EARLIER this month a spokesman for Pakistan’s army decided to respond to claims that it was attempting to fix next month’s general election. It would not be the first time. In 1990, for instance, the army-dominated spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, funnelled cash to opponents of the left-wing Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), helping to secure its defeat. The military spokesman, General Asif Ghafoor, sternly denied that any such “engineering” was going on this time around. But a pile of evidence to the contrary is poking through the camouflage.
The object of the army’s meddling is Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted as prime minister by the courts last year. Mr Sharif had been the beneficiary of the army’s largesse in 1990, when he began his first stint as prime minister. But they soon fell out.
He resigned under pressure from the army in 1993 and was toppled again by it in a coup in 1999. Mr Sharif returned to power in 2013 eager to assert civilian control of foreign and...Continue reading
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