Is There A New Sharif in Town?

Dauren Koptleuov

In the beginning of 2017, ex-General of Pakistan, Raheel Sharif, was appointed as a first Commander-in-Chief (The Guardian, 2017), moving to Saudi Arabia in order to head the army of the Islamic Military Alliance (IMA) (Dawn, 2017). According to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in the United States (2015), the purpose of this organization is to unite 39 Arabic, African and Middle East countries to fight terrorism and to counter the formation of such organizations as ISIS, Hezbollah, Boko Haram and others. Whereas the fact of creation of such anti-terroristic military organization that is already known as “Arabic NATO” is accepted with general optimism, Pakistani civil-military situation can possibly make government regret of “losing” such cadre as Sharif.

Pakistan is known as a state with military, which has a significant influence over the political matters of the country. According to Huffington Post (2016), Sharif was the first military leader who decided to cooperate with Pakistani government. Moreover, Sharif is popular because of successful elimination of terrorist threat in the region as well as criminal control of the Karachi, the biggest city of Pakistan (Huffington Post, 2016). That already demonstrates the weakness of government, as police is unable to control criminal activity even in the largest cities due to its either corruptness or incompetence. However, with the Sharif involvement in IMA activities and leaving the post of the General, eliminated threats may become relevant once again.

Historically, Pakistani government had literally neither objective nor subjective control over the military. The reason why the military has such amount of influence is most probably due to the continuous conflict with the India, where Pakistani military was the most important sphere in the state (Huffington Post, 2016). With the resignation of Sharif, already weakened civil-military situation in Pakistan will deteriorate unless there is another military leader that is willing to cooperate with the government. What is more possible to happen, is that dissatisfied military would overthrow weak civilian government and proclaim military rule. In case of Pakistan becoming a “junta”, as Weeks (2014) would put it, it is more likely to favor armed conflict rather than peaceful diplomatic resolution (Weeks, 2014), which may bring every more harm to the state and its citizens, considering unstable situation in the region.


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Links and references:

Weeks, Jessica L. P. 2014. Dictators at War and Peace. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press

http://embassies.mofa.gov.sa/sites/usa/EN/PublicAffairs/Statements/Pages/Joint-Statement-on-the-Formation-of-the-Islamic-Military-Alliance.aspx

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/08/former-pakistan-army-chief-raheel-sharif-lead-muslim-nato

https://www.dawn.com/news/1328349

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raza-habib-raja/why-is-military-so-powerful_b_13269780.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raza-habib-raja/pakistans-most-popular-ge_b_10954454.html

Army Chief in Pakistan promotes the idea of civilian control of the military.

Author: Viktoriya Malikova

Links: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/pakistan-army-chief-asks-officers-to-read-book-on-success-of-indian-democracy/story-wa7Ii1EiHEkBYmmiHVZTmK.html

Shvetsova and Barany in their analyses of such countries as Russia, Romania and Slovenia, describe how depolarization of the military is difficult in the states which had a long history of autocracy. Barany, in particular, claims that as the support of military was vital for the soviet regime, possibility of military being apolitical was never mentioned. Therefore, after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, the depolitization of army takes a time to be changed. This process, however, can be even more difficult in the case of a country which went through a military type of the regime and experienced a number of coups. This can be clearly seen from the example of Pakistan. The author of the article explicitly emphasizes that “the fact that Pakistan is a country which has been ruled by the army for almost half its history” make the civil military relations in it very difficult.

The author also makes a hint that one of the reasons for why the previous army chief left his post because of his bad relations with the Prime Minister of Pakistan. It is another clear example of the tensions in the civil-military relations. The fact that this person is no longer in power may be example of government’s using one his tools to “punish” the disobedient armed servant by firing him.
 The current Army Chief Bajwa, seems to take this problem of civil-military relations very seriously and he makes certain attempts at tackling it. In particular, this article discusses Bajwa’s unusual public advice to the Pakistani officers to read a book called “Army and Nation: The Military and Indian Democracy since Independence” which, as it can be predicted from its name, discusses building of the civil-military relations in democratic countries, focusing on India example. This advice is twice unusual as Baija encourages Pakistani officers to learn from India – a country with which Pakistan has tense relations.

In general, such recommendation may demonstrate that the current Pakistani Army chief supports the classical Huntington’s theory about importance of the civilian control over the military. For example, his own words were that “competition between the civilians and the military is counter-productive for the country.” The practice, however, shows that, in spite of this beautiful rhetoric, the army in Pakistan continues to actively oppose the government. In the recent land disagreement, for example, Balja himself explicitly disagreed with the government. It follows that there is a gap between the military words and actions.

Therefore, Balja’s promise of supporting and assisting the government under the moto of “United we rise” should be followed by clear definitions of such assistance which should not imply intervention into the politics. Pakistan clearly has a long way ahead before finding the balance in the civil military relations and establishing of the civilian control.

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References:

Shevtsova L. 1996. “Russia’s Fragmented Armed Forces.” In Civil-Military Relations and Democracy. Edited by Diamond, Larry, and Marc F, Plattner. The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Barany Z. 2012. Chapter 7. in The Soldier and the Changing State. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Posters in Pakistan Urge a General to Take Control of the Government

Gulnaz Takauova

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/world/asia/pakistan-raheel-sharif-nawaz-sharif.html?_r=0

http://www.dawn.com/news/1270214

Huntington, Samuel P. 1957. The Soldier and the State the Theory and Politics of Civil-

Military Relations. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

      On July 15th, 2016, 13 major cities of Pakistan were filled with banners urging the Pakistani Army chief, General Raheel Sharif to overthrow the current inefficient government and take control over the country. The photograph of the General Sharif with the text “For God’s sake, take over” below his picture were featured by the political party “Move On Pakistan”.

      The campaign organiser Ali Hashmi together with supporters of this idea begged the General Sharif to establish the martial law regime and supervise the country himself. In response it was said that the Pakistani Army doesn’t have anything to do with this activity. This is not the first case of such posters being featured in Pakistani streets. On February after the General’s announcement of his plans to retire by the end of the year, such posters begging him to prolong his military service, appeared in major cities of Pakistan.

      These posters immediately resulted in rumors about the military attempting a coup. However, it is not a new issue in Pakistan since it had experienced 4 military coups since its establishment. These coups were largely the result of the civilian disdain of the inefficient government. Also the Prime Minister, Nawaz Shariff who has served for the 3rd time is becoming increasingly unpopular because of the corruption allegations on his side.

      As we have seen the Pakistani Army Chief Raheel Shariff is a very popular person around which the cult of personality is built. He is seen as the only person able to bring peace and stability to Pakistan, whereas on the other side people are highly distrustful of the civilian leadership.

     Coup d’etat- seizure of power by military is the main concern in works about civil-military relations. Many authors of CMR emphasize the idea that the military entity created to protect the state has sufficient powers to become a major threat to that state. Therefore there is a big concern on how to ensure that the military agent is doing the civilian bidding. However, recent cases show that Pakistani people actually trust more in military’s ability to effectively lead the country rather than the civilian leadership’s ability. Comparing to other countries, the military in Pakistan enjoys substantial powers and is known as "the state within a state". In this case, if the civilian leadership is unable to govern the state effectively should the military step in and take control of everything? And is the theory of objective control of the military by Samuel Huntington – depoliticizing the military and making it voluntarily subordinate to the civilian control applicable to the Pakistani case?