In my opinion it has been established by now that Noon league and Nawaz Sharif are looking for a political martyrdom. Asking the Army to intervene and then denying it publicly on the floor of National Assembly. The Army so far has shown great restraint other than the statement from ISPR.
Pakistan’s Most Humiliated Prime Minister Will Change Democratically](https://www.facebook.com/notes/ahmed-quraishi/pakistans-most-humiliated-prime-minister-will-change-democratically/10152238730786316)
Imran Khan’s PTI convinces Dr. Tahir al-Qadri’s PAT to restrain its activists from possibly storming the parliament or the Prime Minister’s House tonight at a time when there is a lot of activity in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and Lahore. This activity was reported in the three cities even by midnight.
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We just witnessed probably the worst day in the 29-year political career of PM Nawaz Sharif.
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He was caught by politicians, the media and the nation lying on parliament floor. Despite his straight-faced lie, an official Army statement proved he requested military help. This single incident has harmed the already dwindling national standing of PM Sharif.
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Nawaz Sharif is being misled by a well-known politician. This politician is advising the Sharifs to adopt the path of ‘political martyrdom’ in the hope that the Sharifs do not permanently exit politics.*
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There are parties inside Pakistan and players abroad who have an interest in supporting Nawaz Sharif because of his anti-military attitude. The idea of ‘political martyrdom’ appears to have come from these quarters.*
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This partially explains the ‘suicide attack’ by PM Sharif in the Parliament, where he blatantly lied about Army chief’s role as a broker. His statements created misgivings about the military and turned the debate from a democratic right to oppose a failed premier into a possible military conspiracy.*
He painted the army as power hungry. He deliberately hid the fact that Gen. Sharif intervened as a broker only after PM Sharif personally requested him to do so under Article 245 of the constitution.
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The government of PM Nawaz Sharif has all but collapsed. It is being artificially propped and kept alive by a group of political parties who have strong interests attached to the survival of the Sharif family in politics. There is no government in Islamabad now.
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*Even if PM Sharif survives, he will not be able to run the government and will represent a long-term headache for the country’s bureaucracy, for the military and for other parties that see him as a source of permanent tensions and instability in the system.
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*The most likely outcome of this crisis is a constitutional, democratic change in government, where Nawaz Sharif resigns or is forced to resign.
**Sharif cannot claim political martyrdom. His secret request to army chief to intervene, the way he initially betrayed the parliament and the allies, his failure to manage a small political issue and allow it to snowball into a major crisis, his use of sectarian groups, and his demonstrated inability to run the affairs of the State, all of this goes against him. He has become the most vilified and ridiculed prime minister in modern Pakistani history.
*One last key consideration here is the pressure coming from Pakistan’s younger generation, which represents the largest segment of the population. It is this generation that stripped PM Sharif and his family of their immense powers in less than two weeks. This Young Pakistan is restless for change. This is a hopeful and optimistic and talented generation that deserves and wants a responsive, young-leaning government capable of restoring Pakistan to its previous glory in the 1950s and 1960s when a progressive people made Pakistan one of the fastest developing nations in Asia and the Middle East.
— By Ahmed Quraishi
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