Hail the new Troika!

It’s official. Pakistan has a new ‘Troika’: Sharif, Sharif and Khan. Is this combo going to drag us kicking and screaming towards a new Pakistan?

The new troika signifies changing times in Pakistan. The term was originally coined in the early 1990s to describe the three men who together wielded power and ran the country. The three were the all-powerful Eighth Amendment-armed president, the popularly elected prime minister and the army chief. Through the nineties, this troika shared a rocky relationship that shaped the turbulence of the era.

The troika ended when General Musharraf took charge. He ruled alone.

On his departure, a new troika emerged during the PPP rule: President (Asif Ali Zardari), army chief (General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani) and chief justice (Iftikhar Chaudhry). The prime minister had all the powers since the annulment of the Eighth Amendment, but in reality he remained subservient to Mr Zardari, and therefore, out of the troika.

The president was knocked off the list once Mr Zardari left office. Yet another troika emerged: Prime Minister (Nawaz Sharif), Army Chief (General Raheel Sharif) and Chief Justice (Chaudhry). The three most powerful men in the country co-existed in an uneasy power-sharing arrangement.

The chief justice was struck off the list on the retirement of Chaudhry. And now we have the latest troika: Nawaz Sharif, Raheel Sharif and Imran Khan.

This is clearly the most interesting, and perhaps the most defining troika to date. Between the three, these men are defining the present, and the future of our country. And this is possibly the first troika that is deliberately upending the status quo — for all the right reasons.

Here’s the key: they get it. Yes, these three gentlemen actually get it. As heads of the two largest political parties and the powerful army, they know what needs to be done and why. They also know if what needs to be done is not done we will face a very long, and a very dark night in the years ahead. And they know that the time to do what needs to be done is now. Right now, right here.

This is the good part. The bad part is that among the lot, these three are probably the only ones who actually get it. The others are paling into irrelevance. The so-called liberals like the PPP, the MQM, the ANP and a smattering of also-rans have caved under the weight of their own contradictions, incompetence and visionless existence as political entities. They are gradually transforming themselves into the litter that needs to be swept clean for the new Pakistan to emerge.



They are the status quo.

The alphabet soup that defines the religious right represents the archaic, anachronistic, primitive and outmoded world view that hangs around our necks like a 500-tonne millstone. Their relevance lies in their fossilised world thinking, shared unfortunately, by a significant number of citizens. The religious parties have a strong constituency, and yet they are part of the problem.

They, too, are the status quo.

So how can the change-making new troika make the change? Here’s where the plot thickens. Sharif and Khan are locked into mortal combat. They are at each other’s throats and out to destroy the other. Fear not. This is just what the doctor ordered for Pakistan.

How? For the first time, two members of the troika are pummeling each other within the rules of the game. No more freestyle kickboxing. As they wrestle and wrangle and scuffle and grapple, they strengthen the system and toughen the edifice that holds it all together. It’s happening in front of our eyes: the enforced transparency in the electoral process, the galvanisation of committed supporters, the hyperactivity on the streets and digital highways, the fierce competition to improve governance and usher in a culture of service delivery. This is one fight that is doing us good.

And then there’s the other Sharif who is busy doing what these two men couldn’t; wouldn’t. He’s dismantling other pillars of the corroding status quo, and doing so with a single-mindedness that has not been seen for a while. With aggressive clarity, General Sharif is turning around a long-held, supposedly-sacrosanct military policy of exporting ‘jihad’. His forces have wreaked vengeance on the previously-mollycoddled terrorists and knocked both ‘T’s and the ‘P’ out of the TTP. How cool is that?

Equally cool is the hot pursuit of political and bureaucratic fat cats who have gorged on public funds like wolves on a fresh kill. Encroaching on others’ turf? Bah humbug! When there’s a choice between defending a rotten turf, or smashing the corrupt ring of elected scoundrels, there’s actually no real choice. What we are witnessing in Karachi is a true game-changer: untouchable fat cats being hauled up for their sins in plain view of an applauding populace. All power to the new power of accountability. Let the rascals whine.

Sharif, Sharif and Khan together, and perhaps inadvertently, are carving a new path for Pakistan. It is yet too early to know whether the path will broaden into a shiny eight-lane highway, or crash into the side of a mountain. At this stage, it matters not. What does matter is that three powerful men have converged on to a moment that can define a new reality wrapped in a fresh narrative. What does matter is that Sharif, Sharif and Khan have been catapulted into a game-changing position, and their shots are connecting. In their own separate ways, the three men are smashing, bashing and crashing old idols of a decadent political culture that fed itself fat on inequality, injustice and privilege for the few.

Today, here in Pakistan, these three men, and these three men alone, matter. Forget the Bhuttos, the Walis, the Maulanas and Allamas and Sardars and Makhdooms, and Khawajas and Chaudhries and Rajas. They are irrelevant to the moment that is upon us. Sharif, Sharif and Khan can do for us what no other troika, or diarchy or even a sole ruler has been able to do. They can show us a glimpse of the future we so desperately desire, and so richly deserve.

Hail the new Troika!

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2015.

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