Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class William John Kipp Jr.taken from Wikipedia)
Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s denial of rumors of a coup are perfectly credible. That’s because in order to seize power the military has to give it up first. Here is a country where the civilians have to stage a coup from time to time just so that they remember what it feels like to be in control.
Explanations of why Pakistan is in a permanent state of ferment and why its military and political ruling elites are at daggers drawn no longer add up. They all make sense individually and yet together they fail to explain why it is so inexorably drawn to its own destruction.
Contrary to the strenuous denials by the civilian government there appears to be something to the allegations that a secret unsigned memo written at the instance of President Asif Ali Zardari and others asking the United States to rein in the military. Even if the memo does not exist or was not allegedly written by former Pakistani Ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani at the behest of the elected government, the broader issue of intensifying tensions at the top remain. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani too has spoken of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. Calling that military a “state within state” is the farthest a civilian leader in Pakistan can go as Gilani did.
It is possible that the drumbeat of an impending coup is a calculated political strategy by the elected government to preempt it from actually happening. After all what could be worse for a rumor than be confirmed? Raising a ruckus seems to have helped because Kayani told troops in the tribal areas of Pakistan’s northwest, “The army will continue to support democratic process in the country.” Gilani was quick to jump at the clarification saying, “The clarification from the army chief yesterday is extremely well taken in the democratic circles. There will definitely be an improvement because of it.”
If the whole purpose of the memo by the elected government, whether real or imaginary, was to thwart the military from contemplating any drastic action it may be succeeding for now. General Kayani is astute enough not to deny the rumors of a coup and then stage it anyway. Or at least I hope he is. It has been my longstanding view that in Pakistan one must expect the expected. If that is really the case, a coup should happen sooner or later, in some form or the other. On the other hand if the military is already a state within a state, then it makes no material difference whether it makes it formal.
From the looks of it the talk of the memo followed by Gilani’s public remonstrations are a form of civilian coup. Let’s see how long this hold because someone somewhere in the military must be pissed.
For now I am choosing to go by the official profile of General Kayani on the Pakistani army’s website which describes him thus: “Imbued with the qualities of head and heart, General is perceived to be a purposeful and pragmatic Commander and embodiment of professionalism. Excellence and perfection remain the hallmark of his personality.”
Since he is imbued with the qualities of head and heart and is purposeful and pragmatic, he may not yet dislodge the elected government. But then excellence and perfection are also the hallmark of his personality, neither of which the elected government is loaded with. So there.
