Sharif vs Sharif in Pakistan over the next Army chief
Sharif vs Sharif in Pakistan over the next Army chief:- A high stakes tussle is currently on between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan’s Army Chief General Raheel Sharif over who gets to be the next chief of the country’s all-powerful army.
According to a high-level assessment done by India’s intelligence agencies, the prime minister and the army chief are daggers drawn over who will replace General Sharif when his tenure ends at the end of November.
The Indian intelligence has learnt that Nawaz Sharif’s choice for next chief is Lt General Javed Iqbal Ramday. Ramday’s family has been associated with Sharif’s party, the PMNL, for many years and General Ramday appears to have the faith of the prime minister.
General Ramday is currently Corps Commander of XXXI Corps. He came to prominence when he led the Pakistani army’s offensive in the Swat valley near the Afghan border in 2009.
Nawaz Sharif has had a frosty relationship with the Pakistani army. In 1999, he was overthrown in a military coup by General Parvez Musharraf, someone who was handpicked by the prime minister himself by superseding other senior Pakistani army generals.
The choice of the next chief is being seen in India as crucial for Sharif to reassert his hold over Pakistan’s defence and foreign affairs policy.
GEN SHARIF CALLING THE SHOTS
Under General Raheel Sharif, the Pakistani army has been calling the shots when it comes to determining Pakistan’s policy towards India and the United States. The army has also been playing an ever growing role in domestic politics, even though most of the maneuvering has been done behind the scenes.
According to the estimate of India’s security establishment, General Sharif’s choice for the next chief is General Zubair Mahmood Hayat, currently the Chief of General Staff at Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi. In Pakistani military circles, a posting as Chief of General Staff is seen as a stepping stone to be the next chief.
Like General Sharif, Hayat also comes from a military family and three of his brothers are generals in the Pakistani army. Before his current assignment, General Hayat was chief of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, which controls the country’s nuclear arsenal.
Although not much is known in the public domain about General Hayat’s worldview, India’s intelligence community believes he is far more hardline than the current army chief.
Lt General Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmad and Lt General Qamar Bajwa are considered the two other contenders in the race to be the next Army Chief. Either of them could emerge as a compromise choice as the next chief. General Nadeem is the Corps Commander of 2 Corps based in Multan, while General Bajwa heads the army’s Training and Evaluation Wing.
The last two army chiefs – General Musharraf and General Kiyani – both received extensions at the ends of their tenures but General Sharif has declared that he would like to retire to his family home when his term gets over.
Despite the army chief taking a public position on the question of his retirement, Pakistan has seen a strong subterranean campaign seeking to build momentum for an extension for General Sharif.
General Sharif enjoys a larger than life image in Pakistan and is considered by many in Pakistan as the country’s most popular chief ever. Despite opposition from the civilian government, he launched Operation Zarb-E-Azb directed against the terrorists of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan hiding in the North-West Frontier Province.
For many months, the hashtag #ThankYouRaheelSharif trended on social media. India’s intelligence agencies estimate that a lot of this was fueled by the Pakistan army’s public relations wing the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR).
Even in India, General Sharif seems to enjoy a reputation for integrity. A senior government official told India Today, “General Raheel Sharif is a professional solider who has a strong sense of nationalism and of his family’s military legacy. He will not allow anything to happen which compromises the Pakistan army’s hold over the country’s security.”
Source:-http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/sharif-pakistan-army-chief-india-today/1/779835.html
