Pakistan’s generals should let politicians run the country for once
The army thinks it keeps the country stable. But it makes Pakistan ungovernable
WHEN PAKISTAN’S top brass helped install Imran Khan as prime minister in 2018, the former cricket champion seemed like the perfect front man. He was a sporting hero, dashing and cosmopolitan. Even so, he had cultivated a folksy, pious air, along with a streak of indignant nationalism that could fire up a rally. His party looked different from the tiresome old lot, which are run as fiefs by political dynasties. His attack on the entire political class as irretrievably corrupt dovetailed helpfully with the work of the aptly named NAB, or National Accountability Bureau, which was trying to put an end to one of those dynasties by prosecuting Nawaz Sharif, the outgoing prime minister.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Mismanaged democracy”
From the April 16th 2022 edition
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