Pak inching towards military rule again?
Sept. 2: Pakistan — a country ruled directly by the Army for over half of its age as an independent nation since 1947 — may be inching towards another round of military dictatorship, a US media report said.
The last military rule ended only in 2008 when the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led coalition replaced Mr Pervez Musharraf.
“Will the fallout from the worst natural disaster (floods) in Pakistan’s history result in the downfall of its fragile civilian government,” the Christian Science Monitor posed the question.
“The question is front and centre as the perception grows among Pakistanis that the government response to flooding has been lacklustre and insufficient,” the paper wrote. Amid the crisis, the military has been out front, driving high-profile rescue efforts with some 60,000 Army troops.
Spurred by dismay over politicians who were slow to address their constituents’ needs (and a President who continued to tour Europe as the crisis grew), momentum in favour of military rule appears to be picking up among Pakistan’s upper-middle classes — historically the group least likely to favour democracy.
“At least the Army gets the job done, unlike the politicians who only seem to care for lining their pockets,” Ali Sajjad, a textiles businessman in the city of Lahore, was quoted as saying.
Others argue that international disapproval and domestic wariness of the Army after General Pervez Musharraf’s military rule, which ended in 2008, will keep a coup at bay.
Debate over the political future set to continue as the daunting dimensions of recovery from the flood become apparent.
In this connection, the newspaper cited the statement of Altaf Hussain in late August calling upon patriotic generals to take “martial law type action” against corrupt and feudal politicians.
“The drumbeat is a familiar one; you see the same calls from the middle classes for accountability and less corruption,” says Badar Alam, editor of Pakistan’s Herald magazine, who likens the atmosphere to that of 1999.
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