On November 1, Karan Thapar interviewed Najam Sethi, editor of Pakistan’s widely read Friday Times to understand the ongoing political developments in his country as Imran Khan set out on a ‘Long March’ from Lahore to Islamabad. The 38-minute interview covers a whole host of issues in Pakistan. Sethi explains why Khan is hellbent on having early elections whilst the current government still has another year in office. He has set out on his Long March from Lahore to Islamabad with his supporters in tow to demand snap polls. Given the political situation in the country, the Shahbaz Sharif government is unlikely to concede to Khan’s demand for immediate polls. The interview covers a broad sweep of issues, including the relationship between the Army and Imran Khan, the Army and the Sharif government, a possible “Army intervention” if the situation deteriorates, and changing public mood among Pakistanis against the establishment. It must be noted that the interview was recorded on November 1, two days before Imran Khan was shot at in Wazirabad whilst he was on his Long March to Islamabad. So, the interview does not cover anything related to the alleged assassination attempt and how the political dynamics have changed in its aftermath. Nonetheless, the interview offers deeper insights into Pakistan’s politics and society at large.The following is the full transcript of the interview. It has been edited lightly for syntax and clarity. §Once again Pakistan’s politics is in turmoil, and once again the cause is Imran Khan. This time, he’s not just challenging the civilian government headed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, but he is also challenging the Army chief, the ISI, and, very possibly, the army as an institution itself. Joining me from Lahore to explain what’s happening in his country is the highly regarded editor of the Friday Times and the former caretaker chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab Province, Najam Sethi. Najam Sethi, let me start by asking if you agree that Khan’s Long March is a challenge both to the civilian government, headed by Prime Minister Sharif, but perhaps, more importantly, it’s a challenge to Army chief General Qamar Bajwa and the army’s authority, as the deep establishment which ultimately determines whatever happens in Pakistan.Yes, on the face of it, it’s a challenge to the government and to the establishment headed by General Bajwa. But actually, it is a challenge to the establishment and General Bajwa. Khan has said, on countless occasions, that he’s not ready to talk to the government in power. He thinks they are crooks, illegitimate, and so on and so forth. That’s why he’s walked out of parliament.He says he wants to pressure the establishment, to put a gun to the head of the government and tell them to go home and order fresh elections. And General Bajwa and the establishment have now said that they’re not going to be taking sides and they’re going to stay “neutral” or “apolitical”, as they put it now, and that this is between Khan and the government.Khan should go back to parliament as the Opposition, sit with them and determine how to move forward. His view is that the establishment should support him and should not be neutral. He thinks neutrality is for animals, and because he’s the most popular man in the country, hes’s “good” and the government in power and the other parties are “evil”, the establishment should side with good and not with evil. So, he wants an establishment intervention, which is on his side rather than a neutral or apolitical establishment that says, “We’re going to stay within our constitutional bounds.”Let’s first talk about the challenge to the Sharif government. After that, I’ll come to what is clearly the bigger challenge – to the Army, to the Army Chief, and to the ISI. How do you explain the enormous crowds that Khan has attracted, first at his rallies and now on this Long March? Is it the appeal of his anti-American message, depicting the present government as “imported puppets”? Is it the tough economic conditions that the country faces, and in particular, soaring inflation, or is it Khan’s personality and popularity?Karan, it is a lot of all these factors put together.At one time, one is more important than the other. But the historical record shows that the establishment or the army portrayed the Sharifs and the Zardaris as crooks. That’s something ingrained into the Army high command and the rank and file. And they’ve been of that narrative for many years and a new generation of Pakistanis have grown up who knows very little about [Pakistan’s] history and is actually now looking for alternatives to the two dynasties that have been ruling this country for 30-40 years.So Khan comes along the scene, the establishment decides to pick him up, prop him up and make him a cultist figure. He delivers in the sense that the younger generation empathises with him, sees him as different from the others. Then his populist message, which has several dimensions, resonates with the younger generation.He uses religious symbols. Pakistan is extremely religious in many ways now, much more than when I was growing up. He uses anti-Americanism. Pakistan used to be very pro-American during my time, and now there is an anti-American sentiment in this country that has again been cultivated by the establishment over the years, since it started to disagree with the Americans, and so on.Firstly, there is a narrative out there which believes that the Zardaris and the Sharifs are dynastic and crooks, away with them. Second, Imran is clean. Third, Imran will get the best people on board, which is the middle class. The landlords and the business elites have ruled this country. It’s time now for the middle class to come forward, so the professionals and the technocrats are all lined up behind Khan. They see this as their great opportunity to make a mark on Pakistani politics, most of it urban, and then finally the anti-American narrative just sells.I mean it sells in most countries than it sells in Pakistan, and so it’s a combination of all these things. Unfortunately, the Opposition or now the government (which is of the Zardaris and Sharifs) have done very little to change their own narratives, their own faces, and their own personalities, and their own economic policies, so they offer really nothing new to the new generation.The old world of Pakistan still stands with them in Sindh and in Punjab. But, at the end of the day, nearly 50% of Pakistan’s population is under the age of 35, and 30% or more are between the age of 25 and 35. So you can imagine they’re looking to Khan. They’re not looking to the oldies, because they’re no longer goldies.Also read: Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan Shot At; ‘Clear Assassination’ Attempt, Say Party LeadersNow, when the Long March reaches Islamabad on November 4, will Imran Khan be allowed to hold a rally in the capital? Is there a fear that he may transform the rally into a sitting protest? I believe that’s what he did in 2014, and I’m told that that protest lasted for over 120 days. Is there a danger that if he does get to the capital and hold a rally, he may do the same thing again?The first rally, or the dharna, that you’re referring to where he hung around for over 100 days didn’t really amount to anything. In the end, he had to call it off because the government is not threatened by people sitting in a park, making merry or dancing or protesting and saying the same things over and over again. It does not impact the government of the day. Yes, it may have led to inconvenience.But the government carried on, which is what the government of that time did, which is why at the end of the day, when Khan had to call off his dharna, the establishment had to use the judiciary to get rid of Nawaz Sharif. Even then they couldn’t get rid of his government, because the government lasted the full five years.So Khan sitting in a park doing nothing and thundering away the same things that he said for the last many years is not going to lead to the fall of this government.At the end of the day, the fear is that if this march takes place as scheduled and arrives in Islamabad and then spills over, something happens and everything becomes violent, and there is anarchy. The danger then is that two things could happen.First, the establishment could go to the government in power and say look, “You know you’re going to ask us to come in and stop this, we are not going to fire on our own people. So it’s better that you negotiate with Khan and find a solution to this.”If the government says, “What solution does he want, and if he wants to appoint the next Army Chief, we’re not going to let him do that. It’s our constitutional right.” If he wants an early election, we could talk about it, but you know if he wants an election three months from now, we’re not going to give him that because we’ll then have to go home and the caretakers will have to come in, and you’ve made a commitment with us. When we came in, uou said we could stay the whole year because we carried out the IMF [International Monetary Fund] programme at your behest. We could have gone home at that time, not taken the reins of power.Khan was extremely unpopular, and we were very popular, if elections were held at that time, we would have had a sweeping victory. But you said we can’t afford to have elections at this time. You said we need the IMF on board we’re facing financial bankruptcy. So you ordered us to carry out these difficult tasks, which we’ve done, which have made us unpopular and now you expect us to go home and be wiped out by Khan, who’s now rising in popularity, precisely because we are becoming unpopular, precisely because we’ve carried out those hard tasks, increased prices, inflation and all the rest of it.So, we’re going to stick to our guns and we’re sitting here. So now then that will lead to another situation. Either they will succumb and they will sit with Imran Khan and do a deal whereby the elections are not held next year in October or November as scheduled, and maybe held maybe in May-June which is what Imran wants. If they continue to not get out or not heed the writing on the wall, then the Army could step in some unconstitutional manner and sweep everybody aside, which is something they’ve done all these years.Supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party light up their mobile phones and chant slogans in support of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan during a rally, in Islamabad, Pakistan April 4, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Akhtar SoomroThey know how to do it. At the end of the day, they also know how to get a particular degree of legitimacy under the law of necessity from the judiciary. So then various combinations can come into play. This could be a three-month takeover or there could be a six-month takeover which is sanctioned by the judiciary.So we really don’t want to go there. Those are all the options that are open. So the next 20 days are very critical because the Army chief is retiring on November 29. Imran wants all this to happen before that. Because if this month goes by and the government doesn’t concede to what he wants and appoints its own Army chief, then they are set, Because the new Army Chief is not going to take Imran’s side. He may not take the side of the government, but he’s certainly not going to take Imran’s side. He’s going to withdraw into the shadows even more than the current dispensation. He will not want the Army to be blamed for anything and then the government will feel strong. So Imran’s real bet is that something gives this month.There’s a paradox, however, isn’t there, in the position Imran Khan finds himself in. He is bringing the masses out onto the streets and the belief that this show of popular support can force early elections. But paradoxically the larger the support he brings onto the streets, perhaps the government will be more determined to delay elections because that support would suggest to the government that they will lose it, and Imran will win. And therefore the stronger Imran’s popular support the more reluctant the government will be to concede early elections.The government is not going to concede early elections until a gun is put to their head. Because the government knows that if there’s an early election, they’ll be wiped out. They’re very unpopular right now because of the IMF measures.So regardless of how popular he is or not, the writing is on the wall. He is right now quite popular. I mean the recent by-elections all suggest that he is a strong candidate and if elections were held today, he’d get a majority. There’s no way about it. But why would they want to have an election now?They want the rest of the eight-nine months to try and fix the economy to reclaim their lost legitimacy. Perhaps when they do announce elections, they’ll give a relief package to the people so that the people forget the miseries of the last eight-nine months and focus on what is given to them at that time. So there is a level playing field.Then there is the question of Nawaz Sharif. How can you have an election where Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the other most popular party, is not allowed to contest because of a rigged disqualification process that took place? And again rigging that is taking place now to stop Imran Khan from being disqualified. So either Khan should be disqualified, or Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification has to be withdrawn, which means time is needed for that.Right now the courts are looking into this possibility because the realisation has dawned on everyone, including the judges, that the way Nawaz Sharif was disqualified was unfair. So the likelihood is that in the next three to six months Nawaz’s disqualification will be overturned by the courts, a level playing field will be created. Khan will not be disqualified, Nawaz’s disqualification will be reverted, and then there will be a free and fair election, where the two leaders are able to contest freely.Right now Nawaz is in exile, he can’t come back, he will be put into prison as it is. So there are all these other issues as well. So in order to have a free and fair election, you need a level playing field. A level playing field means this government stays in power for a bit, sorts out the financial issues facing this country, which were thrust on them by the establishment.Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Photo : Reuters/Mohsin Raza/FilesThey could have said, “We are sorry, we are not going to do it. Get somebody else to do it. Why should we be blamed for all this?” But they didn’t. They keep saying we did it for the sake of the national interest and there’s no doubt about that. The establishment said to them, “Hang in there, carry out these measures. We can’t waste three months, we’ll be in a state of default.”So they did what was asked of them. So you know you’re facing these issues. I don’t see an early election, the way, the sort of early election that Khan wants, short of an army intervention that somehow compels it to happen. But if that happens, an army [administration] even might stay on for more than they say that they are coming in for, as past record suggests. Or if they do go ahead and comply with what Khan wants, then there’s no doubt about it, Imran will win.In fact, I just pointed out to the Indian audience that when General Zia ul Haq overthrew Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977, he said initially he was only going to do it for two-three months, hold elections, and go back to the barracks, and stayed I believe for 10 or 11 years. Let’s at this point come to the second challenge, the far bigger challenge that Imran Khan and his Long March pose to the Army. Now to the outside world it literally looks as if Imran has thrown the gauntlet down to the Army. Is the Army worried about the challenge he seems to be posing to them? Because it looks as if it’s perhaps one of the most serious challenges the Army has faced since Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 60s or 70s?Yes, this is a very serious challenge for two reasons. Number one, Khan’s popularity is based as much as much on anti-establishment rhetoric as it is on anti-American rhetoric and anti-opposition, anti-Sharif and anti-Zardari rhetoric. The second problem is that there are a lot, there’s a great deal of support in the rank and file for Khan.Don’t forget this is the same generation that we’re talking about that is out in the streets. It’s the same generation that is now wearing uniforms and constitutes the rank and file of this Army. So, therefore, the Army high command is concerned that there is discontent or despair within its own rank and file. So they don’t want to do anything to hurt Imran because that would hurt the sentiments of their own base, but at the same time they don’t want to do something that brings Imran back to power at an enormous cost because they’ve just witnessed that cost, where Imran has turned the tables on them and destroyed Pakistan’s relations with the rest of the world without being able to turn the economy around or do anything positive.So it’s a very negative agenda that Khan flaunts. So that is their concern. And they also now realise that it was a mistake to set up this “hybrid regime” – try and eliminate the other politicians, bring Imran in thinking that he would be a good puppet. At the end of the day, he’s his own man. But here’s the problem and I think this is the sort of problem some of us grapple with. You know in the old days the anti-establishment rhetoric was flogged by intellectuals liberals, human rights activists, and you know urban, liberal, constitutional-minded democratic people. The current situation is that this rhetoric now is in the hands of Imran Khan, who is far from being a democrat of any sort, far from being a liberal of any sort. In fact, his argument is that the Army should be my police force. The Army cannot hav an independent role as a state organ. It should belong to me; it’s the classic fascist formula.Nawaz Sharif tried to do something like this in the late 90s when he became an Amir-ul-Mohmanin, above Parliament and wanted to rule like a dictator, a democratically elected dictator when he had a two-thirds majority. Imran seeks the same thing. So what he’s asking for now is unconstitutional. So some of us are concerned because this is not the sort of independent democratic dispensation we are looking for. This is in fact quite the contrary and so here we have a situation where Khan wants to bypass the constitutional constraints and limitations imposed on politicians, the armed forces, and the judiciary. He wants to turn all of them into his own organs and he then wants to rule as a dictator.You know there are two things in that answer that I want to pick up on very quickly. First of all, you’re clearly suggesting that the Army internally, vis-a-vis Imran Khan is divided. The younger Captains, Majors, and Colonels seem to be supportive of him. The Generals are pretty certain they don’t want him back. How much of a problem is this internal division in the army?It was a problem. It’s less of a problem now, they have clamped down on dissent within the Army and among the retired army people. There was a lot of support for Imran from within the lower ranks of the army. The senior ranks don’t express their sentiments because they’re in for promotions and all the rest of it. So a lot of this discontent remains at the bottom level and the discipline is pretty strong. It’s ironclad.So beyond a point it doesn’t spill over into any rebellion or revolt or anything like that, but you know the people outside, retired army officers of the same batches have been supporting Imran Khan and they’ve had to be, you know the stick has had to be wielded to shut them up because you know social media being such a powerful voice they were exercising a powerful influence on the current serving officers’ rank and file.So they have now put a stop to that but there’s no doubt about this, that the top leadership of the army, which has tasted Imran Khan’s four years in power and the current attack on the Army as an institution – which has gone beyond attacking say one or two people in the Army which might have been acceptable. He’s really – as Indian commentators continue to point out – that Imran has damaged the Army in one year far more than all India’s fifth-generation warfare has been able to do in 70 years. So that is quite an interesting way of putting it and a lot of people in the Army in the senior ranks think that’s exactly right with what Khan is doing and therefore he’s not acceptable.There’s something else that was also inherent in your earlier answer. Is there an emerging anti-army sentiment amongst the young of Pakistan? I believe at a recent Asma Jahangir Foundation conference in the Avari Hotel in Lahore, anti-army slogans were heard. Well, you know, that’s what I was talking about now. That is a conference which is largely attended by and addressed by liberals, democrats and constitutionalists. And so you can imagine the sentiment there, which is the old historical sentiment, the anti-establishment sentiment because the Army’s been interfering in politics and creating all sorts of messes.So you could have expected that to happen. You had nationalists from the periphery, you had liberals, you had human rights people, all of them. So they’re part of an old, shall we say, group or grouping in this country that is constantly opposed Army rule and has stood for democratic institutions. So that was not surprising. What is surprising is that the people on the street right now, who were never part of that narrative, have suddenly jumped in and become part of that narrative, and gone far beyond what the liberals, and the intellectuals, and the democrats, and the constitutionalists have done. And they’ve now become pretty vocal.So what is happening now is that there is a contradiction within the ruling elites, as it were, about what role the Army should be playing. And at the one level, this is a welcome development for intellectuals and constitutionalists, because it obviously pushes the Army back into the shadows. But at another level, where Khan wants to take it is to turn the Army into a police force for himself, which of course means that this is another way of bringing the Army back into politics but at the behest of an authoritarian ruler.So this creates this dilemma for many people, some of whom are now supporting Imran Khan and some of whom are continuing to stand on the other spectrum, where they think that this is far more dangerous than the earlier situation, where at least there was a balance of power between the civilians, the institutions, the judiciary, and the armed forces. But now the judiciary and the armed forces are going to be lining up behind one-party rule, and here’s a man who says, “I want to wipe out all these guys. I don’t want an opposition. I don’t want the Zardaris and Sharifs. And the institutions of the judiciary and the Army must back me fully. I am the good, they are the evil.”Now against this background, and I think this background is particularly important and it will be eye-opening for an audience in India, against this background on Thursday the ISI Chief Lieutenant General Nadeem Anjum held an unprecedented press conference and claimed in that press conference that Imran Khan in the last days of his prime ministership had asked the Army Chief for, and I think I’m quoting now, “illegal and unconstitutional favours”, although General Anjum did not specify what those favours were. And it was then said at that press conference that in return Imran Khan had offered a lifetime extension to General Bajwa. Is this allegation true or is it actually an attempt to blacken Imran Khan’s name?This is not an attempt to blacken his name. By the way, all attempts to blacken his name will fail as far as his own support of support base is concerned. He is Mr Teflon; nothing sticks to him because the hatred for the other sides is so overwhelming that his supporters are not prepared to accept anything about Imran Khan if it means moving away from him.But here’s the issue, Khan’s view was, “General Bajwa you should not be neutral, allow me, support me, and if it’s a question of your extension, it’s no big deal. If they have a promised you an extension, like another couple of years or whatever, that’s not a big deal. I already gave you an extension. I’ll give you another extension”.So it was an attempt to bribe the General to stay the course of supporting him. When the General and his close colleagues had decided that sticking close to him had led to a complete discrediting of the Army in at least half of Pakistan, which was not with Imran Khan, and that this was hurting them, especially in their home province of Punjab, which belonged to Nawaz Sharif, still has a big vote bank in Punjab.File photo of Pakistan army chief General Qamar Bajwa and former prime minister Imran Khan in Miranshah. Credit: Khyber TVIt’s diminishing because Imran is encroaching on it now but until now, Nawaz has been the ruler of Punjab and has a big support base there. And 70% of the army comes from Punjab so, you know, they wanted to now move away from Imran, acknowledging that their hybrid experiment had failed and Imran had turned into a Frankenstein’s monster.And Imran’s view was, “Look you’re gonna stick with me. There’s no way that you are going to move away from me, and if General Bajwa, all it takes is a promise of an extension no big deal I gave it to you first I’ll give it to you again.”So that’s what the DG-ISI was saying, that you know, he’s tried to bribe us but we have decided we want to be apolitical now. Now for how long and all the rest of it is unsaid, but for the time being they don’t want to take sides. They want this political process to work itself out and then let the chips fall where they may. So that was what he was trying to say, that Khan has been selling a false narrative. The narrative was false on America, that America triggered a regime change here, that was false because they were part of it and, you know, the cypher and so on, and they said “total lies” and he was quite blunt in his words.Similarly, this business of you know “I’m above compromise and negotiation. I’m good and everybody else is evil”. Bullshit. The fact of the matter is that, you know, he tried to bribe us and look at the way he’s trying to bribe us, and we have decided there will be no more extensions, and we’ve decided that we want to stay out of it. So I think this was an attempt, I think a last-ditch attempt, because they had not given their point of view and he’d been hammering away them with a false narrative and so they thought that okay the time has come for us to now lay down, you know the red lines,But you know the amazing thing, Najam Sethi, is not just that the ISI Chief held an unprecedented press conference and revealed their side of the story in public for the first time, something that the ISI Chief has never done before, but the other amazing thing is Imran’s response. Rather than cower or get intimidated or even keep quiet, he threatened the ISI Chief the very next day. He claimed that he knows things which would embarrass the ISI and the Army if he reveals them I think his exact words, and I believe they were reported by Reuters, but the following “DGISI listen carefully the things I know: I am staying silent for Army institutions in the country. I don’t want to damage my country. But”, he added, “I can say more, however, I will not say it as I do not want to hurt the institution.”. Now that is quite a threat being given by Imran Khan. How have the ISI Chief and the Army Chief responded to this clear threat? I think they’ve shrugged their shoulders and said, you know, “no problem, you want to say something, go ahead and say it. But, you know, the net impact of the RDG ISI’s press talk has been Imran has actually stepped back. Imran’s speeches have in the last three days have been pretty mild compared to the sort of things he was saying earlier.He’s now, the rhetoric is now and not naming names. He is now alluding to various things, and I think one reason for that is that contrary to what you think or what you’re seeing, the crowds have not been as thick as one imagines they would be. And I think you know the Long March has been postponed time and again, and even now he’s saying it’s going to take seven or eight or ten days to get to Islamabad.And now there are all sorts of concerns; that, whether or not he’ll be able to put together a big show or not and secondly, whether there will be violence. Now the issue has gone beyond all that. Now the issue is there’s evidence now that armed support of Imran Khan from the KP Province are on, will make their way to Islamabad and there are reports of, credible reports and statements of federal of provincial ministers from Imran’s KP, government in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, saying that you know bring your licenced weapons along and then make openly threats that “if there is an attempt to stop our Long March, then we will resort to, you know, we will defend ourselves with our weapons.”. So you know it’s getting to that stage.So the ball is in many ways, partly it’s in the court of the establishment, partly it’s in the court of the government what sort of resistance it puts up, but it’s also in the court of the Supreme Court because Imran is applied to the Supreme Court to overrule the government’s objections to him bringing people into Islamabad. There’s a Section 144, I’m sure it exists in your part of the world as well, where more than five people can’t get together because it might create a law and order situation and there’s a lot of evidence that there will be a law and order situation.Also read: ‘Pakistan PM Shebaz Sharif, Other Leaders Involved in Assassination Attempt’: Imran KhanIn fact, Imran Khan has said that if you stop us there will be bloodshed and people from Imran Khan’s party are saying the same thing. So there is a threat of bloodshed, and so the Supreme Court is now sitting on all these petitions. There’s Imran Khan saying “allow us to go there”, the government is saying we will not allow them to go there the Supreme Court is biding its time looking to see which way the wind is blowing; what the establishment thinks, what is likely to happen, because don’t forget if the Supreme Court allows this thing to happen, and then there’s violence, then there will be a lot of criticism of the Court that you know, “we all said that there would be this and yet you allowed them to go there”.So there’s going to be a lot of give and take in the next 10 days which is why I’ve just written about this and saying that the next 10-15 days are very critical for what happens next in this country. Whether Imran Khan backs off, whether there’s a compromise, and whether and when who will be the next Army Chief, and when the next elections will be held. My sense is some of these issues will be resolved by the end of November.Going back briefly to that threat that Imran Khan delivered on Friday, when he said that “I can reveal things that would embarrass the Army and the ISI”, do you have any sense of what he’s hinting at?No not really because I mean what is it, he can turn around and say, you know, Bajwa was doing this and as I was doing this and they told me to do this which is what he’s been saying. He’s been saying “I wasn’t running this government. I was told how to run it, I was told who to take, I was told what decisions to take. It’s only when I started resisting what they were telling me to do that I created a problem with them”.Their argument is that “we’ve been, you know, changing his nappies; this guy has been a disaster. Everything we’ve had to do, we told him to get on with the job of government, and provide some good governance, and to repair our relations with our neighbours and with the international community, and he made them worst and we’re in a far different, far more difficult situation now than ever before”. So you know there’s this narrative that’s coming and going on from both sides. And so you know Imran would talk a little bit about that.Now we’re coming to the end of this interview, but before I end I want to ask you two more questions. As you said yourself, the Army Chief General Bajwa retires I believe it is on the 29th of this month, in literally four weeks time. In normal circumstances in Pakistan, choosing a new Army Chief is a critical decision, but in the present circumstances, how much more important and crucial has it become?It’s very crucial. Look there’s a month to go. One argument is that the government should announce the new Army Chief now, so that this whole issue of who will be the next Army Chief, and what will this Chief do, and what will the next guy do is settled, but you know for that to happen, the routine procedure is that GHQ sends the list of five senior Generals or five Generals, amongst whom the Prime Minister is entitled to select one.That’s the routine; the appointment is the Prime Minister’s. The thing is that GHQ hasn’t sent such a list so far. Now whether or not there is an understanding between the current Chief and the current Prime Minister, that at what stage should you send this list, or whether this is just the GHQ hanging on, or General Bajwa hanging on to his powers until the last moment just in case something needs to be done, which might entail some new decisions, we don’t know. But the fact of the matter is that General Bajwa has said that “I will retire”. He said time and again “I will retire”, but here’s my problem; what if there is violence in 10 days time?What if the government of the day says “call in the Rangers, the police cannot stop these people”, and the Rangers are either denied by the Army, in which case we have a constitutional problem; the government can’t survive, or if the Rangers are provided under this relevant sections of the law, which is a constitutional position; the government can call the Army in and paramilitary forces in aid of civil power. Then what happens?Will the Rangers be asked to stop this Long March and if necessary to use force to stop them and what happens if there are dead bodies in the event? So you know we are faced with all sorts of difficult questions, because if that happens then the likelihood is that the Army might say, “what the hell, I mean these guys are taking casualties on both sides we might as well step in and pry them apart. Put everybody into prison and find a way out of this dilemma in the next three to six months”. So you know we really don’t know.What you’re really suggesting, but you’re doing it very artfully and deftly, is that there is a possibility, and it may not be such a remote possibility, that events may so develop that the Army steps in and takes over? You hinted at it earlier, when you talked about a three-month or a six-month takeover. You’re suggesting now that General Bajwa, who hasn’t sent the five-man list to the Prime Minister, may be deliberately doing so to bide his time and see what happens. There are signs and straws in the wind that suggest there could be an army takeover depending upon how things develop.Well, I’m not sure, you know, my argument is army intervention. I’m not saying army takeover. Army takeover would create all sorts of issues with the constitution.What is an army intervention? Can I ask, what do you mean by an army intervention?Yeah. Army intervention is that if it comes to that stage, General Bajwa takes his walking stick and he goes off to the Prime Minister’s house and says “sir my people are telling me that this is difficult to control. We are not ready to shoot on our people. I urge you in the next 24 or 48 hours to sit and find a solution to this. Don’t compel us to do something that we don’t want to do, which would create problems for you and for everybody else”.So that would be an army intervention, which has happened in the past, when you come to a situation where a direct army intervention, a violation of the constitution is on the cards; the Army has gone to the sitting Prime Minister’s and said find solutions or else. And in the past, solutions have been found. And so, therefore, that is what Imran wants.Imran wants to bring this whole pot to a boiling point, where General Bajwa goes to the Prime Minister’s house and says, “Prime Minister, I’m afraid don’t ask us to control the situation. We are not going to do it because it would lead to a backlash against us. We’re not going to fire on our own people. You guys sit down with Imran Khan and do this. He wants an early election. Give him an early election. Sit down, we’ll facilitate this dialogue behind the scenes, but get on with it now because every day is going to create a difficulty.”.But this is very interesting and I would have to ask you for a short answer, because we could be running out of time on Zoom, but it seems there are two possible prospects facing the Sharif government. If things develop wrongly when Imran reaches the capital on the fourth or a couple of days later, that Army Chief may well as you said take his walking stick go to the PM’s house and say “we’re not going to fire on our own people you’ve got to negotiate and push him into doing so”. In other words, he will be then pushing the Prime Minister into virtually committing political harakiri. On the other hand, the other alternative is if the Prime Minister does manage to convince Imran Khan to back off, then even if he’s failed to force elections this time, Imran will continue to keep trying and that means for the next 10 months until Pakistan eventually goes to the polls in August September October next year. Political turbulence will continue. So its either harakiri to the government or continued political turbulence over the next 10 month period. Okay here’s what history tells us. A similar situation arose in 2014 when Imran did his dharna the one that you referred to, which lasted for over a year, for many months, 120 days or so. They, at that stage the Army sent a message to Nawaz Sharif. General Raheel Sharif was in charge. I am privy to this information, and he sent a message to Nawaz Sharif to say that “you should resign. That’s the only way out of this situation. Appoint somebody else as Prime Minister and then order fresh elections.”. And Nawaz Sharif turned around to the messenger and said, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to resign. You don’t want to do something, take over. We’ll deal with it but I’m not going anywhere.”. Their message was returned back to the sender.The sender thought about it and realised that the bluff had been called and backed off and eventually retired. Nawaz Sharif saw Imran Khan off, he used the police to good effect to thwart his Long March, and beat the protesters blue and black, and that was the end of the Long March and everything else and Nawaz Sharif continued to rule. So you know, that’s one option.The second option of course is the one that you refer to. If this government is forced to concede an early election, which is to say in three months time, Imran will win hands down. Now the problems for the government of the day, which will then be the opposition, will not be anything compared to the problems that the Army High Command will face when Imran Khan comes back into power with a vengeance.Which is why the Army High Command doesn’t want an Imran return with the majority either? But very quickly, because we have only 30 seconds, if what happened in 2014 with Nawaz Sharif plays out again and the government does survive there are no early elections right, then I presume the turbulence that Imran is creating will continue to happen for the next 10 months.Not necessarily, not necessarily. The counter-argument is that Imran is at his most popular right now, the crowds are thinning, they’re tiring, fatigue is setting in, one of the reasons why Imran wants to strike now. And if Imran has to carry on agitating like this for the next eight or nine months, giving the government time to stabilise the economy and to perhaps give some good news to the people, Imran would be a loser in the long run. So his agitation at its height if it can’t overthrow the government, is not going to amount to anything else later on.Thank you very much for this insight into the politics of your country, and in particular for explaining how an army intervention, if it happens, would work and what it would amount to. And also for opening the eyes of the Indian audience to the internal differences, maybe not divisions within the Army over support for Imran Khan. These are things that I think an Indian audience doesn’t know, but has learned for the first time from you. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.