Nawaz Sharif, a political martyr?

ISLAMABAD: With the advent of summer, the political temperature is also rising in the country. According to some political intellectuals, it will keep on increasing till the next general election, 2018, and even the winter season won’t be able to cool it down.

The Supreme Court’s judgment over Panama Papers case has opened a new Pandora’s box in Pakistan’s politics, which is Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s resignation as he has been declared dishonest and untruthful by two of the most senior judges out of the five-member bench of the apex court.

As a whole, the evidences, either verbal or documented, presented before the court to prove Sharif’s money trail for establishing offshore companies and purchasing flats in London worth billions of rupees has been declared null and void. In spite of that, he is insistent on not resigning from his chief executive’s post, although he has lost his moral authority to remain in the chair any more.

The demand for resignation of opposition parties is as correct as Sharif seeking the same in the cases of former premiers Yousaf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf. However, he is following the strategic policy of former President Asif Ali Zardari who said, “He would prefer to go in an ambulance instead of resigning from his post as president.”

Upon analysing the whole situation, it seems that Sharif wants to be a political martyr just to prove his innocence and earn sympathies, once again. If he thinks he is clever enough to cope with the situation tactfully, he is sort of right, but perhaps he cannot understand what he is losing in the wake of his position and wealth. He is losing his dignity and credibility, and tarnishing his public image, once and for all, just as Zardari lost his even though nothing has been proven against him in any court till date.

Rehan Khan

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2017.

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