SWABI: In his speech on December 22 on the floor of the National Assembly, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said that the government will not accept a state within a state, meaning that the military should confine itself to the boundaries set for it by the Constitution and should be answerable to the government and the parliament.
While in theory this is good, I think it is too late for all of this. The army’s influence extends to all spheres of the country and this is partly because during its time in power, the PPP-led government has done little to check it. They did nothing after the May 2 Abbottabad raid but now when the military is trying to get the controversial memo investigated, all hell seems to have broken loose. It seems that the ruling party is now concerned solely with remaining in power. What it should have done was to have asserted its right as the elected representative of the people’s will and delivered to them good governance. Having said that, it is also the case that this country cannot afford yet another military coup.
Muhammad Irfan Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, December 26th, 2011.
