Follow Us on Google News
WASHINGTON: A US paper has recalled memories dated back to 15 years when the then popular political figure Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.
Titled “Pakistan Won’t Quickly Recover From Imran Khan’s Shooting,” Washington Post, recalling the turmoil following Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, wrote that the attack on Khan is likely to put any political equilibrium out of reach for years. Khan, ousted as prime minister earlier this year, was in the middle of a “long march” meant to drum up support for early elections. His supporters already felt hard done by, blaming Pakistan’s all-powerful “establishment” for Khan’s lost majority in parliament. The attack on their leader might well cause their anger to curdle into permanent resentment.
According to Washington Post, Pakistan’s army was already playing defense against Khan’s resurgent party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. Just a week ago, the country’s spy chief, Lt.-Gen. Nadeem Anjum, held an unprecedented press conference in which he simultaneously insisted that the military was politically neutral and that Khan was a hypocrite who had made secret, “unconstitutional” demands of the army. Never before has the head of Inter-Services Intelligence had to lower himself so far as to answer questions from the press corps.
The paper wrote that later this month, the most powerful post in Pakistan — chief of the army staff — was supposed to receive a new incumbent. Some had hoped that this might allow the military to turn its promise to stay out of politics into a reality — and that the departure of the current military chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, would allow Khan to move on from attacking the military for betraying him. Now, the attempt on Khan’s life may create an almost irreconcilable divide between the corps commanders who have dominated Pakistan for decades and the populist insurgent they helped elevate to the premiership just four years ago.
