When the President of Pakistan and the Prime Minister left together

On January 8, 1993, when Chief of Army Staff General Asif Nawaz Janjua died suddenly due to a heart attack, at that time the seniority list was Lt. Gen. Rahm Dil Bhatti, Lt. Gen. Muhammad Ashraf, Lt. Gen. Farrukh Khan and Lt. Gen. Arif Bangash respectively. However, Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif superseded the four generals and appointed the fifth general Abdul Waheed Kakar as the chief of the army of Pakistan.

The differences between President of Pakistan Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif started over the appointment of General Abdul Waheed Kakar as Army Chief. Around the same time, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif started efforts to abolish the Eighth Constitutional Amendment. As a gesture of goodwill, he appointed Opposition Leader Benazir Bhutto as the Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly.

On March 18, 1993, former Prime Minister of Pakistan and head of Pakistan Muslim League Muhammad Khan Junejo died in America. After his death, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif elected himself as the president of Muslim League. His move alienated many Muslim League leaders and ideological workers from him.

The disagreement between the President and the Prime Minister over the appointment of General Abdul Waheed Kakar continued to grow. From the beginning of April 1993, the Union Ministers under the leadership of Hamid Nasir Chatta began a series of resignations from the Cabinet, then these rumors spread throughout the country. Rumors began to circulate that the president was going to dissolve the assemblies at any moment.

On April 17, 1993, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif addressed the nation on radio and television, in which he emotionally mourned the loss of his services to the nation and said that the President’s House had become a hotbed of conspiracies and that he would not be a weakness, Will not show reluctance or reluctance. He will neither resign, nor dissolve the assembly nor take dictation.

This speech by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif provided a strong justification to President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who was hesitant to dissolve the Assembly, and the very next day, on April 18, 1993, he addressed the nation on radio and TV. He announced the dismissal of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his cabinet and the assembly, alleging corruption under Article 58 (2) B of the Constitution.

President Ghulam Ishaq Khan administered the oath of office of the Caretaker Prime Minister to the senior parliamentarian Mir Balkh Sher Mazari in a solemn ceremony held in the President’s House that evening. The caretaker cabinet under his leadership consisted of Hamid Nasir Chatta and Sardar Farooq Ahmad Leghari. Later this cabinet was also expanded.

The then Speaker National Assembly Captain (Rtd) Gohar Ayub Khan approached the Supreme Court as the custodian of the Assembly against the President’s move. The Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Syed Naseem Hasan Shah issued an order on May 26, 1993 for the unconditional restoration of the National Assembly and the Nawaz Sharif government after a five-week hearing. In the context of the court decision, caretaker Prime Minister Mir Balkh Sher Mazari transferred power to Nawaz Sharif on 26 May 1993 after ruling for 39 days. With this decision of the Supreme Court, where President Ghulam Ishaq Khan faced hardship, the political situation of the country went from bad to worse.

On May 27, 1993, the day after the restoration of the government, Nawaz Sharif said in his speech after taking the vote of confidence from the National Assembly that democracy in Pakistan has now been restored in the true sense by the grace of God and undemocratic tactics could not succeed. Going forward in the same speech, he expressed the expectation that for the first time it is felt that the days of Pakistan are about to change and no one will be able to remove Pakistan from this Daghar (democracy).

After the restoration of the government by the Supreme Court and the vote of confidence from the National Assembly, it seemed that after overcoming all his problems, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has got a new courage and new strength and now all his way. The barriers have been removed or will be removed in the coming days. But in the same days, a delegation of prominent journalists of the country met President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and asked him whether there will be any stability and stability in the country in the coming days.

The President heard this question and read a Persian poem by Allama Iqbal while addressing the delegation member Mujibur Rahman Shami.

Don’t forget that you are the receiver of money
A thousand winds are not eaten

The next day’s newspapers published the details of the meeting in headlines that translated the poem as saying that there were thousands of grape vines in the old man’s garden that had yet to be distilled.

The message of this interesting poetic response was clear that many trials await the Prime Minister in the coming days. It was these problems and trials that caused the prime minister to be reportedly in a ‘tearful’ state.

During the 39 days of the establishment and restoration of the federal government, two important events of far-reaching political importance had taken place in Punjab.

The first incident was the no-confidence motion against Punjab Chief Minister Ghulam Haider Wayan. The Muslim League government, which had a comfortable majority in the province, would never have been overthrown if a rebel group had not emerged from within the same party. This group consisting of about half a dozen members of the provincial assembly under the leadership of Mian Manzoor Ahmad Vito immediately got the support of the People’s Party, as a result of which the motion of no confidence was successful and Manzoor Ahmad Vito became the Chief Minister.

The second change was the change of Punjab Governor Mian Muhammad Azhar. After his graduation, Chaudhry Altaf Hussain, a well-known politician of Jhelum, was made the governor. How Governor Chaudhry Altaf betrayed the Prime Minister with his skills and political tactics is a long story. .

The Chaudhry brothers, especially Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, completed their homework in this regard and shifted the MLAs to Islamabad to keep them from switching loyalties. Meanwhile, a motion of no confidence was presented against the Chief Minister so that by bringing changes in Punjab, the environment here could be made favorable for the federal government.

Before the motion of no-confidence reached the assembly secretariat, Chief Minister Punjab Mian Manzoor Ahmed Vito advised Governor Chaudhry Altaf Hussain to dissolve the assembly. The Muslim League challenged in the court the issue of signing the decree of dissolution of the Assembly by the Governor of Punjab, but at this stage, the opposition political forces of the Muslim League and especially the People’s Party challenged the Lahore High Court during the hearing of the case. By encircling, created a situation of pressure on the court. In front of the Lahore High Court, the rain of loots and processions of looters continued all day on the Mall Road and Abdul Hafeez Pirazda’s invasion of the judges continued. It was during this period that the term ‘Lote’ was first coined in the country for political disloyalty.

In an environment in which the political environment of the country was also under tension and due to tactics like siege, the court could not give a decision that would have helped Mian Nawaz Sharif in Punjab. If the federal government could not win this case in Punjab, then the government there made life difficult for the federal government and its officials. The house of the Sharif family in Raiwind and the house of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain in Lahore were blockaded. Even the visitors of these two leaders were harassed. Disturbed by this situation, Nawaz Sharif and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain were forced to seek the help of Rangers to protect their homes.

These actions of the Punjab government under the patronage of the President and other stakeholders closed the connection of the federal government, so the federation tried to hand over the authority of the province directly to the federation. For this purpose, it was decided to enact Article 234 (A) of the Constitution so that the administration of Punjab province can be taken over by the federation. For this purpose, the federation also appointed the former governor of Punjab Mian Muhammad Azhar as the administrator of the province, along with the transfer of the chief secretary and IG police.

President Ghulam Ishaq Khan refused to support this decision, thus another attempt to control the troubled province failed. Apart from the actions of the governor with the support of the president, the role of the army was also exceptional in the failure of this effort.

As soon as he got the information about the implementation of Article 234 (A) of the Constitution, Governor Chaudhry Altaf Hussain contacted the Corps Commander Lahore and informed him that the federal government is going to take such an action which has no legal status. In this situation, the Chief of the Army, General Abdul Waheed Kakar, directed all the relevant institutions, including the Rangers, to refuse to obey all the orders of the Federal Government or the Ministry of Defense in this regard, whose constitutional status is doubtful.

On the other hand, Mian Nawaz Sharif was also warned by powerful circles to avoid any such action. These conditions were enough to discourage the federal government, but despite this, they managed to exert pressure from other provinces. Sindh indicated to stop the traffic coming from Punjab, while the border (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) started saying things like shutting off the electricity of the federal capital and Balochistan gas.

In early July 1993, the Pakistan People’s Party and the All Parties Conference of the Opposition announced that if the Prime Minister did not announce new elections, they would take a long march towards Islamabad on 16 July 1993. Financial and administrative support of the Punjab government was the backbone to ensure this long march. The situation took such a shape that there were talks of martial law in the country. These rumors were strengthened by the extraordinary meeting of the Corps Commanders’ Conference, which was held on the occasion of two Muharram holidays, the 9th and 10th of Muharram.

In the Corps Commanders’ Conference which lasted for five hours, the situation of the country was considered in detail and several possibilities were considered, but the final decision was made according to the opinion of the Chief of Army Staff, General Abdul Wahid Kakar, that the solution to the crisis is within the constitution. It should be removed.

Immediately after the Corps Commanders’ Conference at 11 pm, the Army Chief met the President and the Prime Minister and suggested that fresh general elections be held to resolve the issue. When the time of the long march approached, the army chief sent a plane and invited People’s Party chief Benazir Bhutto to Rawalpindi and met her.

On this occasion, General Kakar asked Benazir Bhutto that while announcing the end of the long march, she should say that this work was done at the behest or intervention of the army. After that, the ‘Famous Zamana’ meeting was arranged in which both the Prime Minister and the President agreed to resign.

July 18, 1993 was a historic day in Pakistan’s politics when the country’s president and prime minister left their positions together. First, the Prime Minister advised the President to dissolve the National Assembly, then the President announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and resigned from his post.

With the consensus of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, Moin Qureshi, former executive director of the World Bank, was made caretaker prime minister, while Senate Chairman Waseem Sajjad assumed the post of acting president.