Daily Times

Amidst the current political turmoil caused by institutional imbalance taking its toll on the constitutional structure, the state has been pushed towards uncertainty and multiple crises. This was accentuated by  the national seminar, organised by the  PML-N in Islamabad on April 17, 2018, on the important theme of ‘Vote ko izzat do’ (uphold the sanctity of ballot).

Apart from the candid speeches of speakers holding diverse political points of view, the other striking uniqueness of the event was attendance by members of the civil society, media, and the legal fraternity, as well as the consensus among the participants on the need to uphold the sanctity of the ballot.

It is a known fact that at the heart of Pakistan’s myriad but interlinked crises, the core issue is the deliberate lack of will to implement the constitutional structure. Though the Constitution clearly stipulates separation of powers, extra-constitutional activities prevent its enforcement, and deny the vote’s sanctity that is essential to the harmonious functioning of various organs of the state. As Mian Nawaz Sharif underlined in the opening part of his speech that the four words ‘Vote ko izzat do’ encompass his entire political philosophy and were a solution to the political crises the country faced for the last seven decades.

The disregard for the people’s mandate resulted in the dismemberment of the state in 1971, while the remaining part was reduced to a paralysed entity due to continuous political engineering, rigging people’s mandate and manipulating the entire system to a point of dysfunctionality.

The de-jure facade is only a matter of strategic essentialism for the powers that be to run their deep state in its shadow and avoid accountability. The de-jure is always used as a mask by the invisible powers and if ever an objection is raised on the deep state’s activities, it is always either paralysed — as we have witnessed in the ongoing crisis — or those objecting are removed unceremoniously on trumped up charges. It is now an open secret that even in the presence of the de-jure system the entire state machinery carries out the orders of the de-facto powers that be.

Nawaz’s deeds need to match his slogans. He has to reaffirm his political creed of empowering the people

With their many fault lines and shortcomings, in the aftermath of October 1999 coup, the democratic forces realised the need for a minimum consensus. In the form of the Charter of Democracy, they undertook not to repeat what they did in the past by lending shoulder to non-democratic forces to subvert the system.

Alas, that remained a short lived objective. The war on terror and the lawyers’ movement for the restoration of the ousted judges (some consider it engineered too) by the Musharraf regime inflated the sapped image of the army and judiciary. The war on terror not only physically restrained politicians but also forced the Parliament and elected dispensation to recoil, leaving space to the military in policy as well as governance spheres. Whatever space the elected dispensation had was filled in by the assertive judiciary that almost crippled the executive functioning.

However, till October 2011, no mainstream party seemed ready to explicitly side with the security establishment, until the PTI broked the fence. Despite imposition of Governor’s rule in Punjab by the PPP-headed federal government and Nawaz Sharif siding with the alleged Memogate initially on the wink from the powers that be — a decision he recently he regretted — no mainstream party except the PTI was ready to cross the red lines that could derail the entire democratic system.

The security establishment, to some extent, succeeded to bring back the politics of 1990s in the form of horse trading, defections and political engineering to malign politics and politicians as an unworthy lot, using PTI and, recently, Zardari.

Albeit, PPP’s floundering role, particularly for the last one year, its unholy alliances in Balochistan, earlier this year, and later in the Senate’s election, much to the chagrin of its staunch democratic elements, did not blow a favourable wind in its direction.

Meanwhile, the PML-N allies seem more committed to Nawaz Sharif’s narrative of ‘Vote ko izzat do’, than his party as a political entity.

To dispel the impression that ‘Vote ko izzat do’ is merely an election-time slogan, Nawaz has to match the slogan with his deeds. He has to reaffirm the political creed of empowering the people of this country by ushering in a true representative democracy characterised by the supremacy of the Constitution, in letter and spirit, sovereignty of the Parliament and rule of law.

He has to prove that ‘Vote ko izzat do’ is not a shield against his current precarious situation but is grounded in a belief in its ethos that had put him on the wrong side with the powers that be. For that, Nawaz has to put his own party in order to speak in one voice. The role played by some elements inside his party since the first dharna was more devastating than that of PTI. While he enjoyed the unequivocal support of allies, and even PPP, during the dharna, he should have cleared his own rank and file in the party after the storm of first dharna settled. He must have known about the role of Chaudhry Nisar and Shahbaz Sharif by that time, and should have taken a timely decision before further damage.

Ironically again, the blow to his narrative came from no less than the provincial government last Saturday, when the Shahbaz Sharif administration first refused to grant the NOC for the Pakhtun Tahaffuz Movement public meeting at Mochi Gate, Lahore, and then detained PTM activists and leaders of the Awami Workers Party (AWP) who were supporting the PTM gathering.

It was devastating, not least for national integration. The video leaked on social media by one of PTM’s activists present on the scene showed a police officer reporting to his senior that he had found Ali Wazir and eight other Pathans along with a woman, Ismat Shahjahan, the federal general secretary of AWP. While speaking on the phone, the police officer said, “There are eight Pathans, one lady, who is also a Pathan.” Responding to the officer’s bias, one of the apprehended workers interrupted and questioned him on his reference to them as Pathan, and not Pakistanis.

As it was later reported by the detained personnel, a plainclothes person pointed his gun at Ali Wazir’s temple to force him to move along with them. It was followed by a volley of allegations by the same plainclothes interrogators, the often repeated was, ‘traitors!’.

The midnight lukewarm tweet by Maryam Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Rashid’s statement condemning the incident and supporting PTM’s right to hold a public gathering controlled the damage to some extent. But it put the PML-N as a party under strict criticism, with questions raised on whether or not it was truly adhering to the ‘Vote ko izzat do’ slogan or was using it only as a political ploy.

The current political turmoil is an outcome of not adhering to the Constitution and disregarding people’s mandate by the powers that be. The response from the PML-N as a party should be unified and unequivocal. Regarding its narrative of ‘Vote ko izzat do’ and civilian supremacy, the party should not be seen moving in two opposing direction.

The writer is a political analyst hailing from Swat. Tweets @MirSwat

Published in Daily Times, April 25^th 2018.