Alvi is now in the target’s sights after receiving Imran’s letter.
In April, when Imran Khan was removed from office after a vote of no confidence in the House of Representatives, and Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in as prime minister in his stead, one man found himself torn between his constitutional obligation and his loyalty to his party.
Arif Alvi was one of PTI’s senior leaders before he became president, and he stuck by Imran through the ups and downs of his long fight for political power.
Now he had to work with the prime minister, who according to his boss was imposed on Pakistan. There was, thus, an effort to discourage President Alvi from working with the coalition administration.
At first, he did as his boss asked and didn’t give the new prime minister an oath of office. Later on, though, he seemed to accept this as fact and make more of an effort to govern as president than as a PTI partisan. Recently, President Alvi has emphasised the importance of communication among the many parties involved, and he has held at least two meetings between the army chief and the former prime minister.
However, the PTI leader apparently had some issues with President Alvi, especially after the failed assassination attempt. Imran hoped the president will take a firm stand on the matter.
On the occasion of the president’s visit to the Shaukat Khanum Hospital in Lahore to check on Imran, Alvi met with his party chairman for an extensive discussion of the present political situation.
Many political experts believe that Imran was prompted to write a letter to the president demanding accountability from high-ranking military personnel after that lengthy discussion.
The PTI wrote to President Alvi urging him to “act now” to end the misuse of authority and constitutional violations.
The former prime minister wrote a letter to the president on Sunday, complaining about the “increasing scale of false allegations, harassment, arrests, and custodial torture” that the country has faced since the PTI administration was overthrown.
He said that he had been aware of an assassination plot “hatched by PM Shehbaz, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, and a senior military official,” and that he had received “repeated death threats” from Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah.
The plot was put into motion earlier this week during our lengthy march, but Allah spared me, and the assassination attempt was foiled, he said.
Specifically, Imran urged President Alvi to take note of the “following serious wrongdoings that undermine Pakistan’s national security” in his capacity as head of state and “also as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces under Article 243 (2)” of the Constitution.
He then requested that Alvi head an investigation find those responsible “and hold them accountable.”
He outlined the “wrongdoings” in a brief three-point list.
First, he claimed that the media’s disclosure of a private conversation between himself, the chief of army staff (COAS), and another military officer constituted a violation of the Official Secrets Act.
This, he said, posed the “very serious question as to who or what organisation was involved in doing a clearly illegal wiretap of the PM’s secure phone line,” calling the act a “breach of national security on the highest level.”
His second argument was that our envoy to the United States had reported hearing a direct threat of regime change from a United States official and that this threat had been repeated verbatim by our envoy.
He went on to say that during his time as prime minister, the issue was discussed at a National Security Council (NSC) meeting, where it was “clearly decided this was an unacceptable intrusion into our internal matters and the NSC decided on a demarche to be issued by MoFA to the US envoy in Islamabad.”
According to Imran, “the NSC meeting held under the Shehbaz Sharif government reaffirmed the NSC decision.”
Accordingly, “on 27 October 2022, the DG ISI and the DG ISPR held a joint press conference in which the former contradicted the decision made by the NSC under two governments by asserting that the message of the US government conveyed by our envoy in Washington DC in the cypher was not an unacceptable intrusion into our internal affairs but simply a case of misconduct.'”
He raised the “serious issue of these military bureaucrats deliberately trying to create a false narrative” and wondered how two military officers could “publicly contradict a decision of the NSC.”
The PTI chief said that two other issues that needed to be looked into were how the head of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency could hold a public press conference, and how two military bureaucrats could hold a highly political press conference aimed at the head of the largest and possibly only federal political party in Pakistan today.
Finally, Imran remarked, “the parameters of a military information organisation like the ISPR also need to be clearly defined and limited to information relating to defence and military issues.”
He urged President Alvi, “as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces,” to lead the process of “drawing up of these clear operational lines for the ISPR.”
Alvi “must protect its democracy and its Constitution,” Imran said, adding that he and the president were in charge of Pakistan.
The law applies equally to everyone, he said.
The former prime minister reaffirmed that “massive abuse of citizens at the hands of rogue elements within state organisations,” including “custodial torture and abductions,” were being “carried out with impunity” in the country.
Imran ended his letter by saying, “You hold the highest Office of State and I am requesting you to act now to stop the abuse of power and violations of our laws and of the Constitution, which ensures the fundamental rights of every citizen.”
Experts say the president has no legal or constitutional power to do anything, despite Imran’s letter.
Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency head Ahmed Bilal Mehboob said, “At best he can forward the letter to the ministry of defence or the GHQ” (PILDAT).
While the president is technically in charge of the military, he has no real administrative authority and must instead rely on the prime minister’s recommendations.
To do so, Bilal remarked, “but he can create a nuisance,” adding that the president’s action would be suicidal.
