Supreme abuse

The PTI continues to tread on dangerous ground, not just for itself, but for the whole country.

After failing to fend off the no-confidence vote through parliamentary wrangling, the party has placed a target on the judiciary, with extreme vitriol being directed at the Supreme Court, especially the chief justice and others involved in rejecting former deputy speaker Qasim Suri and former prime minister Imran Khan’s unconstitutional attempt to dissolve Parliament.

This includes apparently false allegations of familial ties between the chief justice and some PML-N leaders. But even if these allegations were true, the CJP was not alone in ruling against the PTI — all five judges were in agreement.

It is also worth noting that Justice Bandial was part of the bench that disqualified former prime minister Nawaz Sharif as head of the PML-N. He was also part of the bench that declared Imran Khan “Sadiq and Ameen”. That ruling is the only reason Imran was even eligible to run in the 2018 elections, let alone be elected prime minister.

Why would a ‘pro-Nawaz’ jurist have done so?

The fact is that five judges unanimously agreed that the PTI government broke the law. Even the attorney general — an Imran appointee — could not find strong grounds to defend Suri’s actions. The “legal arguments” being presented by PTI leaders and supporters in public squares and on TV and social media are exactly the same as those shot down in court.

While it is fair to question or debate the reasoning behind judgements — opposition leaders and supporters did so with the Nawaz and Imran judgements — the kind of character assassination PTI supporters are indulging in crosses every sort of line.

It is also unsurprising that the worst attacks are not coming from top leaders, but from rank-and-file party workers and supporters.

Many of the people directly responsible for the mudslinging are the same ones that have long been attacking honest journalists, opposition politicians, and even ordinary citizens who dare to speak of the failings of Imran’s government. Now, as it was then, the prominent party leaders believed to be behind this strategy remain behind the scenes.

If punishments are eventually doled out over this new saga, expect the leadership to use this plausible deniability to step back and claim they were never involved, while party workers are left in the lurch.

There is also some irony in the fact that PTI leaders and supporters took offence to Nawaz’s attacks on the courts and other institutions during this time, but they see nothing wrong with doing the same, if not worse.

Imran had a golden opportunity to contribute to Pakistan. As the leader of the biggest single party in Parliament, he could have kept the pressure on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his shaky coalition government to do the right thing. If nothing else, he could have pushed for fresh elections through a parliamentary process. Instead, he chose party over country, which is made even worse by the fact that his is essentially a one-man party. When is the last time someone said they voted PTI because of Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Murad Saeed, Faisal Vawda, or Ali Gandapur?

Imran is choosing to torture Pakistanis with nationwide protests that will only bring political and economic instability, just as he did when he held nationwide protests over his now-disproven “35 punctures” and other claims. The repetition of those claims formed the basis of the PTI’s dharna campaign, which raised the party’s profile among the masses, despite having little basis in fact.

Though many PTI leaders later apologised for making those false claims, the damage had been done. Today, several PTI supporters still believe them and are often surprised to learn that even Imran admitted that the comments were only of a “political nature”, which is likely the same claim he will make when eventually forced to defend the slanderous accusations of treason he has been throwing around.

While Imran and his inner circle may feel this rhetoric and the ensuing mass resignations are good ways to rally the base and even attract new voters disappointed by the way his time in office ended, they ignore the dangers presented to Pakistani society by this Machiavellian approach.

Imran’s time before coming to power was marked by a desire to rule — refusing to go to Parliament, quitting en masse, and, both directly and by proxy, pitting citizens and institutions against each other.

Unfortunately, Imran’s time in office was also riddled with defiance of parliamentary norms.

When the PTI emerged from the 2018 elections as the largest party in the National Assembly, many of the party’s leaders and Imran’s more rational supporters suggested that he would shed his ‘street politician’ persona and maturely rise to the office of prime minister. Instead, we saw a government that regularly bypassed Parliament to rule via ordinance and a vindictive prime minister that insisted on dividing rather than unifying. His underlings, especially the upcoming stars of the party, followed his lead and regularly resorted to verbal — and sometimes even physical — abuse.

While this may have rallied his base, it was an insult to the electorate and an embarrassment for the country.

Now back on the street, sans any visible maturity acquired from his time as the leader of the House, it is hard to imagine Imran doing anything differently.

And while Imran’s continues to claim there was a foreign conspiracy against him, despite all of his ‘evidence’ having been shot down, his party still faces the threat of severe sanctions and the eventual likelihood of a Supreme Court trial as part of the foreign funding case currently before the Election Commission of Pakistan. The way that case is moving, it is very possible that the only provable foreign conspiracy will involve PTI’s finances.

With this in mind, it is well within the realm of possibility that this current attack on the judiciary is meant to place pressure on the superior courts in advance of an appeal once the ECP case is decided.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th, 2022.

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