Hot on the heels of former PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, another PML(N) leader, Mushahid Hussein Syed, has also said that it was a mistake to pass the amendment to the army act of 1952, which formally provided for the extension in service to the military chief.
Now, it is clear that the League was against giving an extension to former army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa. And now, former premier Imran Khan also admits for it to have been a mistake of his. But general Bajwa isn’t the subject of discussion; the amendment to the act itself is, one that ostensibly opens the door to perhaps all army chiefs expecting an extension, given the desperation all sitting civil governments are in when the going gets tough (and it does; we’re not an easy country to govern.)
But the League also did sign off on the amendment, so what moral ground does it have to bring this up? Yes, former PM Abbasi had opposed it even then, but that was in his personal capacity; he fell in line – as one does, mostly – when the party decided to back the PTI on this front.
So where do we stand now? Abbasi and Syed’s regret isn’t quite matched by their party’s apex leadership or across the political divide. And Imran Khan’s regret was only at general Bajwa himself, not the amendment.
An oft-cited imbalance between the number of army chiefs that we have had and the number of prime ministers that we have had emerges now and then, on social media, in an easily digestible meme format. But the amendment lends itself to create a situation where the imbalance will almost be baked into the system itself./
We are a praetorian state, unfortunately, and the military has had a disproportionate role in statecraft. We are not talking about direct military coups, of course; one would be hard pressed to find defenders of those in this day and age. We are talking, instead, about the behind-the-scenes manipulation by almost all military chiefs since the return of democracy in 2008. With military bosses outlasting prime ministers, and one-term chiefs being the exception rather than the norm, the civilian government would find a far more entrenched individual to negotiate with in the struggle for civilian supremacy.
Furthermore, even if one were to jettison ideas of civilian supremacy, and focus on the institution: it is bad for the army itself. No individual should be bigger than the institution. If we are to have a fit fighting force, we need to ensure it doesn’t need any one individual or a clique to function well.
