Nawaz Sharif wants another “adventure” like Oct 1999, and is pushing PM Khakkan Abbassi for it. Famous TV Anchor and prominent political analyst, Hamid Mir, claimed in Geo News program with Shahzeb Khanzada on Wednesday.
Mir added that Ex-President Asif Ali Zardari wants to stay away from Nawaz Sharif precisely because of this reason.
This discussion took place on Geo News’s primetime show ‘tonight with Shahzeb Khanzada’. Shahzeb had asked Hamid Mir about the recent revelations on the latter’s show, that Asif Khwaja had tried to meet and call Zardari several times and had been rebuffed.
Shahzeb asked why Mian Nawaz Sharif is trying so hard to contact Asif Ali Zardari. Hamid Mir explained that Asif Ali Zardari has some kind of information that Nawaz Sharif wants to undertake an ‘adventure that will ultimately become a misadventure’. Hamid Mir went on to say that this adventure would be similar to that which Nawaz Sharif tried in 1999, except this time Nawaz would try to do it through Shahid Khaqqan Abbasi.
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Hamid Mir also explained that Asif Ali Zardari felt that he and the PPP were trapped into starting a case against General Pervaiz Musharraf on the behest of Nawaz Sharif.
According to Hamid Mir, Asif Zardari thinks that Shahid Khaqqan is not agreeing to any such idea. He also knows that Shahbaz Sharif and other senior party leaders such as Chaudhury Nisar would not accept. Other political insiders in Islamabad, GVS spoke with, support Hamid Mir’s claims. They assert that Nawaz, in latest London meeting, before flying for Islamabad, seriously pushed PM Khakkan Abbassi to sack current Army Chief, Gen. Qamar Javaid Bajwa, and a shocked Abbassi refused, arguing: “How can I do it? on what grounds?” Meeting in London was attended by CM Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, foreign Minister, Khawaja Asif and finance minister, Ishaq Dar. Ch. Nisar, ex-interior minister, was a notable absence from this close huddle. Apparently according to other sources, PM Abbassi and CM Shahbaz assured Nawaz that they will find a soft passage for him through the court – and if push come to shove, then they are with him.
Nawaz, in latest London meeting, before flying for Islamabad, seriously pushed PM Khakkan Abbassi to sack current Army Chief, Gen. Qamar Javaid Bajwa, and a shocked Abbassi refused, arguing: “How can I do it? on what grounds?”
Hamid Mir also explained that Asif Ali Zardari felt that he and the PPP were trapped, in 2013, into starting a case against General Pervaiz Musharraf on the behest of Nawaz Sharif. Asif Ali Zardari at the time in a jalsa said that ‘the cat always runs away after drinking milk and this time we would not let this happen.’
However, the PPP feels that when Nawaz came into power they struck a ‘silent NRO’ with Musharaff and let him go out of the country. Whereas according to Zardari the PPP was then victimized and its party members pursued and arrested.
This time around he [Asif Zardari] doesn’t want to be part of any ‘adventurous policy undertaken by Nawaz’. Hence is avoiding talking to PML-N and being part of any talks in case they are seen as allies of this ‘misadventure’. The ‘suggestion’ being that this misadventure may involve sacking the army chief.
Read More: PPP will play the “elder brother, younger brother” game!
Nawaz’s efforts to shape a political narrative of “being a victim” will get a serious set back if details of his money transactions between various of his companies start to fill the screens of TV channels every evening.
Political circles, in Islamabad, believe that Nawaz is attempting to change the overall political atmosphere of the country, by creating a crisis, that will divert attention away from his corruption cases under trial in an Accountability Court in Islamabad. He thinks if the political context changes, the overall power dynamics will be transformed thus weakening the resolve of the Supreme Court and the establishment, to pursue the cases. Nawaz’s desire to get the Army chief sacked, through PM Abbassi, stems from this understanding of the matrix of power in Pakistan.
Political circles believe that Nawaz is attempting to change the political atmosphere of the country, by creating a crisis, that will divert attention away from his corruption cases.
Legal experts believe that Nawaz desperately wants to prevent an open discussion of bank transactions, and money trail, or its absence, in the corruption references filed by NAB in the Accountability court. His efforts to shape a political narrative of “being a victim” will get a serious set back if details of his money transactions between various of his companies start to fill the screens of TV channels every evening. He therefore wants to delay the possibility of any substantial discussion in the court on these references, his lawyers are thus finding more and more technical grounds to delay any substantive discussion in the court. Most experts, appearing on TV programs, agree that Nawaz wants that court proceedings should remain confused and inconclusive till the next general elections. But even the Senate elections due in March 2018 are important – dodging any conviction till that time will help Nawaz consolidate his position on the party and bureaucracy and his tough talk is part of the same calculation – experts argue.