When equivalence inflicts its own cost

The opposition finally played its nuclear card against Imran Khan as it forced the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to announce its reserved decision on foreign/prohibited funding to the PTI. The case had been under investigation at the ECP for nearly eight years and under Supreme Court (SC) ordered scrutiny for four years. The SC had desired that all parties be investigated and not just the PTI but because of earlier initiation of the case against PTI theirs was done much quicker. It is another thing that other political parties needing similar scrutiny are equally reticent as was the PTI for lack of transparency in how the financial records have been kept or misused. The ECP has always been magnanimous towards the political parties but derelict in not keeping a sharp eye out for how records were kept. A sharp-eyed scrutiny of PTI thus was an exception. The SC desired that decisions on the investigations may be announced together for all parties but the ECP possibly for political reasons was forced into announcing the decision on PTI only. If the PTI seems cornered and wronged it is within its right to feel and say so.

The ECP could have waited to establish common omissions and formed and refined rules of procedure for funding, recording, accounting and auditing donations and contributions in guidelines amplified and refined in the Political Parties Act. It would have added credibility and positivity to our usually polarised political culture and established ECP’s credibility as a fair partner to the political process. By choosing to be hurried into a decision and its announcement for whatever compulsive reasons unfortunately has cast doubts on the intent. Especially when both the Islamabad High Court and the SC had asked the ECP to be fair in its conduct of inquiry and investigation across the board. This will sow yet another divide in a combative and contentious political landscape. Institutions meant to arbitrate must not be perceived partisan. A fair conduct and an even keel helps sustain a stable order and keeps any urge to upend it in check.

In fact the incumbent PDM government just had no answer to the bounce-back of Imran Khan after he was blatantly removed from power by the combined connivance of the opposition and some additional help. Perceiving a naked wrong it added many to the millions who were already IK’s adulating fans. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that in terms of popularity IK stands far above Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto with a significant margin. Unable to harness and control massively popular support for IK the government had to fall back on its nuclear option of framing him for omissions in PTI accounts under review at the ECP and forcing an early announcement of the decision in contravention of what the Courts had ordered. And although the punishment per rules for prohibited funding is simple confiscation of the contributed amounts — if the ECP decision holds in the appeals process — the government is using the space to directly malign and hit at IK’s credibility. It may further decide to charge him for associated criminal acts just to keep him embroiled in exhausting court cases. His eye off politics may cede some space to a beleaguered government desperate to find some breathing space and get its act in order. Their declared aim will be to ban the party and disqualify IK to hold public office, a la Nawaz Sharif, but such equivalence will only come at a cost, if so.

The space generated by the act of framing Imran Khan is critical to how might the future politics evolve. If the government advances to the point of banning the party or disqualifying IK from further public office the retort will be fast and furious. It shall only hasten the Sri Lanka moment in Pakistan. Pushed to the wall desperation will take over. That will take the house down in all its manifestations. Knowing the consequences, in all probability, those indulging in this game will tread with care and keep it regulated to avoid explosive disintegration and melt-down. The poor state of the economy will exercise its own check on ambition taming it within reason.

If however the court cases that the government may push IK into only act as dampeners to decelerate his political rebound that will open space for some negotiation and accommodation that all power wielders have been looking to for establishing common rules on how politics and economy may move beyond the impasse. Garbed in such rhetoric is the unmistakable aim to find reprieve for the long convicted Nawaz Sharif disqualified by the SC to hold public office. An IK embroiled in his own tribulation may just be more willing than he has been to a negotiated redemption in return for his own escape from distress. This is politics.

Politics of morality however may impose other restrictions on the free-play that seems to be available to the executants of this design. For starters redeeming someone convicted and disqualified for a crime while in position of power may be a difficult proposition. Two, many who have been under NAB scrutiny for substantive allegations of financial misappropriation and outright plunder may also be difficult to reprieve without a trial. If indeed such decisions are extracted as a quid pro quo it can only be at heavy societal and cultural costs skewing the moral threshold of the society and its self-esteem. It will only open the society up to greater moral dereliction. But politics being politics may yet be willing to take the road best avoided. There has been a persistent cry for a grand dialogue and a charter to renew politics. Essentially it is amnesty for all in the garb of ‘truth and reconciliation’ or an even grander ‘charter of coexistence’. Depends how low will IK bend and submit. If he does.

To avoid such ignominy with shenanigans so easily discerned by the world-at large and people at home the only alternate to bowing to ulterior manipulation is to install a ‘technocrat’ government for a period of two years. Its purpose should be to cleanse the system of the accumulated muck in its laws, rules, procedures, practices and in the constitution, where needed, through judicial authority for ratification later by the Parliament when one is in place. This arrangement can indeed be conditionally negotiated with all parties to revert the country to constitutional governance. It must carry representatives from all parties across the board and include subject specialists — theorists, academicians and practitioners — in each of the functional areas of state, economy and social governance. The courts and those engaged in various criminal cases against them may then have the luxury of time at hand to conclude their cases and when cleared be ready to lead and participate in the representative political process. The Constitution must be the touchstone for this transitory period even if it partially conforms to the structures laid out in it. The military-legal system should support such transitional arrangement as a one-time measure under most challenging socio-economic and security environment.

It may seem like Hobson’s choice but when sanity takes leave and equivalence must drive a process all choices seem equally desperate.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 5^th, 2022.

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