Impasse over Panama

Appearance of the PM in parliament on May 16 has done nothing to dampen the fires ignited by the Panama Papers affair

The appearance of the prime minister in parliament on May 16 has done nothing to dampen the fires ignited by the Panama Papers affair. He made no effort to directly answer the seven questions addressed to him by the opposition parties and spoke from a prepared script, in the process raising more questions than he answered. He proposed the formation of a parliamentary committee, which would include members of the government and the opposition, to rewrite the terms of reference (ToR) for a judicial commission that the chief justice has already said that he is not willing to set up without the underpinning legislation — which can only be enacted by parliament. As an exercise in parliamentary irrelevance, the prime minister’s speech was flawless. As a resolution to what is now a deeply embedded systemic political crisis, it rates a minus number.

The opposition parties chose to walk out rather than make a response to the prime minister in parliament and there is no obvious way out of what is a genuinely intractable problem. The prime minister’s calls for more stringent accountability laws in the country is all very well but there is now so much unfinished business on the table that he might as well have called for a cessation of all the conflicts in the world — tomorrow. With the opposition now having reached an impasse with the government, parliament itself as an institution has an insignificant role. Neither side is willing to use the machinery of parliament in a way that accommodates the other. For Imran Khan, this is an opportunity to undermine the prime minister that is far more potent than the always shaky rigging allegations, and the longer the affair drags on, the weaker the prime minister becomes, drained by the energy required to hold an unsustainable position. Governance is now ticking over on autopilot. With the holy month of Ramazan three weeks away, there seems little chance of a resolution before it commences. Some very difficult days lie ahead and perhaps it is hoping for too much for the government and the opposition to show the maturity to thrash out consensus-based ToRs, and use the forum of parliament to resolve this crisis.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2016.

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