Defense Minister Khawaja Asif has made a rare and open admission, calling the nation’s governance system a “hybrid model”—one in which military and civilian leadership share authority.
According to him, the model is producing “excellent results” and may be used indefinitely until Pakistan is “out of the woods as far as economic and governance problems are concerned.”
Asif admitted to Arab News that this approach had worked well for guiding Pakistan through challenging times.
This model is a hybrid. This democratic government isn’t perfect. Therefore, I believe [this] hybrid arrangement is working wonders,” the minister stated.
“Things would have been much, much better if this kind of [hybrid] model had been implemented back in the 1990s. The conflict between the political government and the [military] establishment actually slowed down the advancement of our democracy.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is making decisions on his own, but he is always consulting the military establishment, Asif underlined. He asserted that power has been shared, not imposed, and is operating without hiccups.
Asif described it as a “de facto arrangement, and it’s working very well.” “We have common platforms, like SIFC and other platforms, where military leadership and civilian leadership, they sit together and decide about the business,” he said.
