The PML(N) and PPP are currently part of the coalition ruling the country. It would have been no surprise if their leaders had agreed to talk on a public platform on an aspect of civil military relations. Among other things, the PPP and PML(N) have long histories of uneasy relations with the military establishment. What was intriguing this time was the presence of the PTI also at a high-level political party leaders’ dialogue hosted by an Islamabad think-tank on the civil–military imbalance. Interestingly, the PTI was represented at the dialogue by the party’s vice chairman, Shah Mahmud Qureshi
The PTI is bitter over the Army turning neutral instead of coming to its rescue when, according to party chief Imran Khan, his government was removed through a conspiracy. The PTI has however a love-hate relation with the establishment with Mt Khan wistfully asking why it opted for what he calls a coalition of the corrupt. The PTI however still reserves the worst epithets for the PML(N) and PPP leaders vowing to continue to fight against them till the end. It was intriguing therefore to find Mr Qureshi declaring that all three major parties had suffered from the imbalance in the relationship with the military, therefore they should prudently look at the past mistakes and try to rectify them. Further that “If we continue with the blame game, we won’t be able to move ahead.”
This leads to a number of questions. Do some of the PTI leaders differ with Mr Khan’s policy of no conciliation with the parties of the ruling coalition? Or is he having second thoughts about his policy of fighting simultaneously on a number of fronts and is sending up a trial balloon to find the ruling alliance’s response? Or is it no more than a personal signal from Mr Qureshi that he can’t go any more with PTI’s isolationist policy?
There is a need for the PTI and all other parties to heed what Mushahid Hussain said in his speech. Political parties, he maintained, should decide among themselves that the “road to Islamabad would not lie through Rawalpindi, Washington or London, but through Constitution and the ballot box” and if they remain steadfast on this then “neither ISI nor any general can encroach on their domain.” Further, that if political parties use the military to get power and then rely on them for running affairs, the military would keep deciding the time of their exit.
