Mysterious Banners Crop Up In Pakistan Urging Army Chief To Contest Election

Mysterious banners in Pakistan with pictures of Army Chief General Raheel Sharif are once again surfacing in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. But this time the message urges the army general to “participate” in the next general election in 2018.

The banners are in English and urge the Army Chief – who is due to retire 29 November – to participate in the next general election. They urge Parliament to amend a law which bars army officials from participating in politics for at least two years after retirement, reports the Express News.

This is not the first time that such banners have cropped up in major cities in Pakistan. In July, banners with pictures of General Sharif were on display in major cities across Pakistan, urging him to impose martial law and take control of the country. Interestingly, the banners had sprung up overnight on all major boulevards in the cities despite the presence of several security checkpoints and patrol. The banners were put up in Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi, Sargodha and Faisalabad, among others.

In February, days after General Sharif announced he would step down, banners were put up on the streets of the capital urging him to extend his tenure.

However, unlike the most recent banner, the old banners were put out by an organisation called the ‘Move on Pakistan’. The party, which has little grassroots support, has been registered with the ECP, and a businessman from Faisalabad, Mohammad Kamran, is its chairman.

On 25 January, General Sharif laid to rest speculation that he would continue to serve as the military chief beyond November 2016, insisting he preferred to relinquish the job unlike two of his predecessors.

By declaring his intentions well in advance, General Sharif has become the first army chief since 1998 to doff his military uniform after completing his three-year tenure. He was appointed as the country’s fifteenth army chief on 29 November 2013.

(With inputs from IANS)