Foreign funding controversy

In a country where approximately 30 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line and a high proportion of the remaining population struggles to live comfortably beyond that, public funding for political parties is meagre. But that does not stop politicians from living lavish lifestyles, because a large slice of their funds comes from personal conglomerates and — as popular theories have it — usurped funds paid by people in taxes. There is nothing shocking about the recent case in which the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has been summoned to explain why it receives and accepts funding from expatriates living abroad — especially the United States. The petition was filed by the party’s biggest rival, PML-N, only to face a counter charge of also receiving funding from abroad. While the duty of transparency about funding sources falls on parties, considering the high density of Pakistanis living abroad, teams need to rely on foreign wallets for campaigning and support. The controversy is therefore pointless.

Billions of rupees are collected from abroad by political parties so to scrutinise one party when other parties do the same appears to have a personal agenda behind it. The noble court, of course, is the best judge to compare the situation with the Constitution of Pakistan and the rules at home. Abroad, there might be different rules. For example, with respect to the United States, citizens are not allowed to form allegiance to the government of a foreign country as this creates obvious questions about one’s loyalty to his or her country of nationality — highly relevant in case of war. However, the controversy at present is on our homeland and thus our rules apply. Proceedings need to be in all fairness, though, so as to scrutinise all such government parties that accept foreign funds, and not a select few against which other groups have personal vendettas. The duty of accountability to declare funding sources and what is achieved with the money falls on all party heads but considering Pakistan’s gamut of other problems, we certainly have bigger battles to fight.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2017.

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