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0:00 [Music] Alam Nazreen and welcome to Current Affairs A
0:48 Fortnight Glance with Ahmed Ali Naqvi Nan in today's episode we will talk about the recent developments taking place in Pakistan which I call political crisis in Pakistan. As you must be knowing, in the past few days, few weeks the political environment in Pakistan is a very charged environment and very abruptly there has been a vote of no confidence for the first time in the history of Pakistan and we are seeing its impact at the provincial level in Punjab as well. So Nazreen, this crisis which we are seeing recently is a multi-dimensional
1:35 crisis which not only has a political dimension, an internal political dimension, but legal and constitutional debates have also evolved within it, security matters have also evolved within it, there is also a foreign policy dimension and the popular culture of Pakistan which is a democratic debate This is the debate on political culture in which defects are discussed, there is talk of the system, all these factors also evolve in some way or the other, so Nazreen comes first in a broader sense when this crisis happens. So Nazreen, if we look at the political history of Pakistan, if we look at the political culture, then this crisis was expected and there are many reasons for its expectation,
2:21 if we mention some of them, for example, whenever there have been divided parliaments in the history of Pakistan, which we call hung parliament, then we see that in the history of Pakistan, mostly most of the times hung parliaments have taken place, in the history of Pakistan, around a dozen general elections have taken place and out of all those general elections, accept that it has never happened that a single party could ever gain absolute majority at least in the lower house and it has never happened that a party which had majority in the lower house, the same party That even individually in the upper house, the majority is divided, so we see a divided mandate and because of that divided mandate,
3:09 we see that the political power is divided into multiple parties and because there are multiple parties, some are regional, some are religious, some are nationalist, those parties have their own interests and on the basis of their interests, they join any government or withdraw from it and it has also been seen, as happened in the current crisis, that if at one time they are with one party, then at a different time they will switch sides and they change to other parties. So Nazreen is an established name in our Pakistan that whenever there has been a divided hung parliament, that parliament and the government that is formed from within that parliament is not very stable. Anyway, the question is on its efficiency, on the
3:56 efficiency of the government, on the efficiency of the parliament. Marks definitely come and if seen in this context, the basic factors behind the current removal of Imran Khan sahab's government are of two types. One factor is that when his government was removed, the basic reason for it was the defects within the party. When the members of different parties, who are not aware of this crisis, had a strong reservation even before that, with regard to the policies of the PTI government, especially if we talk about Jahan R Khan's group or in the same way, if we talk about Aleem Khan, who during the period of PTA also spent some time in jail in corruption cases, these disgruntled PTI members were the first ones due to
4:42 whom this crisis started and then we see that seeing those defects, the political parties realigned themselves and we see that MKM switched its side, they switched to the opposition PDM and in the same way we see that the There was certainty to some extent about the PML-Q but ultimately it was decided to remain in the coalition. However, we also see that the Balochistan Awami Party, which is commonly known as the Baap Party, also switched sides. The Balochistan National Party (BNP) and the Mengal Party had already switched sides. So, somewhere the coalition government was formed because of internal party rifts and the alliances that formed it could not continue to stay with the PTI. So,
5:27 a logical context of the hung parliament appears in the dissolution of this government. Secondly, if we look at the reason in a broad sense, there is a civil-military divide in Pakistan in this crisis. Nazarene, the civil-military relationship has always been contested in Pakistan, no matter which civilian government it is. Historically, we have seen that the civil governments that come into power initially had very good working relationships with many, but at least there is some. Gap between and mistakes between the civilian and the military leadership and Nazreen in this case also we have seen that this crisis starts on the appointment of the chief of Pakistan's military spy
6:13 agency, Inter Services Intelligence, and at that time this crisis is managed, however, some scholars call it a turning point, that this turning point starts from October 2021 and after that if there is no rift between civilians or at least the military, then there is no possibility of it happening much ahead in supporting the current government because of this crisis, in the same way Nazreen, another element which we see in terms of division within this government is the lack of political experience of Imran Khan sahab and the PTI government, Nazreen, the way we saw that when the elections took place in 2018, different political parties tried to form
6:59 government, PTI Which was not the largest party in Punjab, was able to form the government in Punjab and then at the federal level also, the way they formed the coalition with great difficulty, the statesmanship that is required to form a coalition, the same skills do not seem effective to us to save this coalition and to some extent scholars say that the reason for this is their lack of political experience and to some extent we can say that the personality of Imran Khan sahab and his personality traits also play a factor and a role. Viewers, another big reason which PTI has been blaming Pakistan for justice greatly is the foreign intervention and the PTI
7:45 government's action has been that this process of removing the current government has been a conspiracy hatched by the United States and as evidence of which we can see the letter gate issue. It is said that we can see that there is a debate on this letter gate even now, there was one in the past and will continue in the future also because there is a divided political opinion, so it will not matter which inquiry is conducted or not. Anyway, letter gate is a part of the history of Pakistan and we will see that this letter gate will be seen playing a role in the politics of the future too, so it
8:33 may not be appropriate to talk about its authenticity here, but one thing is for sure that the leadership of PTI considers this letter gate to be a very big reason why their government was removed and it was part of the conspiracy which was internationally. Along with this, we see that another reason which is visible in the context of this crisis is the involvement of judiciary somewhere. This crisis came between the political parties. What came inside the Parliament and what was seen outside the Parliament, which makes sense, which happens in any functional democracy, coalitions are formed, coalitions are broken, grievances are created, political parties are also accused, but the history of Pakistan has been that
9:21 whenever any political conflict emerges, our political leadership calls it non-democratic or talks about non-elected institutions as interveners, and in this context we saw that this crisis developed, and especially when the PTI people defected, not officially, but at least it was known that they have defected, so PTI was the first one which took the matter of defection to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in the form of a reference, and then we see that the decision on that reference is not given, but at the same time when the vote of no conference is presented, the then Deputy Speaker Qasim Sori sahab refers it to an article. Under the provision of
10:07 the vote of no confidence, they dismiss the move and this is then challenged in the Supreme Court, so ultimately this Parliament will not remain or not, it was Khan sahab's decision to dissolve, is that vote of no confidence intact, will the Prime Minister be removed from the Parliament, so all these matters which were related to democratic development, you have judiciary opinion and during this time we see that we see another development which is being mentioned again and again and it is seen in the press conference of DG ISPR and apart from that, a statement is seen from the leadership of the P that there was contact between the government and the military in which an attempt was made to find a way out, and this argument is from both sides, the military says that it was the government that approached them, the government says it was the
10:52 military that approached through the defense minister, so somewhere. However, somewhere a non- elected authority was used, judiciary and also Egypt were used and in this context we see that this crisis expands more, which was earlier a crisis of the parliament, it was a political crisis, it became a legal constitutional and a civil military debate as well, so we can say that the reason for this was not that judiciary and military were very big in this work, but in any case, their role has been present in catalyzing this crisis and then Nazarin is another and if we look at the reason broadly, then the foundation of this crisis starts in the 2018 elections, when the elections were held in 2018, then from that time the opposition parties who formed an alliance,
11:40 which we call PDM Pakistan Democratic Movement, this allegation was made by the PDM from the beginning till date that this crisis, these elections, they were stolen elections and In this, PTI was not elected, it was selected and they were unwilling to accept those elections, and specially, they did not resign from the Parliament, they stayed in the Parliament but they never gave Parliament as much importance as a democratic state, should have been given it so, from the side of PDM, from day one of this current government office, they have been trying to overthrow this government and a crisis was expected because PDM had tried a lot in the past and none of those previous steps were
12:26 successful but this time they were a success and the last major reason for this is that because of Imran Khan sahab's government, people had very high hopes, even their opponents had a high hope on Imran Khan that he might deliver, but what happens is there are some cases of bad governance. There are international situations like the Covid crisis came, after that the Ukraine war came, so somewhere due to multiple factors, it did not prove easy for the PTI government to govern, so they failed to be partly because of their own mistakes and partly because of the factors that were beyond their control. In the economic crisis, we saw that it kept increasing a lot and that economic crisis forced the coalition partners of PTI to
13:12 think whether it is politically viable for them to go to the next election as a part of this coalition, whether the public will be able to elect them, so this proves to be one of the major factors as well for a political party to align with the PTI as well as the members from within PTI to part ways with PTI. Now we come to the point that what will be the potential impact of this crisis on the politics of Pakistan in terms of the security of Pakistan. To some extent, it is also related to economics. So Nazreen, if we talk about it broadly, politically speaking, then this crisis has affected Pakistan's democratic evolution in a broader sense in the long term.
13:58 Nazreen, we see that there are many reasons for this. One major reason is that again history continues that no Prime Minister in Pakistan has completed a five-year term. And as a result of this crisis, we see that the second major reason for the weakening of democracy is that the parliament does not have the ability to take decisions. Political leadership is unable to solve the problems that arise from them and mostly political problems. And for that, we have to look at the non-political institutions, we have to look at the military, we have to approach the government to decide among the political leaders. And Nazreen, because of this, in the long term, obviously democracy and elected officials will weaken. This is another reason why democracy will weaken. This is because the
14:46 public perception that will develop as a result of this crisis in terms of democracy and political leaders is becoming more negative and in this context we see that especially the statement of PTI that this is a foreign conceived you know kind of crisis, so if seen from this perspective, then in the local population also we will see a perception about democratic development that adversary effect is happening, so in the long term probably democratic development will not be that strong and we will also see that how this current coalition works, many questions will be raised on this too and if this current coalition is not able to work properly as a coalition then democratic development will be more adversely
15:33 affected, Nazreen, another impact that we see in the result of this crisis and especially the verdict of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and that verdict also came before the vote of no confidence and the vote of no confidence against Ekam Khan sahab was taken into consideration. It was justified and their secession was declared unconstitutional. As a result of this verdict, we will see that the defectors, in 1990, Nawaz Sharif sahab's government itself had brought a constitutional amendment in which defection was prohibited and it was declared unlawful. So, in that context, it was declared unlawful. We will see that there will be no special discernment. The
16:20 basic purpose of that 14th amendment was that those political leaders who contest elections on a party's ticket, tell the public that they belong to that party but let them switch party loyalties. So, they had to discuss that they should not defect from the party. But this crisis has been created. On fragments of documents, a case is going on in the Supreme Court. A reference case is going on in which the PTA government had asked one question after another
17:07 to the Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court is going to take up soon. It is whether the disqualification of those who defect is for life. If the Supreme Court prolongs the disqualification, maybe for five years, 10 years or even for life time, then it is obvious that the deterrence factor of the 14th amendment will be restored. Otherwise, defection will be promoted and encouraged in the future as well. And in the same way, Nazreen, another possible implication is that whenever the smaller parties join any coalition government, in the future, they will fulfill one of the uncertainties or not. So, the future of coalition government will remain uncertain, just like it was in the past, this is an uncertainty in the future as well.
17:56 [Music] And Nazreen, another political impact that we see is the civil-military divide. Nazreen, as a result of this crisis, some how unfortunately civil-military We see the divide widening. The PDM has welcomed military stance overall but we know that historically the PDM was has used its political campaign against some of the individuals directly and some times indirectly against the military's role in the politics of Pakistan but this time it is the PTI workers at least who are having their resentment against the role of the military, particularly against the judiciary but particularly but also against the military and particularly some individuals from the military, due to whom we see a civil military divide
18:43 widening and Pakistan's national security is definitely affected directly and indirectly. Another visual impact that we see is that the non-democratic institutions in Pakistan, non- elected institutions like the judiciary or the military, especially its responsibility towards the judiciary. So its encroachment in the political process of Pakistan in the parliamentary processes of Pakistan, we see it increasing, which again is not a good thing for the long term development of democracy in Pakistan and Nazreen, because in this crisis, the narrative of PTI was based on American conception, so we will definitely see its impact on Pakistan-US relationship as well. Pakistan's foreign policy with the US will definitely see the adverse facts
19:29 because ultimately Americans will be very conscious before meeting Pakistani diplomats and at least sharing their views about the political developments in Pakistan with Pakistani counterparts. So, somewhere or the other we may see a gap growing in Pakistan-US relationship, but Nazreen, in this way we see that there can be another major political impact here and what we can also see is that the PTI government has started mass campus gatherings, gatherings have taken place, one happened in Pisha and the other is to happen in Karachi, so Similarly, we will also see many political protests and as a result of those political protests, we will see the political charged environment growing and God forbid, in this charged environment, there is
20:16 definitely a fear of violence somewhere. It has not happened yet but the fear will definitely develop. Now, there are some economic challenges as well, which have been discussed in a separate program. Osama Rizvi has explained it very well. I will not talk about it much but obviously whenever there is political uncertainty, it has a direct impact on the economic development of the economy. Pakistan's economic crisis is already in a crisis situation, the reason for which is Covid and the Ukraine war as well, but this political crisis has apparently softened a bit with the ultimate establishment of the new government, but as the opposition continues to go for protests, PTI protests. Until the next elections are held and all the parties do not accept the next elections, this political uncertainty will remain and because of that economic consequences will keep on
21:04 coming up for Pakistan. So, if I have to draw a conclusion, I can say that this crisis has not resulted in any good omen for Pakistan's politics, economy and society. Somewhere, O Nazreen, as a result of this whole crisis, all the political parties have suffered losses to some extent. But at the same time, we see that since the political parties are of Pakistan, if those parties suffer losses, our civil-military divide will come, people will question the military, they will question the judiciary, then the loss will ultimately be to the Pakistani state. So, O Nazreen, what is needed is that the different stakeholders, and especially the political parties, I will talk about the
21:49 political leadership, they need to make sure that they have a good working relationship. I do not know. Expect that they should become friendly and take a bi-partisan approach like it happens in America but at least tolerate each other's existence for the sake of the national interest of Pakistan with this I will end here and viewers please do let us know with your feedback and you will find the outline in the comment section below and do see the one liners and vocabulary on your screen thank you so much god bless you Allah Hafiz [Music] i [Music]
