Lieutenant General Raheel Sharif. PHOTO: INP
Another period of intense speculation about the appointment of the next army chief, and whether General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani would indeed be stepping down at all, has ended. And it has all happened in an appropriately orderly fashion. General Kayani, who has served since 2007, will hand over charge on November 29 to Lt General Raheel Sharif, currently his Principal Staff Officer. Lt General Rashad Mahmood will, meanwhile, take over the prestigious, but largely ceremonial, office of the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.
The man at the top of the seniority list, Lt General Haroon Aslam, has been superseded. The future chief of army staff, in fact, stood third on that list, but it is, of course, the right of the prime minister to make his choice in this. Prime Minister Sharif had met both the men appointed to key posts separately on November 27. Lt General Sharif has an illustrious family history as far as the military goes, and is the younger brother of Major Shabbir Sharif Shaheed, awarded the Nishan-e-Haider for his services in the 1971 war losing life fighting the Indian army in Sulemanki in Okara district. The new army chief will be stepping into a tough job, with an insurgency on within the country, political uncertainty over how to tackle it, a US troop pull-out from Afghanistan scheduled for next year and relations with India tense after recent skirmishes along the Line of Control.
We must hope though that Sharif, to be appointed General within days, adheres to the legacy of General Kayani, who will be remembered for steering clear of politics and consistently backing democratic actions, unlike his predecessors. We would like to see this role being taken forward to an even greater extent and are confident that Lt General Sharif, who has held key command posts in the past, will recognise the need to make his nation even securer than before by acting against the key threats that lurk within it, and working under the leadership of the elected government for this purpose, so that civilian-military relations can be strengthened further with each institution working within its clearly defined constitutional ambit.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 28th, 2013.
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The choice does appear to be correct, although the guy was 3rd in seniority. I hope history does not repeat itself and Sharif remains in the barracks. It is important that Nawaz Sharif does not give the new C-in C any excuse to come marching in Islamabad. We must not forget that the army is still revered by most Pakistanis, however. And under General Kayani, the military gained a new point of respect: Something the civilian leaders still lacking in respect. Zardari knew how to tackle the limits of flexibility. Hope Nawaz Sharif has learned his lesson. Good luck General Sharif. The only dark clouds I see is that now there are three Sharifs and all from Lahore.