West’s deafening silence on Pakistan’s funeral of democracy

There is other bad news for the world. On Thursday, the only Muslim-majority country with nuclear weapons passed a draconian constitutional amendment bill that fundamentally alters the usual check and balance mechanism of its democracy by making the military chief the most powerful person, even above the civilian leadership. Not just this, the authority of the Supreme Court of the country has also been curtailed with the creation of a new court, the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), in its place.

This FCC would specifically hear cases related to interpretation of the constitution and disputes between governments, including the federal and provincial. Which means the existing Supreme Court will remain supreme only in name, as its power has been limited to hearing only ordinary civil and criminal cases. In addition to this, the new court would also become the highest appellate authority for all the other courts in the country, having the power to enforce fundamental rights, take writ petitions and give advice to the president, which was earlier the domain of the Supreme Court only.

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What’s disturbing is that each of these measures is aimed at undermining the independence of the judicial system, where even the judges at the high courts would no more have a choice if they are transferred arbitrarily, as any attempt by them to resist transfers would lead to their immediate retirement. Thus a country which already has a turbulent record of independent judiciary, where a former Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhummad Chaudhary, was persecuted by a former military chief-turned-president, Pervez Musharraf, leading to the imposition of emergency in the 2000s, is now back on the same path again, all thanks to the whims and fancies of one man—Asim Munir.

This 27th amendment to the constitution has been passed with zero opposition from any quarter because opposition is a non-existent entity in today’s Pakistan. It is the most sweeping change to the constitution since 1973, when Islam was declared as the state religion; in fact, one may easily call it a constitutional coup, actually, as it has completely wiped out the civilian and judiciary checks and made the military, already a dominant actor in Pakistani politics, the most powerful force in the country.

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Picture this: the army chief going further will now also be the chief of defence forces, with even the navy and air force under his control. He would have the authority to appoint a Commander of the National Strategic Command by making a recommendation to the Prime Minister, thus bringing the country’s nuclear arsenal and other strategic assets effectively under him.

Besides the army chief’s overarching control over all other military services and nuclear weapons, Asim Munir, as the ‘field marshal’, will also get lifelong immunity from legal action along with rank, privileges and a uniform for life and can be removed from the post only through a two-thirds majority in the parliament. In comparison, the civilian government can fall with a simple majority vote, and even the president and the governors don’t enjoy lifelong immunity from court cases.

Thus, for all practical purposes, Asim Munir is now the most powerful person in the country, whose authority has been getting increasing international credibility these days. This year alone, Asim Munir has made multiple trips to the United States, including two solo visits in June and August, when President Donald Trump himself hosted a private lunch for him once, unprecedented for any Pakistani military chief to date. Trump also credited him for averting a nuclear war with India, which has now become one of the most unsubstantiated and oft-repeated Trumpian claims ever.

Meanwhile, Munir has been actively working to establish himself as the leader of the entire country, as evident in him accompanying Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on high-profile international engagements such as the September visit to the US, a visit to China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in the same month and another to Azerbaijan for a bilateral meeting with President Ilham Aliyev.

Although the military is an important part of diplomacy these days, with chiefs of various services making visits to each other’s countries, the protocol regarding a military chief accompanying a civilian leader for bilateral visits is not very well established. None of the democracies, including India and others, observe this, thus making Pakistan an exceptional outlier.

However, what is even more troublesome is the way Munir’s actions are gaining international legitimacy. This includes the United States, where Trump called him his “favourite field marshal” in October at the Gaza Peace Summit in Egypt, where Munir wasn’t even present, at the expense of the civilian leadership, which, according to some experts, has also emboldened him to make such sweeping changes to the constitution itself.

The most problematic aspect of a military chief getting credibility as the de facto leader of the country lies in the way Pakistan is already a dysfunctional democracy. For all the reference to Shehbaz Sharif as the democratically chosen Prime Minister, the truth is that the 2024 general elections in the country were themselves the biggest eyewash exercise fixed by the military.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s Imran Khan, who was actually the most popular leader, was sent to jail, and the mandate which was delivered in his favour was stolen overnight to bless a PML (N) and PPP coalition to become the puppet government. The military anyway has an overwhelming dominance in Pakistan by being the largest controller of capital, including land, but the way Asim Munir used his personal animosity towards Imran Khan owing to his ouster as chief of intelligence by Khan to bring the military above any other branch of power is very tragic.

Even as Pakistan, the fifth most populous country in the world, is falling into the deep abyss of authoritarianism under its thoroughly corrupt military, the usual suspects in the West who are quick to declare India as an illiberal democracy are not even blinking an eyelid and are instead cheering on the funeral of democracy in Pakistan. The reason is quite clear—the way India exhibited its military prowess during Operation Sindoor has rattled not only Pakistan but the West, especially the United States, as well.

Thus, when Munir embarks on the quest to make the military more powerful than ever at the expense of the civilian leadership, they are consciously choosing to patronise him rather than admonish him. This is because ‘democracy’ is anyway just a tool for them to keep the potential challengers to their hegemony in place. It is useful to shame an authoritarian China, and it is useful to keep a strong but defiant government in New Delhi in check.

Munir’s adventures may send Pakistan down the spiral of anarchy. The repressed people of Pakistan in certain backward provinces may even break away one day, but the West’s backing of Munir will not stop even if Pakistan gets balkanised so as to balance an emerging India. The Pakistani military has once again played the right cards to become their best bet.

(The author is a New Delhi-based commentator on geopolitics and foreign policy. She holds a PhD from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. She tweets @TrulyMonica. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)