
Islamabad [Pakistan], April 4 (ANI): Pakistanās military establishment is facing one of its biggest challenges in a battle with opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the Punjab province, with the partyās new anti-government politics being led by vice president Maryam Nawaz.
The PML-N, emerging as the face of anti-establishment politics, has shifted the locus of the national power struggle against the military-led āhybrid regimeā to Punjab, which is the heart of the countryās military officer recruitment, writes Asia Times.
Salman Rafi Sheikh writes that the PML-Nās recent victories in some by-elections in Punjab have again shown that Nawaz Sharif remains the most popular leader and that the PML-N continues to attract Punjabās anti-establishment vote.
This has plunged the Pakistani āhybrid regimeā into a major dilemma, failing its resolve to secure its political future. Along with eroding Punjabās support for the military, the PML-Nās anti-establishment rhetoric is preventing the military to achieve its immediate political ambitions.
Pakistan has been under a hybrid martial law regime since elections in 2018, with Prime Minister Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) seen as junior partners to the generals.
Even though Imran Khanās PTI is a leading member of the current āhybrid regimeā, reports of tensions within the regime over the performance of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar have emerged, with the military establishment seeking to remove him through a vote of no confidence.
Several politically dissident movements have emerged in other provinces of Pakistan, but they were absent in Punjab, as a collaboration between the Punjabi-dominated military and political parties have been at the centre of Pakistanās ethnically exclusive and politically centralised system of power.
While former premier Nawaz Sharif was a close political ally of Zia-ul-Haq-led military establishment in the 1980s and even in the 1990s, the 1999 coup against his government left little room for what PML-N leaders call āpolitics of compromiseā with the establishment, reported Asia Times.
The PML-N is unwilling to collaborate with the military establishment, unlike in the 1990s. The party is also actively pursuing an agenda that seeks to de-politicize the military and establish civil supremacy.
āThe military establishment led āhybrid-regimeā continues to pursue a kind of political framework that aims to restrict the PML-Nās presence in Punjab and dent its popularity,ā one PML-N leader told Sheikh in the backdrop of the PTI governmentās decision to dissolve Punjabās local governments in 2018.
The Supreme Court also recently suspended the Punjab governmentās decision to dissolve local governments early.
According to Asia Times, the military aims to reserve the 18th amendment to Pakistanās constitution, which would bring maximum provincial resources under Islamabadās control.
However, with the PML-N largely leading an increasingly dissident Punjab, no constitutional amendment can be passed. Therefore, the military is pushing to eliminate the PML-Nās political base in Punjab, while the partyās counter-politics is targeting the military establishmentās direct and indirect political interventions. (ANI)