Supreme Court’s verdict on the Panama Papers probe came as an anticlimactic end to a bad political thriller – the kind Shonda Rhimes produces for Americans in prime time television slots.
However, the coverage of the case in the media should caution us to never underestimate the skills of Pakistani news producers. They manage to successfully project their own political outlook onto the masses by that one riveting, monumental news story every season where the unthinkable happens. These are times when the audience – the Pakistani people – is made to feel as if a change is on the horizon. News producers play up not only their desires but also those of the audience at whom their news content is directed. And who can blame them? These newsmakers are a part of the society, and their work often reflects what many of us want to see. So whether or not we hate our news producers, we all expectantly wait for change. We love scandal and political intrigue and nothing feels as good as watching the rich and the powerful being destroyed by karma or because of some evil deed they were too stupid to cover up.
Before it was announced, the SC judgment had been touted as a historic verdict. Perhaps the hope was that if newsmen called it historic enough times, the desired verdict could be willed into existence. Alas, that was not so. The judgment was split. Two of the five judges on the bench believed the evidence presented by the opposition parties was enough to disqualify the prime minister, but the majority view was that more evidence was needed to establish financial misconduct. It was a win-win verdict; the PTI feels vindicated by the dissenting note, the PML-N is ecstatic that its leader lives to fight another day. Either way, the fundamental questions of corruption, questionable financial practices and accountability remain unresolved – neither are they likely to be resolved through sudden dismissals of “corrupt” prime ministers.
The truth at the heart of this affair is this: corruption in Pakistan is a systemic and structural problem. It is not simply due to the behaviour of some dishonest officers of a particular agency or politicians of certain political parties. It represents sophisticated networks that tend to cross international boundaries and link public and private sector actors with outright criminals, sometimes including terrorists. It is so pervasive that even with the combined efforts of the bureaucracy, the opposition and the judiciary, it may still be difficult to ascertain where it begins and where it ends – not that such a concerted attempt was ever made. Since the elaborate and purposeful nature of such structures has not drawn an equivalently sophisticated study by those who can address the problem, remedial efforts often fail to make much impact.
“Behind every great fortune there is a crime”, but first this crime needs to be proven in a court of law. This not only requires diligent (not malicious) prosecution and conclusive (not circumstantial) evidence (something which the PTI’s counsel was unable to provide), but also a legal framework which makes such investigations possible. One may argue, then, that in the absence of robust accountability mechanisms and a strong case against the prime minister, the honourable judges of the Supreme Court could only temporarily defuse a bomb that continues to be.
It is clichéd to recommend strengthening of state institutions for greater accountability. In Pakistan’s case, such a statement essentially enables coercive tactics and empowers the state to bully the people more than it usually does. I will, instead, call for strengthening of democratic institutions so that the pressure on public representatives comes from their own constituencies. The fact that accountability in Pakistan has been a joke may be because there are weak democratic institutions, which embolden political leaders to thrive on loopholes in the law.
All eyes are now on the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) mandated by the Supreme Court to take the Panama probe further. The saga of Sharif family’s corruption continues. Our news producers have another few months to excite the masses about the possibility of the prime minister’s ouster on account of corruption. One can already see the hype and the excitement for the next season finale of this political saga. This excitement comes every few months. Last time, it was the November dharna of the PTI; before that, we waited for a regime change in 2014 when Imran Khan staged a sit-in in front of the Parliament seeking the prime minister’s resignation for “rigging” the 2013 general election. Nothing substantial came out of these episodes. So I would just remind my fellow Pakistanis to remember that the Panama Leaks did not promise a revolution, however much we desire it. The revelations made in the leaks, however, do have a potential for reform and our lawmakers would be well-served to pay heed to those possibilities.
The writer is an editor for Vanguard Books and can be reached at @aimamk on twitters