Daily Times

The highest court of the land took its sweet time to tackle the gravest constitutional crisis the country has faced during civilian governments, but in the end it clearly made sure that the constitution should reign supreme. And the verdict – that Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri’s April 3 dismissal of the no confidence motion, and everything stemming from it, was “unconstitutional” – has delivered a serious blow to PTI’s narrative of a foreign conspiracy and also Prime Minister Imran Khan’s confrontational brand of politics. Now the no confidence vote will be held in a few days and, unless PTI has more surprises planned for the very immediate future, Imran Khan is going to become the first Pakistani prime minister to be dismissed from office through a constitutional no trust motion.

All this puts the wind right back into the opposition’s sails. PTI had built considerable momentum since the filing of the no trust motion, largely on the back of the alleged foreign conspiracy to de-seat PM Khan, but now the ruling party will have to regroup and finetune its main narrative all over again. There’s a no confidence motion against the national assembly speaker as well, and the crisis is Punjab is also deepening by the day, so there’s a lot for PTI to figure out over the next few days.

Hopefully the end of suo motu proceedings at the supreme court will signal a return to normalcy and the economy can begin to find its feet once again. Over the last few days alone, the rupee had dropped like a rock, on top if its earlier historic losses, to touch 190 against the dollar. And back breaking inflation has forced monetary policy to be contracted very sharply. The roller coaster ride of the last few weeks and months may be about to end, but the real work to rehabilitate the economy and revitalise the government has just begun. *