Lockdowns & Lockups

Protest is right of every political party and Khan should build street pressure for government to move on Panama Leaks

There’s something gloriously beautiful about a leader staking everything on a morally correct issue. There is something hideously grotesque about a leader hungering to bring down an elected government through unlawful means. Herein lies the dilemma that is Imran Khan — and Pakistan.

Last time a Khan swept into a capital city with his hordes, it didn’t end too well for Baghdad. Centuries later many things have changed but the allure of laying siege to a capital (and laying waste to it in the earlier case) remains almost the same. The wrath of the ancient Khan altered the map — and history — of continents, while the wrath of the modern Khan is rattling the system — and many skeletons in the cupboard — as nervous rulers brace for the onslaught.

There’s plenty to be nervous of.

Khan is absolutely right to press his case for an open, credible and independent investigation into the Panama Leaks allegations. The Prime Minister’s family does itself, and the country, no good by evading genuine questions about its business dealings and financials. Unfortunately this issue has also exposed the severe limitations of our executive institutions. Despite their high-sounding names and grandiose roles, organisations like the FIA, NAB, FBR and even State Bank are unable to genuinely investigate people in positions of power. The rule of law as laid down clearly in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is often reduced to an unfunny joke when it smashes against the citadels of power. Far too many people accept this travesty as part of life in Pakistan and get comfortable with the lockups only for those not in positions of power. All power to Khan for refusing to accept it.



Khan is absolutely right to resort to public pressure to get the government moving on the Panama Leaks matter. All the opposition parties have made the appropriate noises to press on the matter, but none has gone a step beyond the initial burst of activity. The brouhaha over the terms of reference and the politics surrounding it made for great headlines but then, as is wont to happen, fizzled out. No surprise here. Scandals have a predictable life cycle in our country. They go through various stages and ultimately most of them sink without much of a trace. They do so because of a short public memory? Not really. Public memory is short all over the world. This is precisely why modern states have modern institutions whose workings are not pegged to the length and breadth of public memory. Law is supposed to take its own course regardless of the presence or absence of public pressure, interest or indifference. All power to Khan for keeping the issue alive when many others had let it slip by.

Khan is absolutely right to rake the government over coals for stonewalling all attempts to investigate the Panama Leaks issue. Yes it is true that our institutions are ill-equipped to tackle white-collar crime, and yes it is true that following the money trail within the intricate web of complex financial transactions is difficult even for the experts, but here at home the deeper issue is not the capacity of the investigating agencies but the will of those who control them. In fact this is where we get to the heart of the matter. Official investigative agencies like the FIA and NAB are part of the executive but they should not be beholden to the chief executive of the country. When our Constitution says all are equal before law, this includes the Prime Minister, the President and all the other high and mighty who hold a Pakistani passport. When Khan repeats this at every forum, he is merely pointing out the obvious. The absolute rule of law is the absolute basic requirement for a society in order to modernise and progress, and yet it appears that majority of our elites couldn’t care less about it. All power to Khan for calling for the rule of law when others confine themselves to pious words alone.

And yet Khan is horribly wrong when he refuses to acknowledge the difference between holding a government accountable and holding a government hostage.

Yes Khan is horribly wrong to demand resignation from the Prime Minister and to proclaim he will not allow the government to function if the elected head of the government does it step down. He is wrong because the Prime Minister has no reason to relinquish his office in the absence of any proof of his personal wrongdoing. The Prime Minister is not named as the beneficiary of the off-shore companies — his children are — and therefore he has absolutely no reason to step down. By making this demand a central point of his onslaught, Khan is undermining the moral advantage he enjoys on the Panama Leaks issue.

Khan is also horribly wrong to threaten to bring down the government if the Prime Minister does not accede to his demands. He is wrong because this government is elected by the people, and if there were any genuine doubts as raised by Khan, they have been erased by the Judicial Commission report on the alleged rigging in the 2013 elections. This, then, is a legally sanctioned, electorally mandated government whose tenure will last till 2018. If Khan wants to, and plans to, create a situation through street power whereby the running of the government becomes impossible, then he will be doing a huge disservice to the nation. He will also be violating fundamental laws of the land that will trigger some very serious charges on Khan and his cohorts.

What then is the way forward? Protest is a right of every political party and Khan should build street pressure for the government to move on Panama Leaks. He is also fully within his rights to extract as much political mileage he can from the dharna. In the game of perceptions, he is inflicting some serious damage on the First Family.

And yet he must know that the ultimate fate of this government must be decided not through lockdowns leading to lockups, but through the ballot box in 2018.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2016.

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