. But I'm not ready to accept this as a fact of life and move on. These people need to be called out and shamed for what they have done, are doing, and no doubt will do. It's just sad that we have such a massive uphill struggle to convince the people of Pakistan that some of those who they place on a pedestal are also the ones who deserve their scorn.

All is well on that front for now. Foreign policy is one area where the current government has done a lot better than previous ones. We should be moved to the FATF's good books by next meeting, as you said, it's leverage that they use against us, and the FATF cards have been played already in our role in Afghanistan peace talks.



I think you've misunderstood me. First of all, the musical chairs thing isn't an analogy that I used, it's one I quoted from in the previous post, take another look.

I would say it's an incomplete analogy. And I'm not here applying some singular incomplete analogy to explain all outcomes we've seen. Pakistan's system is a militarily dominated hybrid regime, it ebbs and flows between full dictatorship and perverted hybrid regime and the facade of civilian rule. I honestly can't think of a single fitting analogy, I'd welcome anyone else to give it a shot...

IK's election/selection doesn't have to be so ham-fisted -- and indeed it wasn't. There are many ways to skin the proverbial cat. You can use the courts to undermine opponents, you can march your troops through to topple if the facade slips, or you can conspire with political elements to make alliances to prop one person up and split the vote of another, you can apply pressure to certain departments to minimize media coverage that is unfavorable to your candidate and favorable to the one you want to beat. You can instruct your lackies to form a coalition around your guy if he doesn't quite make it on his own. You can facilitate mass movements and election victories, it doesn't require vote rigging at all, the latter is a crass way, some seem to prefer the myriad of other more elaborate schemes.

I agree with your part in bold, no doubt IK has millions of admirers and supporters, his selection is only a part of the story, he was definitely elected too by millions, I should know, I was among them.

Nuance is what you need to understand from my last post that I believe you did not pick up on it. Actually, I wonder if IK now wishes that it had been better that he waited for his own opportune moment and won without all that extra baggage, he'd be more capable and less vulnerable/subservient. Who knows, establishment might change their minds in the medium term, if IK is forced out unwillingly, he might spill the beans on what he knows. His words on this issue will carry far more weight and reach farther than Gillani, Nawaz Sharif and others. I would hope that when that day comes his supporters will listen to what he has to say and try to read between the lines.



Pity might be more apt.

The 'timely' in this situation appears to be more 'coincidence', unless you're suggesting that the 'Establishment' was behind the Panama Papers leaks. The Sharif's botched their own responses to the allegations (especially in court) and while you could argue judicial overreach, that isn't something new and not something that should automatically be blamed on the 'Establishment'.

In my view, Pakistanis in general tend to have an over-inflated opinion about the extent of the Establishment's machinations, especially in the last decade or so. Former DG ISI Shuja Pasha (keep in mind he had been retired for a couple of years at that point) was suspected to be behind IK's dharna and attempts to unconstitutionally topple the PMLN government, but then former COAS Raheel Sharif is also given the 'credit' for stopping that unconstitutional overthrow.

The two claims appear contradictory - why would the Army allow serving or former senior officials to leverage their influence in favor of unconstitutional actions only to have the serving COAS step in (ostensibly with the support of the remaining Corps Commanders) and put an end to such machinations with no tangible gains? Either the Army has competing power centers (something that most familiar with the institution would strongly deny) or Shuja Pasha acted in his individual capacity and leveraged his influence, perhaps not in terms of tangible support from the military, but in terms of the psychological effect of a former DG ISI taking a position.

We say in Punjabi "kuj shaar da log vi zalam san kuj sanu maran da shok vi si". It's not either this and either that, it's both and i've been repeating myself like a broken record from years that "is hamam main sab nanga hain".

Establishment (not just military establishment) has been running the show from behind the curtains from too long let it be any tenure, but the weaknesses they pick on are personally created by politicians themselves. If nawaz wouldn't leak the details of meeting via cyril, went too easy on fascist like modi, things might've had been a bit different. And in my opinion if he would've had stayed to only looting i can assure you he would still be a prime minister. The day he started being cozy with Indian establishment was the day his outage was decided.

So with zardari, Gen Kayani's brother looted the same way Zardari did, malik riaz plundered equally with retired generals; but then memo gate came and that was it for him. As i said in my previous post, "the establishment" likes to keep politicians at their toes and to show anyone the exit, all they need is any corruption case (which is the case so far, except altaf hussain) or an artificially created narrative. And this is the game of narratives.

Let's first agree to the baseline that nawaz, zardari plundered this country. But the question is "where is the looted money". "How much is recovered", "Is their properties confiscated" "Are they punished accordingly". If the answer is no to all that; it means then all this time it was not about corruption, if it would be nawaz won't be sitting in london right now. This is all hogwash, just to keep them at their toes, so they be useful pawns again.

 

[El Sidd]

But the question is "where is the looted money"

It is technically not looted money since the crime was never established. You can call it blood money and the government can sue them for systematic plunder.

Shameful that the argument here being discussed is " whose the better plunderer?"

 

[VCheng]

Pity might be more apt.

It could be, except my pity-o-meter broke a while ago. Sorry.

 

[Pan-Islamic-Pakistan]

@That Guy We will see exactly how successful Modi is in the near future. "Success" is on the streets of New Delhi, UP, Rajastan. Do not get impressed by his slogans and supporters.

The topic deserves its own thread, and should be kept out of Pakistani politic threads, least trolls get attracted here.

 

[Jungibaaz]

The 'timely' in this situation appears to be more 'coincidence', unless you're suggesting that the 'Establishment' was behind the Panama Papers leaks. The Sharif's botched their own responses to the allegations (especially in court) and while you could argue judicial overreach, that isn't something new and not something that should automatically be blamed on the 'Establishment'.

Apologies in advance if this reply becomes too verbose, it would be interesting to have this discussion, maybe we could continue in Aam Guftagu if it gets too out of hand, but anyway... Someone more learned than me on legal matters can better assess this verdict that the bench reached unanimously which led to NS' disqualification and resignation. For sure it seemed judicial overreach to me, but beyond that, the articles cited were related to one's character, he was not convicted for corruption. That seems beyond overreach to me.

In a country where a former dictator was then yet to be convicted for clear, blatant, irrefutable and multiple counts of high treachery years after the fact. I have to ask myself whether it is just an epic coincidence that NS on one hand, who is an opponent of the establishment was disqualified on a misdemeanor which at best can be said was motivated by judicial overreach, while also being sitting PM at the time. Whereas the other, long since fled the country and could be easily convicted on multiple clear cut counts of high treason, but his sentencing was delayed by judicial hesitancy and possibly the world's most robust and far reaching legal defense courtesy of the establishment. Only in Pakistan can such dichotomies exist!

Besides, in my opinion, this argument that they failed to provide adequate legal defense in court should not be grounds for disqualification, certainly we know it wasn't grounds for any conviction. 62/63 was thus used as an excuse to disqualify him despite no conviction. I've heard of athiests criticising 'God of the gaps', but only in Pakistan can people see a 62/63 style 'jurisprudence of the gaps' being used against a sitting PM. And just like the former, the latter has to be premeditated. To put it simply, imagine you were occupying some government office, if I accused you of corruption and you were not convicted of it, and no evidence could be found to prove your guilt, in Pakistan 62/63 says the suspicion alone is enough to disqualify you if you do not meet the moral requirements of my judicial bench. My satisfaction could easily be influenced by a myriad of factors, ranging from establishment influence, general perception of a guy like NS or yourself as being corrupt (minus the evidence since there was no conviction), judicial overreach/activism or point scoring, maybe I just want to leave a mark before I retire. Why it happened is one discussion. Should it have happened at all? No, absolutely not. Not in any sane republic.

Even if I grant that Maryam's defense was botched and mishandled, it does not excuse the strange and inexplicable process JIT-onward. To set aside the charges of corruption, not convict at all, but in passing disqualify based on character, all while the actual criminal court case was up in the air is beyond strange. And for a supreme court to first disqualify then pass the case on to a lower court, as if we would get any dissent from them, that's also absurd. One more absurdity, besides Khosa's language and demeanor in the proceedings is the fact that he was disqualified for life. In a case of disproportionate assets, the disqualification lasts a maximum of 5 years, yet without any conviction, our courts disqualified him for life.

This would lead me to conclude that at best, the judges were biased and did not follow correct or sane procedure and their extent went well beyond judicial overstep/activism. At worst it was what I suspect, which is that they were pressured as well as the other factors, the hand of the establishment can't be seen but I can the gaps where they might be. It's like how NASA looks for the presence of exoplanets in far away stars, they don't have to be seen in scopes for them to suspect their existence, you can look at the gravitational wobble of the star using doppler technique and thus arrive at the mass of planets around to cause that behavior.

Anyway, I digressed quite a lot here, let's continue this elsewhere if there's more to be looked at.

In my view, Pakistanis in general tend to have an over-inflated opinion about the extent of the Establishment's machinations, especially in the last decade or so. Former DG ISI Shuja Pasha (keep in mind he had been retired for a couple of years at that point) was suspected to be behind IK's dharna and attempts to unconstitutionally topple the PMLN government, but then former COAS Raheel Sharif is also given the 'credit' for stopping that unconstitutional overthrow.

The two claims appear contradictory - why would the Army allow serving or former senior officials to leverage their influence in favor of unconstitutional actions only to have the serving COAS step in (ostensibly with the support of the remaining Corps Commanders) and put an end to such machinations with no tangible gains? Either the Army has competing power centers (something that most familiar with the institution would strongly deny) or Shuja Pasha acted in his individual capacity and leveraged his influence, perhaps not in terms of tangible support from the military, but in terms of the psychological effect of a former DG ISI taking a position.

I would have to disagree here, actually the establishment's machinations are vastly underestimated by Pakistanis in my view. I want to qualify this further by saying that while their competence is not overestimated, the true extent of their political power and interference is vastly underestimated. I strongly hesitate at giving you examples that I know of, as they are for now, mere conjecture. When someone finally writes a book about them or mentions them, I'll be sure to quote them then. You will be surprised at the extents they go to.

And let's talk about Pasha being retired, I think you raise a valid question. But Nawaz Sharif has since directly blamed the incumbent intel chief DG ISI Zaheerul Islam. Khawaja Asif also named both then current and former DG ISIs, so to cast doubt on this basis is invalid imo. Actually, some of NS' aides urged him to look into the intel chief and some urged to move against him for the suspicions they had even at the time, he resisted the idea.

Now even if I were to accept the premise that Pasha a retired general was behind the whole thing, which I don't at all, it's still far too simplistic. These things are more complex, the establishment always gives the new government a chance and some tensions invariably develop, especially if that government doesn't like taking 'dictation' as NS said. These sort of plots have occurred in the past, operation midnight jackal was a fact, no conspiracy at all, it bares striking resemblance to a lot of the accusations leveled at the military today. I can only suspect that generals this time around learnt what became of the image of Gen. Aslam Beg and then DG ISI Gen. Kallu when IB spilled the beans on midnight jackal. BB was removed by such plotting, and a short while later, the establishment removed NS in 1993 too. Ex- DG ISI Gen. Asad Durrani also confirmed both stories. These are facts and not longer mere conjecture, and I believe that with time we'll be able to view the last 12 years of democracy in Pakistan with such clarity and the role of the establishment will be not nearly as murky as it currently is.

 

[RIP Pak LAW]

He is doing a fine job. Too much was and still is expected from him to change the things in a very short time. He is working on it perhaps on his own pace. 7-8 more years of him will definitely change the course of this nation.