Prime Minister Imran Khan did indeed have a surprise up his sleeve all this time, just as he claimed, and the uproar about the foreign letter didn’t die with a presentation before the national security council, after all. Yet it’s still too soon to say whether or not PTI scored a shock victory on Sunday. Since the national assembly stands dissolved and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is mandated to mobilise to hold an election in 90 days, whatever verdict has to come from the Supreme Court will have to come very quickly; especially if the opposition, as well as a majority of independent constitutional lawyers, are right that the government acted unconstitutionally. However, there’s too much to this controversy to expect immediate clarity. The new and now former law minister invoked Article 5 on the back of the so-called security threat that came in the form of a memo that Imran Khan has made so much fuss about. But there’s already chatter in the federal capital that the letter might not be able to stand up to serious scrutiny. If that is true, and the government really made a mountain out of a molehill, then the whole thing would unravel rather badly. So the spotlight is now squarely on the contents of that letter; and how legitimate a threat it really amounts to. The no-confidence motion is a constitutional matter, after all, and throwing it out on flimsy evidence would not be wise. The government seems confident enough; not just about doing its homework right but also about sending the opposition back with its tail between its legs. Yet neither can really claim success till the supreme court greenlights it. And till that decision comes, the country is very much in the grip of a severe constitutional crisis. There’s no parliament at the moment, nor a federal cabinet. Nor, for that matter, a chief executive of Punjab. How’s the country supposed to function like this? Let’s not forget the grave economic crisis that the country faces regardless of who wins the games of musical chairs in Islamabad and Lahore. We can only hope that the supreme court can untangle this Gordian knot. *