Daily Times

In its haste to get a favourable decision, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) directly invoked the extraordinary jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (SC) for the disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over the Panama Papers scandal. However, the SC has turned down PTI’s petition by declaring it frivolous. The SC has returned the plea mainly on two counts. Firstly, the PTI has not followed the proper course of law, as according to the court it should have filed a plea in a High Court first before approaching the SC. Secondly, there are other appropriate forums where the PTI could have taken up the issue for seeking relief but it did not do so without stating any justification. The response from the SC has disappointed the PTI leadership while Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has termed the ruling “a blow to the legitimacy of the judiciary.” The PTI in its initial years had presented itself as the saviour of the nation but due to consistently changing stances over different issues has evoked for Imran Khan the label “U-turn Khan.” A peep into the recent political history shows that after one year of the elections in 2013, Khan started an agitation against the government on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations that the elections were massively rigged. The PTI chief held the PML-N, the then caretaker government and last but not the least, former Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry responsible for his party’s defeat. During his agitation, he levelled every kind of allegation through his firebrand speeches, and employed all possible means to prove that his accusations were true. He started a long march, sought help from a “third umpire,” and staged one of the longest protests in Islamabad while riding atop his container, but all in vain. He failed to topple the government of Nawaz Sharif. First, the PTI chief demanded a probe into alleged rigging of four constituencies, and then the number reached 30. However, the charges of systematic rigging could not be proved, rather only election-related anomalies and errors were found.

How can an opposition leader force an elected prime minister to resign when he was not directly involved in the scandal? It is this churlishly stubborn attitude of Khan, who instead of focusing on real issues, remains in search of means to topple the Sharif government. It has become a norm in Pakistan that politicians get involved in personal attacks for achieving their political motives. The track record of the PTI leader speaks volumes about his inflexibility over different issues in the past. It is a pattern that if his demands are not accepted, he turns to politics of agitation. How can a politician like Khan lead the nation when he banks on false accusations for achieving political motives? The contradictory nature of Khan’s policies and his impulsive nature have made his credibility doubtful, and the result is that his party has been facing a gradual downslide as well as isolation from the public at large. The country has already suffered a great deal due to the protest movement of the PTI that has proved baseless. Khan has been provided with a chance in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where he can practice all his ideas for bringing a positive change. If he changes the conditions for the people of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through good governance, the whole country will turn to him in the 2018 elections. The PTI should take up the matter with parliament, which is the right platform for the resolution of all issues democratically instead of resorting to street protests. *