Khaled Ahmed
Everybody is pushing for the ‘big change’ in Pakistan. It is not like anything in the past. It didn’t happen when General Zia-ul Haq fired the government of Mohammad Khan Junejo. The politicians who took over after Zia’s death were the fruit of his loins. The army slid into the background. It did not rule through martial law, but acted as arbiter under Article 58/2/B. In this role, it was actually more lethal.
That was the ‘democratic’ phase of the 1990s. Are we preparing to go back to it? Or has the final ‘cut-off’ happened this time? In the past there was always somebody who was not against the army. That meant that the party that took on the army was stabbed in the back by another party. The phrase ‘security risk’ was common currency in the civilian discourse. This time no one is on the side of the army, strangely not even the ruling PMLQ.
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