Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
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<strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>’s Unholy Alliance<br />
system, overseen by the generals. By creating a counterbalance in the<br />
form of the IDA, the generals constrained the new government of a<br />
political party that had led the resistance against military hegemony<br />
for ten years. 24<br />
<strong>The</strong> military-sponsored alliance comprised a mix of traditional<br />
power brokers, religious parties and politicians who had emerged on<br />
the scene during the 1980s under military patronage. General Zia’s<br />
regime, needing a measure of legitimacy and a social base of support,<br />
had co-opted segments of Punjab’s dominant socio-economic strata:<br />
influential landlords, industrialists and emerging commercial groups.<br />
<strong>The</strong> new leadership of the <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> Muslim League thus largely<br />
consisted of politicians who owed their political rise to the military’s<br />
backing. <strong>The</strong> other important components of the alliance were the<br />
right-wing <strong>Islam</strong>ic groups, including the Jamaat-i-<strong>Islam</strong>i, which had<br />
been involved in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet forces and the<br />
separatist war in Indian-controlled Kashmir.<br />
While the IDA, which carried General Zia’s legacy, could not achieve<br />
any significant electoral gains in the 1988 elections in the three smaller<br />
provinces, it did relatively well in Punjab and prevented the PPP from<br />
winning an absolute majority in the National Assembly. <strong>The</strong> military<br />
reluctantly handed over power to Benazir at the centre, but prevented<br />
her party from forming the government in Punjab, the biggest and<br />
most important of <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>’s four provinces, which was being ruled<br />
by Nawaz Sharif. Political manipulation by the ISI helped Sharif retain<br />
power in the province with the support of independent members.<br />
Benazir Bhutto’s assumption of power, touted at the time as the<br />
dawn of a new democratic era, was in fact a transition from direct to<br />
indirect military rule. <strong>The</strong> formal restoration of civilian rule in 1988 did<br />
not reduce the ISI’s clout. A return to the barracks did not mean that the<br />
military’s structure of control and manipulation had been dismantled.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ISI still kept a close watch on civilian rulers. <strong>The</strong> strains in civil<br />
and military relationships remained the biggest obstacle to democracy<br />
taking root in <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>. <strong>The</strong> Chief of Army Staff remained the power<br />
behind the scenes in alliance with the new President, Ghulam Ishaq<br />
Khan, who held sweeping powers under the Eighth Amendment in<br />
the constitution introduced by General Zia.<br />
For the army, the new political situation offered power without<br />
responsibility. <strong>The</strong> military continued to oversee <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>’s policies<br />
on Afghanistan and India, managing relations with the USA and<br />
controlling the country’s nuclear weapons programme. <strong>The</strong> army high