Imran Khan’s master class on civilian supremacy

Rejecting notifications, taking interviews, dictating timelines, Imran Khan asserted civilian supremacy for the second holiest job appointment in our land of the pure. And this isn’t even the most extraordinary thing that happened last week. No, I’m not talking about Pakistan thrashing India or New Zealand, although that was pretty remarkable too.

You see before Imran Khan said absolutely not to America, he said absolutely not to Saudi Arabia. First on sending Pakistani troops to Yemen, then on turning down the heat on OIC for Kashmir and then again on recognising Israel. The boys didn’t like this principled game of chicken with the Saudis one bit; they are our patrons in Chief and one of our Chiefs is literally on loan to the country. But at the end of the day, Imran Khan held his ground and the Saudis are ready to play ball with Pakistan once again with billions of dollars coming our way. It’s not a complete surprise that the highly anticipated notification for the DG ISI dropped on the same day as the announcement that Saudi money was coming in. For the last few weeks, the opposition and media cabal had been trying to link the date of this notification to the lunar eclipse and all sorts of other voodoo prophecies.

First, they said he was selected and when he stood so firmly on principle for the DG ISI appointment, they said he’s under the influence of a witch, who happens to be his wife. I guess they really can’t accept that Imran Khan might be an independent thinker who makes the best, flawed decisions he can. Some of them good, some of them not so good. On the civilian supremacy front though, we are witnessing a master class from Imran Khan. The man may not be under the influence of a witch but he is engaging in some serious political wizardry.

He has essentially turned the most popular narrative against him — the idea that he is selected — and flipped it on its head with one delayed stroke of a pen. So much so, that the civilian supremacist in chief, Maryam Nawaz, stood with the selector instead of a civilian Prime Minister on the much-vaunted DG ISI notification. This reveals that PML-N’s fight was never principled against the boys (read voting to extend the selector or Shehbaz Sharif). The fact is that both PML-N and PPP have been happy sharing the spoils of elections in slightly uncomfortable arrangements with the boys and PTI is no more selected than any other civilian government in Pakistan’s history. The real enemy for the PML-N and PPP is Imran Khan challenging their status quo.

That civilian supremacy is a good thing is now a public position held by all major political parties in Pakistan. How civilian supremacy is established is still a question up for debate. PML-N’s model for establishing civilian supremacy is playing good cop (Shehbaz Sharif) and bad cops (Maryam and Nawaz). PPP’s model for establishing civilian supremacy is being principled in public and pragmatic in private. Imran Khan is blazing a third pathway; he’s showing that it’s possible to assert civilian supremacy in private without becoming a political martyr in public. You can stick to your guns — say on Usman Buzdar — and deal with the electoral consequences on your own two feet rather than blame the boys.

If a puppet can do this — for Usman Buzdar of all people — why can’t the champions of our democracy? Civilian supremacy is an input to governance outcomes, not an excuse to underperform or a personality trait that is inherited like political parties or democracy itself in Pakistan.

Short of a bloody revolution, this is the only possible pathway of achieving civilian supremacy over time. Instead of using civilian supremacy as the Trump card in your electoral toolbox, use civilian supremacy as just another card in your governance toolbox. And then act like it’s no big deal. If we do this often enough, we’ll realise that the emperor may be wearing a uniform but he can’t pass a notification until the real chief signs off on it. And 2021 isn’t 1999. It’s time for a software reset.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 31^st, 2021.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.