Political geography
The politicians have failed again, been rescued by the judiciary which should not have to bear this additional burden
PHOTO: ICIJ
The Panama Papers, released on April 3rd 2016, are having and will continue to have a profound and lasting effect on the politics of Pakistan. Their impact has rippled far and wide and as the air clears after the failed attempt by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to ‘lock down’ Islamabad in protest at the prime minister’s unwillingness to provide what the PTI sees as ‘accountability’; it is ever clearer that the plate tectonics of political geography are shifting.
The inescapable reality is that the Panama Papers are inescapable. They are a true and factual record of transactions some of them going back almost 50 years and to date there have been no sustainable challenges to their probity and herein lies the greatest difficulty for the prime minister who, though not named directly, is surrounded by a miasma of suspicion and doubt that can only be dispersed by the most searching of enquiries. The first attempt to cobble together an enquiry foundered on the rocks of the Terms of Reference (ToRs) with neither side able to agree which led to the impasse broken this week by the Supreme Court — an impasse likely to be replicated as neither side is likely to move from their entrenched positions. In all likelihood it will be the Supreme Court that determines the rules of engagement.
As legal process continues so does politics and the government is finding itself on increasingly unsteady ground. It may hold a parliamentary majority but when parliament is all but abandoned and replaced by street-corner activism and rallies that majority looks vulnerable. Entering the fray now is the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), hitherto something of a bit player. The PPP has proposed another set of ToRs and is saying that it will not allow the judicial commission to work if it’s ToRs are not considered as well as those of the PTI. All sides at least superficially are in favour of an inquiry so long as it is conducted according to the rules they set out and to the exclusion of all others. Not an environment in which any enquiry is going to prosper. If, and this is possible, the enquiry was disabled then the PPP could say that since the government is unable to function an election must be called. The co-chairman of the PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari went on to say that for the last three years the country has been run by ‘an incapable prime minister’.
With the PTI licking its wounds and in some disarray, the latest difficulty being suggestions that the PTI was ‘abandoned’ by middle-ranking office holders in Punjab when the call to arms was issued, then the PPP may be seeking to occupy at least a corner of the moral high ground. The PPP co-leader has been regarded as a lightweight in the political ring and he lacks maturity, but if those also in the ring are losing heft and traction then he gets the windfall and begins to look larger than the sum of his parts.
The recent comment from Mr Bhutto to the effect that the PM by his obduracy and unwillingness to compromise has divided the country is in part but not wholly true. The country has been divided since Independence, democratic process has been refined to a form of elective feudalism and it is only recently that the status quo has in any way been challenged, and that by the PTI. Unfortunately the PTI has in national terms become a single-issue party. It is slipping in its power-base of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and is not a significant challenge elsewhere but even so and despite its flawed leader it has sparked awareness of mainstream political failure in a previously largely inert younger generation. The politicians have failed again, been rescued by the judiciary which should not have to bear this additional burden, and the least we can expect from the politicians is that they accept the findings of the upcoming Commission.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 6th, 2016.
The inescapable reality is that the Panama Papers are inescapable. They are a true and factual record of transactions some of them going back almost 50 years and to date there have been no sustainable challenges to their probity and herein lies the greatest difficulty for the prime minister who, though not named directly, is surrounded by a miasma of suspicion and doubt that can only be dispersed by the most searching of enquiries. The first attempt to cobble together an enquiry foundered on the rocks of the Terms of Reference (ToRs) with neither side able to agree which led to the impasse broken this week by the Supreme Court — an impasse likely to be replicated as neither side is likely to move from their entrenched positions. In all likelihood it will be the Supreme Court that determines the rules of engagement.
As legal process continues so does politics and the government is finding itself on increasingly unsteady ground. It may hold a parliamentary majority but when parliament is all but abandoned and replaced by street-corner activism and rallies that majority looks vulnerable. Entering the fray now is the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), hitherto something of a bit player. The PPP has proposed another set of ToRs and is saying that it will not allow the judicial commission to work if it’s ToRs are not considered as well as those of the PTI. All sides at least superficially are in favour of an inquiry so long as it is conducted according to the rules they set out and to the exclusion of all others. Not an environment in which any enquiry is going to prosper. If, and this is possible, the enquiry was disabled then the PPP could say that since the government is unable to function an election must be called. The co-chairman of the PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari went on to say that for the last three years the country has been run by ‘an incapable prime minister’.
With the PTI licking its wounds and in some disarray, the latest difficulty being suggestions that the PTI was ‘abandoned’ by middle-ranking office holders in Punjab when the call to arms was issued, then the PPP may be seeking to occupy at least a corner of the moral high ground. The PPP co-leader has been regarded as a lightweight in the political ring and he lacks maturity, but if those also in the ring are losing heft and traction then he gets the windfall and begins to look larger than the sum of his parts.
The recent comment from Mr Bhutto to the effect that the PM by his obduracy and unwillingness to compromise has divided the country is in part but not wholly true. The country has been divided since Independence, democratic process has been refined to a form of elective feudalism and it is only recently that the status quo has in any way been challenged, and that by the PTI. Unfortunately the PTI has in national terms become a single-issue party. It is slipping in its power-base of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and is not a significant challenge elsewhere but even so and despite its flawed leader it has sparked awareness of mainstream political failure in a previously largely inert younger generation. The politicians have failed again, been rescued by the judiciary which should not have to bear this additional burden, and the least we can expect from the politicians is that they accept the findings of the upcoming Commission.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 6th, 2016.