Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's very own Macbeth

If the former prime minister was wrongly disqualified, what are the NAB references aimed at?

Macbeth is the last of Shakespeare's four great tragedies. In Macbeth, Shakespeare adds a supernatural dimension that continues to conspire against Macbeth and his kingdom.

Since the Panama verdict, every time I hear Nawaz Sharif speak I am reminded of Macbeth and the supernatural dimension that caused him to lose his kingdom. Considering that neither Nawaz Sharif nor any member of his ruling party is willing to share the name of ‘those conspiring to oust him from power’ I am inclined to believe that losing his power and kingdom may just as well be because of supernatural forces.



Nobody expected anything new when Nawaz Sharif chose to address a press conference at Punjab House yesterday (Tuesday). He is famously recognised to indulge in politics of confrontation, and if anyone had any doubts that Nawaz Sharif would set aside his old habits he put those doubts to rest by claiming that he would continue to fight for Jinnah’s Pakistan.

He went on to say that, I am putting it in plain and simple words “let this country run as per the constitution and let the 200 million people make decisions of qualifications and disqualifications of their leaders.” Even when the leaders indulge in corruption, even when the highest judiciary holds them accountable, provides them unlimited time to prove their innocence and when they cannot do that they take the Macbeth line and sell it to the people – ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’.

Crowd around Nawaz Sharif’s car after his convoy enters Rawalpindi during a rally on August 9. PHOTO: AFP

Looking least pleasant and politically uncomfortable, Nawaz Sharif went on to remind the citizens about how, in 1971, half of the country was lost when the people’s mandate was not respected. Did he mean that if he and his family were punished for the crimes they have committed (four corruption references are filed in NAB against Nawaz Sharif and his family) Pakistan would once again be thrust into political anarchy and turmoil similar to that witnessed in East-Pakistan?

Something incredible happened in East-Pakistan that is rarely mentioned because of the horror and tragedy that dwarfed it. Two military officers (Admiral S M Ahsan the Governor of East Pakistan and Sahabzada Yaqub Ali Khan, CGS of East Pakistani Military) resigned on the pretext that ‘there is no military solution to the political problem’. What followed was exactly what they had predicted. While the military and politicians failed us in 1971, we had these two heroes who did justice to their individual conscience.



What do we have today? All those who were the loudest in raising their voices, defending the house of Nawaz during the Supreme Court trial, have been blessed with cabinet positions and ministries.

Their credentials are nothing more than court jesters in the Shakespeare’s plays who are treating the very institutions of their State as whipping boys. Is this what the constitution allows them? To defame and degrade the very institutions around which a just and secure Pakistan is built, can progress and survive.

Nawaz Sharif continues to lament that he was disqualified ‘on the false pretext of iqama because they could not prove charges relating to Panama Papers’. What, then, are these NAB references waiting for him and his family appearance aimed at? Unfortunately, it seems that Nawaz Sharif has already decided on what terms the kingship and kingdom of Macbeth would end.

With the end already decided, it is only a matter of employing a variety of means to achieve it. A new addition to these means (post Panama judicial verdict) is the way Nawaz Sharif presented himself before the accountability court accompanied with political hooligans who made a mockery of the court’s dignity, respect and also its proceedings, thus forcing the judge to call off the proceedings but not before he decided to set October 2 as the date for indictment of Nawaz Sharif in all references.

It is obvious that the end that Nawaz Sharif and his party seek is not through a fair trial (fair is foul and foul is fair). In Nawaz Sharif’s, and his party’s, political estimates, it is important to continue to sell the narrative of victimhood to the people – this strategy will continue with an aim to unify the strategic audience (both home and abroad) to support their victimhood narrative.



In the coming days, it is most likely that attempts will be made to create law and order situation and thus force an agenda, which takes PML-N to the 2018 elections as a victim party. This, in all fairness, will be resisted and if somebody in the party is choosing the right political preferences and making the right political estimates that he or she must know that the die has already been cast.

What centre of gravity means in military warfare is quite true and applicable politically as well – ‘it means where to concentrate the decisive blow to knock out the enemy’. Unfortunately for the house of Nawaz, that decisive blow and knockout punch landed when Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and NAB was asked to file references against the Nawaz family. The house of Nawaz’s kingdom (Macbeth's Kingdom) it seems cannot be saved even if dark powers are employed against the supernatural dimensions that continue to conspire against it.

But, do not count him out yet - given that he knows the art of survival and making political comebacks anything can happen. Why else would he be the only three times elected prime minister of Pakistan? Lastly, let us not forget Asif Zardari is still round the political corner.

 

Dr Muhammad Ali Ehsan is a retired lieutenant colonel of the Pakistan Army and is a PhD in civil-military relations.