Pakistan was rife with speculations of an army backlash in the wake of brutal killing of two high profile military officers, including a two-star general and a colonel in the tribal belt near Afghanistan border last week.
Apart from blocking the projected negotiations with the Taleban, the prime minister may also have found it difficult to replace Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani with a new army chief of his choice.
Contrary to expectations, Kayani showed a lot of maturity and issued a statement supporting the elected government in its efforts to negotiate with the Taleban. Kayani, in his statement, categorically stated that dialogue alone could help solve the problem of terrorism.
The menace of terrorism has not only crippled the economy but has also threatened the integrity of the country.
The soft line taken by Kayani — on his way out after serving two terms as the army chief — shows that the military has no doubt over the civil government’s ability to handle the crisis on its own.
Of course, the army chief, retiring in November, did stress that the military was fully capable of meeting the challenges of war with militants, and handling the terrorists, but preferred negotiations over constant engagement as a better option.
His latest statement, coming in the wake of a grim tragedy, displayed tremendous change in the military’s attitude towards civilian administration, which can easily be interpreted as accepting the latter’s authority to run the country without any interference.
Most analysts see this as a very positive sign for a country roughed up by repeated military coups aimed at keeping the democratically elected regimes under the military’s thumb.
Kayani’s statement has raised hopes that the task of selecting the next army chief has become much easier for the prime minister.
Though, Kayani still has two months to go but his successor has to be named earlier so as to allow the outgoing chief time to dine out and make farewell calls on heads of state, other VIPs and to bid farewell to his own men in various cantonments.
Speculations regarding further extensions to the tenures of Kayani and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry (whose tenure ends in December) were shot down by Information Minister Pervez Rashid.
He made it abundantly plain that neither of the two has requested for extension nor it is being considered.
While the change in the Supreme Court will come automatically on the basis of seniority. Justice Tassaduq Hussain may be the obvious choice.
There is, however, a little irritant, which the prime minister has to sort out. Chaudhry reportedly has asked for giving him the six months of time lost during his forced resignation in March 2007, and ultimate restoration following a long march by Nawaz Sharif, who had to part company with the then President Asif Zardari over the issue.
But the army chief’s choice is the sole prerogative of the prime minister. Seniority does count but is not the only criteria for selection for the top slot. A number of other considerations, including professional competence and loyalty to democratic dispensation also need to be kept in mind. A number of instances could be cited in support of this contention. Former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto handpicked Gen. Ziaul Haq, then only a corps commander of Multan, for showing to the former his personal loyalty. Eight senior most generals including Majeed Malik, who later became a minister in the Sharif government in 1997, were forced out of job. There is no compulsion under the rules for seniors to retire if a junior supersedes, but convention holds them back from saluting a person junior to him while being in service.
Yet another example was of Nawaz Sharif himself, who picked Gen. Pervez Musharraf, then corps commander of the country’s most sensitive military sub-headquarter at Mangla near Jehlum, and annoyed his Foreign Minister Gauhar Ayub Khan, for ignoring his brother-in-law, Gen. Ali Quli Khan, for the coveted post. No explanations were needed, neither was any given. Earlier, Nawaz had forced former Army Chief Gen. Jahangir Karamat to quit for demanding a supreme council for defense and security. The idea was mooted many a times and was implemented in Musharraf days but was discarded after Zardari took over as the president.
Experts, however, considered this a masterstroke from Sharif to save himself from a possible coup d'état. Musharraf was a migrant from India, coming from Lal Haveli, a well known area in the Indian capital, Delhi, and therefore was thought, would be toothless, and incapable of overthrowing an elected government from the Punjab, enjoying support of the Punjabi dominated army.
But just as Ziaul Haq had overthrown Bhutto and later hanged him in 1979, Musharraf too proved a hard nut to crack, and commanded his men to take over control of the country from Sharif while still in the air on a return flight from Sri Lanka in October 1999.
Sharif says he wants to disentangle the military from politics and he has taken over the foreign affairs and defense portfolios in an apparent show of determination to wrest those responsibilities from the army. He has done that tactfully by taking the army chief into confidence, and consulting him on all matters of defense and security, learning from the bitter experience of the past perhaps that over ambition may once again prove fatal.
Kayani has backed the premier in all major decisions and now Sharif has owned and executed the idea of a supreme council for defense and security, which he had dismissed with utter contempt in his earlier stint in the office. As a recent media report suggested that it’s not just that Sharif wants someone he can trust and whom he can use to neutralize the army’s political role. The army also wants someone who will be able to work with Sharif.
The job has been at the center of a drawn-out guessing game and officials would not speculate publicly on it. But in private interviews with army officers, politicians and diplomats, several names have emerged as possible contenders.
Those include Lt-Gen. Rashad Mahmood, the current chief of general staff, Lt-Gen. Tariq Khan, who is considered pragmatic on US relations and Lt-Gen. Haroon Aslam, the most senior official after Kayani. The balance, as at present, is tilted in Gen. Haroon’s favor. The task is not easy, but general environment in the country, where politicians and political parties have made themselves absolutely plain that army’s domination must end in civilian matters and that army should work under the prime minister, and the Parliament, perhaps has been well understood by the army now.
