By Shehzad H. Qazi
As visitors drive out of Karachi’s Jinnah Airport, they are greeted, unexpectedly, by brightly colored and oversized billboards advertising Pakistan’s major political parties. Karachi’s major roads are also covered in campaign paraphernalia, as are many parts of Lahore. It’s quickly apparent to visitors that these are dynamic times in Pakistan’s political landscape. But while a democratic competition ensues in some cities, a more hazardous and egoistic battle is underway in Pakistan’s capital that has pitted the country’s civil government against both the military and the Supreme Court.
It all began with an op-ed written by Mansoor Ijaz, a controversial Pakistani-American businessman, in which he claimed that soon after the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, a senior Pakistani diplomat sought his help in delivering a memorandum to Adm. Mike Mullen in which U.S. help was sought in overthrowing Pakistan’s Army and intelligence chiefs and in reforming the Inter-Services Intelligence. The diplomat who allegedly wrote the memo was soon revealed to be Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States. This ignited a heated row between the military and civilian government, and Haqqani resigned a few days later. As the military began investigating the affair, with ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pashapersonally flying to London to get Ijaz’s story, rumors of coups and removals circulated. In a game of political posturing, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani warned the military that a parallel state wouldn’t be tolerated.
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