All together but separately

PM has lost whatever moral high ground he held long ago


Editorial April 25, 2017

The equivocal verdict in the Panama Papers case has produced some political gymnastics but little in the way of team building when it comes to uniting in common purpose. With very few exceptions, there has been a call from all the mainstream parties for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to vacate his position as prime minister, based on the verdict of two of the five judges that presided. The other three judges wrote judgments that fell short of ‘guilty’ and the PM keeps his seat at least for now. The two largest parties of the opposition, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), share common cause with the call to dethrone Mr Sharif and the PPP recently reached a hand out to the PTI — but the PTI has now decided not to take it.

Given the numerous allegations of corruption that have swirled around the co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party over the years (none of them ever conclusively proven) this is probably the wisest move. Running an anti-corruption campaign jointly with a party widely perceived as being as corrupt as its co-chairman allegedly is might dent the PTI image. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has welcomed the move by the PPP to put pressure on the PM to resign but that is as far as it is going. There is almost common voice in parliament for the PM’s ouster, and it has to be doubtful at best that he is going to be showing his face there any time in the foreseeable future and certainly not before the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has completed its work — if indeed it ever does.

The above position may change in the unlikely event of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari ever being empowered by his father, but for now it must be assumed that the PM is going to sit tight and tough it out. He has lost whatever moral high ground he held long ago, and the judicial findings have compounded the loss. With morality in any form largely absent from the political landscape, the loss is an irrelevancy and the PM sails on, damaged above the waterline rather than holed below it.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25th, 2017.

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