Open Letter to Our Pakistani Brothers and Sisters

Bu yazı 25/08/2023 tarihinde yayınlanmıştır.

*Alper TAN/SDE BAŞKAN YARDIMCISI

In this article, we would like to draw attention to the unchanging political dramas in brotherly Pakistan in order to reflect on them and find a solution. Military coups, attempts by the Supreme Court to regulate politics, exile, shadowy political murders, and of course the ongoing political, social and economic instability...

Pakistan is the only Muslim country with nuclear weapons. Pakistani politics and the fate of those who have held the highest office in this brotherly country, such as the presidency and prime ministry, always attract our attention. To understand this sad story more easily, let's take a brief look at Pakistan's political figures and their fates.

In Pakistan's 76-year history, no prime minister has ever completed a five-year term in office. Since the founding of Pakistan, there have been 15 presidents and 23 prime ministers, some of them repeatedly.

The country was ruled by the military between 1958-1971, 1977-1988 and 1999-2008.

On August 15, 1947, one day after Pakistan's independence, Liaquat Ali Khan was elected as the country's first Prime Minister. Khan was assassinated on October 16, 1951 before completing his 5-year term.

Liaquat Ali Khan was succeeded by Khawaja Nazimuddin, who served as Prime Minister for less than 2 years before being dismissed by Governor General Malik Ghulam on April 17, 1953. Muhammad Ali Bogra, who became Prime Minister on the same day after Nazimuddin's dismissal, was dismissed by Acting Governor General Iskender Mirza on August 12, 1955 on the grounds of regional issues and lack of support in the Parliament.

After 13 years of martial law in the country, Nurul Amin became Prime Minister on December 7, 1971 under Yahya Khan's administration, but was dismissed on December 20, 1971. Amin became the shortest prime minister in the country's history, staying in office for 13 days.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became Prime Minister on August 14, 1973, but he too was ousted in a military coup by General Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 and was sadly executed in 1979 after various charges.

Nawaz Sharif became Prime Minister in the 1997 elections but was ousted on October 12, 1999 in a military intervention by General Pervez Musharraf.

In the country's political history, no-confidence votes were held against Benazir Bhutto in 1989 and Shaukat Aziz in 2006, but both prime ministers kept their seats. Prime Minister Imran Khan is the third prime minister in Pakistan's 76-year history to face a vote of no confidence. The no-confidence vote against Imran Khan was rejected on the grounds that it was unconstitutional and President Arif Alvi then dissolved the Assembly on Prime Minister Khan's call. But the subsequent developments have been deeply offensive...

Even the examples we have briefly summarized so far are extremely distressing. But the overall picture is much graver and in fact unbecoming of a country like Pakistan. In the rest of the article, we will report a little more on the political dramas of Pakistani leaders. However, we would like to say in advance what we need to say at the end. Politicians can of course make mistakes and errors. There should of course be sanctions against them. The biggest sanction in democratic countries is elections. But in a country, the ruthless and continuous attrition, discrediting and humiliation of politics and political leaders serves the interests of the rivals and enemies of that state, and facilitates the work of the foci of tutelage. There can be no political, social and economic development in such a country.

Can you imagine, a person who is thinking of becoming prime minister or president of Pakistan has to take the risk of being killed, executed, exiled, picked up by the police like a common criminal, dismissed by the court, imprisoned, and overthrown by the parliament.

With the elected leaders out of the way, who is actually running the country or directing the state? Collaborators within the country who are not accountable to the people, various circles of interest and countries that are rivals or enemies of the country. Of course, there may also be politicians who fall into this group. These should also be taken into account. But there should be different accountability mechanisms for this without harming the country/state. Turkey has gone through similar processes. Most of these were foreign-directed interventions. Turkey fought against this and once it succeeded, it became a state that disrupted international games and was listened to everywhere. We want Pakistan to be like that too.

We sincerely wish that Pakistan, our dear brother and sister, will show the same will and stabilize the country.

Please look at the political drama of Pakistan since 1947...

Liaquat Ali Khan

Liaquat Ali Khan was the son of a large landowning family. He was appointed by Jinnah, the first governor-general of Pakistan, and became the first prime minister of Pakistan. During his tenure, he laid the foundations of Pakistan's domestic and foreign policy and played an important role in the establishment of the new state. After Jinnah's death, he was declared the leader of the nation. It is said that he was assassinated in Rawalpindi in 1951 by circles opposed to his policy of peaceful settlement of disputes between his country and India.

Iskandar Ali Mirza

Iskandar Ali Mirza served as Governor-General in 1955. In 1956 he became the first President of Pakistan under the new constitution. However, he was forced to leave office and in 1958 was exiled to London, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Muhammad Ayub Khan

Muhammad Ayub Khan was appointed commander-in-chief of martial law by President Iskandar Ali Mirza, who had abolished the constitution in 1958 with the support of the army. Mohammad Ayub soon declared himself head of state and Iskandar Mirza was sent into exile. He reorganized the administration. When the US began to rearm India during the Sino-Indian conflict in 1962, he established close relations with China, from which he received substantial military aid. Meanwhile, an escalating dispute with India over Jammu and Kashmir led to war in 1965. He resigned following student unrest.

Aga Muhammad Yahya Khan

He was the President of Pakistan from 1969 to 1971. He tried to suppress the general strike for autonomy launched by the East Pakistan Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by force. When East Pakistan declared its independence as Bangladesh in December 1971 with the intervention of India in the ensuing civil war, he was forced to resign as president and was detained on the orders of his successor, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. When a heart attack paralyzed him, he was released and withdrew from politics altogether. He died on August 10, 1980.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

He is a Pakistani lawyer and politician who served as the ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977 and the fourth President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973. He was also the founder of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). He headed the party until his execution in 1979.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto founded the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which won the 1977 parliamentary elections with twice as many votes as its rival, but violence spread across the country after the opposition challenged the elections on the grounds of "rigging". On July 5 that year, Bhutto was overthrown in a military coup by army commander Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and in 1979 was controversially tried and executed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for authorizing the murder of a political opponent. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's daughter Benazir Bhutto was later twice elected Prime Minister, while her son-in-law and Benazir's husband Asif Ali Zardari served as Pakistan's president.

Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto's father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was overthrown by General Zia ul-Haq in 1977. Benazir Bhutto spent some time under house arrest after her father was arrested and executed. In 1984, when she was allowed to leave the country, she moved to England and became the leader of the Pakistan People's Party, the opposition party founded by her father, in exile. In 1987, she married Asif Ali Zardari, a cement manufacturer.

After the death of General Zia ul-Haq in 1988 when his plane was shot down, Pakistan held free elections for the first time since 1977. On November 19, 1988, Benazir Bhutto won the elections and became the first female prime minister of a Muslim country and served as prime minister twice. Between 1999 and 2007, she lived in exile abroad.

On the night of October 18, 2007, Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan after 8 years of exile, despite the administration's objections. However, Bhutto, who was welcomed by her supporters, was the target of a bomb assassination attempt on the same day. 138 people were killed and 248 injured in the attack near Karachi, in which Benazir Bhutto escaped unhurt.

Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack after an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007, about 70 days after her return to the country. At least 20 people were killed and many others injured in the attack. Pakistan's Interior Ministry announced that Al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility for the assassination. However, a few days later, one of the leaders of Al-Qaeda, Beitullah Mehsud, said that they had nothing to do with the assassination.

Yousuf Raza Gilani

Yousuf Raza Gilani, who served as Speaker of the National Assembly from 1993 to 1997, is the Vice Chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the 17th Prime Minister of Pakistan. On March 24, 2008, Gillani was elected Prime Minister by the Parliament, defeating Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi of the PML-Q Party.

On April 26, 2012, the Supreme Court of Pakistan found Yousuf Raza Gilani guilty of "insulting the judiciary" for failing to request Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari and dismissed him as Prime Minister on June 19, 2012.

Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif

Nawaz Sharif, who served his first term as prime minister from November 1, 1990 to July 18, 1993 and his second term from February 17, 1997 to October 12, 1999, became prime minister for the third time on June 5, 2013. The most important event that brought him global recognition was the nuclear tests he conducted in 1998 in response to India's nuclear tests. On July 28, 2017, he was dismissed from office and banned from politics for life by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on corruption charges based on the "Panama Papers". He remained in office for 4 years and 53 days until he was found guilty and dismissed by the Supreme Court, making him the country's longest-serving Prime Minister.

Pervez Musharraf

He served as prime minister of Pakistan from 1999 to 2002 and as president of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008. When the possibility of his impeachment arose, he resigned on August 18, 2008 under pressure, stating that the impeachment of a president would not be good for Pakistan.

In 2008, he went into self-imposed exile in Dubai and London. He returned to Pakistan to run in the general elections in May 2013, but his candidacy was rejected by the court. On April 19, 2013, he was arrested and brought to court. The Peshawar High Court banned former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf from politics for life for suspending the constitution twice during his rule.

Musharraf died on February 5, 2023 in a hospital in Dubai after suffering from organ failure.

Imran Khan

Imran Khan was a national cricketer, one of Pakistan's most followed and popular sports in the last two decades of the 20th century. In 1996, he founded the Pakistan Justice Movement and became its first president. In November 2002, he was elected as a member of the Parliament of Pakistan. He served in the Parliament until October 2007.

On July 25, 2018, the Pakistan Justice Movement won the elections and Imran Khan, the leader of the party, was inaugurated as Prime Minister of Pakistan on August 18, 2018. On April 10, 2022, after his parliamentary rivals filed a "no-confidence motion", the government fell and Imran Khan was dismissed as prime minister when he fell short of the majority threshold of 172 votes in a no-confidence vote in parliament. He thus became the first prime minister to be dismissed by a no-confidence motion in Parliament.

On August 22, 2022, he was charged by Pakistani police under anti-terrorism laws. Also on October 21, 2022, the Supreme Election Commission of Pakistan imposed a 5-year political ban on Imran Khan for illegally selling official gifts received from leaders and representatives of foreign countries. On November 3, 2022, he was gunned down. It was claimed that Prime Minister Imran Khan was not wanted by the US because of his neutral stance in the Russia-Ukraine war. Khan was arrested due to a 3-year prison sentence he received for selling state-owned gifts. Former prime minister Imran Khan says he was 'ousted by a US conspiracy'.

Shahbaz Sharif

He was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan on April 11, 2022 by the Pakistani Parliament after the dismissal of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Pakistan is preparing for general elections but there are some uncertainties. According to the constitution, an election government is formed 90 days before the elections and an interim prime minister is appointed. Accordingly, Shahbaz Sharif has stepped down and Anwarul Haq Kakar will be the interim prime minister until a new post-election government is formed. He took office on August 13, 2023.

We hope that with this election, there will be stability and the negativities and dramas of the past will not be repeated.