Politics, almost everywhere, is a tough and nerve testing game to play with. However, the irony is most of Pakistani politicians apparently take it easy. They believe in self-righteousness and often indulge in self-glorifications through ‘otherisation’ of the other stakeholders involved in the game. Imran Khan, the leader of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf, has consistently demonstrated such a behaviour, over the past years, where he and his party is playing politics of belittling and maligning his political rivals from Pakistan People’s party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) , in particular, and smaller parties such as Jamiat-i-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), in general.
In a non-stop flurry of allegations of corruption and incompetency labelled on the ruling party’s top leadership along with accusing top cadre of PPP and JUI etc., Mr Khan seems to have left little room for political reconciliation with his rivals. Little wonder, Imran filed corruption case(the so called Panama scandal case) against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his progeny. The Supreme Court of Pakistan, after half a year’s probe, judged 3-2 in favour of the Sharifs in purely legal terms. Technically though the case is yet not over and the SC is now over sighting a six-member Joint Investigation Team (JIT) mandated to further dig in the mountain of the Panama Papers to help the SC reach at a final conclusion whether the PM committed financial corruption and whether he can be disqualified, which Khan wishes, from the office. This is to be seen how the JIT probe into the matter given the limited timeframe (sixty days) and, importantly, little forensic know-how.
Interestingly however, having probably learnt from Imran Khan and Co, the Sharifs and aides decided, right after the Panama judgment of April 20, to play tit for tat: if Imran Khan and PTI is bent upon annihilating Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N from the political landscape of Pakistan by filing corruption cases and using (social) media, the latter would do the same with added flavour for electoral purposes since the general elections are due next year. Judicially, to counter Khan and his party’s ever-mounting onslaught, an associate of the Sharifs, Hanif Abbasi, filed a petition before the Supreme Court on 28 April, charging Imran Khan, the head of PTI, and Jahangir Tareen, the secretary general of PTI, of concealing assets and “offshore companies” in their nomination papers filed to the Election Commission of Pakistan. Not only this, the PML-N cadre is hinting at ‘prohibited funds’ that the PTI allegedly received from overseas sources and, in this respect, a former and founding member of PTI, Akbar S. Babar, had already moved a petition before the ECP.
The latter led by Justice (retd) Sardar Muhammad Raza, who is also Chief Election Commissioner, is investigating the matter. Paradoxically, Imran Khan will find himself mired in the very mechanism he devised for his opponents. The SC and ECP bench, separately, will judge whether Imran Khan and associates committed financial and moral (reference article 62 and 63) corruption. If judged guilty, Imran Khan himself could face disqualification, which seems a possibility as it is not hard to collect material evidence related to overseas “prohibited funds” as per the 2002 political parties order.
Politically, the PML-N media wing, ostensibly led by Maryam Nawaz, is busy countering whatever comes from Khan, PTI and its fans. Indeed, Maryam was hitting hard at the PTI’s plans to have the Sharifs and their party declared persona non-grata legally and publically. Legally, this never happened and now the battle lines are drawn clearly, both legally and popularly. Little wonder, the Prime Minister himself is addressing public rallies in an effort to showcase the government and the party’s performance with respect to infrastructural development, i.e. Metro Bus projects, motorways etc. However, the Sharif government has still to assuage the electricity-striven masses. The energy projects under CPEC are still in the pipeline and the summer has set in. Moreover, the holy month of Ramadan is approaching too, where food prices go sky-rocketing as per routine. This is to be seen how the federal and Punjab government deals with the mentioned problem areas. A lethargic and ad hoc public policy in this respect will only provide cheap fodder to the PTI and PPP- the latter has already registered “Go Nawaz Go” protest in Nasir Bagh, Lahore, last week. Last but not the least, this summer will definitely be hot for both PML-N and the PTI and their topmost leadership.
Legally, there is a probability Nawaz Sharif may survive disqualification. If otherwise, his daughter, or any other family member is most likely to lead the party in the general election. On the other hand, if Imran Khan gets disqualified, his sons are too young and naïve to bear with hot Pakistani summers and back-breaking politics. This means minus Imran Khan, PTI would be in shambles. To avoid such a gloomy scenario, politics provides with a way-out. It is still time for Imran Khan to reconcile with Nawaz Sharif and other political rivals.
Postscript: PM Sharif has also survived the Dawn Leaks. On this, next week.
The writer is Head, Department of Social Sciences, Iqra University, Islamabad. He is DAAD, FDDI and Fulbright Fellow. He tweets @ejazbhatty