Is there an end to Pakistan’s polycrisis?
The organs of state in Pakistan are locked on a collision course. The country’s executive and parliament have come face-to-face with the judiciary, especially, the chief justice of Pakistan, over the central tenet of any democracy: holding elections. The face-off between the federal government and CJP Umar Ata Bandial arises from holding elections in Punjab along the manner in which the former gave the ruling, and from directly expressing no trust in the top judge as well as rejecting the top court’s decision through a resolution of parliament that threatens to resist court decisions by hook or by crook.
Unprecedented developments have dominated the country for the past few months. From Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s decision to dissolve the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assemblies in January in an attempt to force elections on the federal government; to an impasse on announcing the dates for polls in both the provinces and from running back and forth to the Supreme Court to the apparent schism among the top court judges; there was no end to political, economic and constitutional crises as all parties tried their best to prolong them and continue clashing with each other while governance collapsed.
Among the unusual developments, it was rare that the National Assembly passed back-to-back resolutions against the Supreme Court verdict that setting May 14 as the election date in Punjab, and the government not only resorted to defiance but issued a challenge that things would not move ahead as desired by the judiciary. As the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz-led ruling alliance is completing its year in the government, politically and economically things have remained turbulent from last April to this April by all standards. To add insult to injury, the constitutional breakdown remained the icing on the cake, leaving the country politically unstable and economically on the brink of default throughout the year. It still is in that predicament and the official announcement about default might not take much time if the International Monetary Fund programme is not restored soon.
Renowned political and constitutional expert, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, feared that the current political and constitutional impasse could lead to civil unrest and ultimately to civil war, noting that all the indicators were pointing to that kind of a situation. The expert, who is the President of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), said that the situation could lead to creating further division as no one was ready to take a step back.
To a question on where are things headed to and what would be the end result if relevant stakeholders don’t step off the collision course they are on, the PILDAT chief opined that if the situation is not addressed, the institutions of the state will weaken one by one through internal divisions. “This, coupled with divisions within the public and general economic difficulties, may lead to civil unrest, civil strife and ultimately to, God forbid, civil war,” Mehboob said, “This may not happen all of a sudden but we seem to be moving in that direction.”
Currently, the government, opposition, establishment and judiciary are all contributing to the mess the country is facing. Apparently, all the powerful quarters or people are consumed by their selfish power struggle and unable to see beyond their egos or tactical gains. Sitting together for dialogue seems a distant dream and questions have frequently been raised about how the ongoing opportunistic struggle for power will end and what will be left afterwards if the situation does not return to normality.
Mehboob feels that only the political elite’s personal and party interests can force them to adopt a reasonable position but at present both PTI and PDM feel that a hardline approach can get them greater support, especially, from their traditional constituencies. “Especially PTI seems to have become a hostage to its hawks,” he noted, saying “Imran Khan’s statement that his workers did not let him surrender to police is quite instructive.”
While commenting on the SC judges’ internal fight and the way three-member bench led by CJP and comprising Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Munib Akhtar was delivered, Mehboob said that the “three-member bench’s order, though correct in principle, has further deepened internal fissures of the SC and heightened divisions within public.” He felt that “a full court could have healed the wounds,” saying the CJP “seems to have taken an adamant approach instead of a wise, cool headed strategy.” He didn’t hesitate to add that one cannot rule out dissenting judges making a move against CJP and his supporters – who have usually been labeled as ‘like-minded judges’ or as Supreme Court Justice Athar Minallah put it: “judges as ‘politicians in robes’.”
To the question if elections will take place in Punjab on May 14, especially, after the National Assembly has passed a resolution urging the PM and the federal cabinet not to implement the apex court’s order, Mehboob said that it looks difficult. He said the federal government seems to be “ready to go down fighting, which may salvage some of its political capital”.
Another eminent political expert, Zaigham Khan, regretted that the current crises stem from the fact that political elites have not yet formulated the rules of the game in the last seven-and-a-half decades. The expert, who is an anthropologist and development professional, said that Pakistan is going through a ‘polycrisis’ that has the three pillars of the state in its grasp; it includes judiciary, which is facing an internal risk; the rift between judiciary and the executive; and judiciary versus parliament. To understand why the crisis is not resolving, the political expert said that the reason is that the elite groups of the country have not set such rules of the games or built elite consensus in the past 75 years that could have helped effectively govern the country.
Zaigham said that the elite group mainly has two parts, the political elite and the state elite, although the business elite can also be added to it as an important component. One fault line is between the political and state elite, he said, adding internal rift in the political elite group has also prevented itself from establishing the rules of the games. Zaigham said that Constitution is there but often the political elite quarrels over it. He stressed that setting norms is crucial for moving ahead as unwritten norms are as important in democracy as the written rules. He, however, regretted that this is an area where Pakistan’s democracy lacks the most.
Zaigham recalled that the only positive effort in setting the norms was seen at the time of formulating the Charter of Democracy, which yielded a few positive results. But that has become history now as PTI chairman and former premier Imran Khan does not accept any such charter, insisting “we have moved on”. While commenting on judiciary’s rift, Zaigham said that an important and positive thing to note in all the mess was that the rift has produced a sizeable number of judges in the Supreme Court, who prefer to say what the country’s bar councils, legal fraternity, civil society and politicians have been saying for over a decade now instead of protecting their own interests.
Explaining further, Zaigham said that the legal eagles, politicians and civil society have been saying that the Supreme Court should make rules and regulate its powers, adding they have been arguing that the powers that the constitution has given to the Supreme Court shouldn’t be just limited to the Chief Justice of Pakistan as they should be with the apex court. Basic rules should be made, he said, and it should be decided how the courts should be run.
“The gravity of the issue can be gauged from the fact that not a single full-court meeting has taken place for the last three years,” Zaigham said, adding that the chief justices of the top court have successively refused to talk about the rules. Legally, he said, the CJP is one among equals and just another judge who happens to be CJP with certain administrative powers. But, he said, “two things make CJPs all powerful; even more powerful than the prime minister: CJP’s authority to constitute benches and initiate suo motu proceedings.”
With the power to make benches, the CJP can affect the proceedings and the decisions, Zaigham opined, adding that although the suo motu power is not in the Constitution as Article 184(3) only talks about original jurisdiction, the Supreme Court included suo motu in its powers through case laws over the years. He said that it only happens in South Asian countries where the courts take notice of fundamental rights’ case through suo motu.
“These powers make a CJP so powerful that he is not ready to dilute them,” Zaigham said. However, he noted, two future CJPs, including Justice Qazi Faez Isa, have shown their willingness to surrender these powers to the courts as they recently ruled that they were not interested to keep these things to CJP alone and want to regulate these powers. To Zaigham, there were more chances of internal reforms than the external reforms, saying there was less chance that the court would accept reduction of power through legislation like the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure), Bill 2023. “I think the incumbent chief justice will set aside such bills curtailing CJP’s powers,” he said, saying the government doesn’t have the numbers to go for reforms in Supreme Court through constitutional amendments.
With this all-encompassing conflict coupled with severe economic crisis, Zaigham said, the real reason behind the current mess was the lack of the consensus of the elites. The way forward for both the elites is to sit together and decide how to run the country as its hardly functioning at the moment. Additionally, he said, they must agree to forego some of their interests as Pakistan can’t even bear the financial burden of the elites anymore.
Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a professor of Political Science at Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, said that the country is on a collision course and there appears to be no chances of having light at the end of tunnel anytime soon. None of the forces in Pakistan care about the effects of the longest crisis in the political history of Pakistan, Dr Rais said. He added that while it gained severe intensity on April 10 last year, its genesis dates back to the 2013 elections when Imran Khan’s demand for reopening 35 constituencies for scrutiny was not accepted. “Then came the sit-ins. It all began from that point.”
The professor, also a columnist, a commentator on political and security issues and an author, said that before moving ahead, it was crucial to understand the real issues and why the crisis is not going to be resolved any time soon. The professor said that the real issue is that there is a political newcomer in Imran Khan (who isn’t really a newcomer anymore) whose 20-year struggle and narrative against the political establishment that has ruled for the last five to six decades has jolted the old players. For Pakistan Peoples Party, he added, things go back to more than half a century and “just see what they have done to the country.”
The effects of the powerful circles of elites on national economy and social development have caused decline when compared with other South Asian countries, he said, noting that “we can’t compare ourselves anymore with India.” Coming back to Imran’s narrative, Rais said that his narrative has got connected with the population and that is not acceptable to the political establishment as their response to Imran’s plurality was that the elections were rigged. To the professor, the 2018 polls were not rigged, saying some influential people had joined and a coalition was cobbled. “If some actors had played a role in favour of Imran Khan then the same actors have played a role in bringing 13 parties together,” Rais argued.
“If they thought that it was immoral, unconstitutional and undemocratic then why have they [ruling coalition] accepted the same thing for themselves,” Professor Rais maintained. “Actually, they want to retain power at any cost and they are willing to play the role of pawns.” Now the problem is bigger for them, Rais continued, as “after accepting the role of front political force for establishment, PML-N has particularly ruined itself and its base in Punjab and PPP is no longer counted a party in K-P, Balochistan and Punjab.” He said whoever controls Punjab’s heartland and K-P can easily form government, pointing out that PTI has support in both provinces where Imran’s opponents have lost one way or another.
“Political ground has slipped away from their feet,” he continued, “Imran Khan is now invincible. You can’t defeat him at the polls,” Professor Rais said. So, he added, what PTI’s rivals are doing is basically exercising their powers wherever they can just because they want to stick to power. Surprisingly, Professor Rais feared that elections might not even happen even on October 8 this year, as he opined that Imran Khan would have accepted the date if he believed that elections would probably be held on October 8; “I don’t think that is going to be the case.” The question is whether the ruling alliance is playing self-struggle,” he wondered, noting that the end result “is going to be an endless struggle.”
“It will have to be decided whether democracy wins or whether the establishment with its frontmen wins,” Professor Rais said, arguing that the odds were at the moment in favour of people and Imran Khan while the others are banking on the state institutions. Commenting on the schism in the Supreme Court, Rais said that the division that seems to have taken place in the apex court can’t be seen without the context of polarisation within the country. “This is unfortunate but I think it is going to have a great impact,” he said. Finally, Rais said, “if any force can bring the country out of the crises it is currently in; it is establishment; it will have to talk to Imran Khan and if that happens, we will be out of crises.”
At a time when the PML-N-led coalition has almost completed a year in government, they have very little to show in performance. Before being ousted last April, PTI faced the same as public opinion had shifted in favour of parties in the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM). However, both made the same mistake: they preferred to go after the opponents than focusing on delivering on their promises. Imran remained busy at reshuffling his cabinet throughout his tenure; PM Shehbaz has crossed the milestone of cobbling up a jumbo size cabinet; yet the masses have got no respite as both were equally aimless when it comes to governance.
Apparently, Shehbaz and Imran think that change will come if they keep on changing the finance ministers. Imran started off from sacking his party’s economic guru, Asad Umar, in his first year in power and remained on a streak of changing his financial wizards during his four-year period. He even borrowed PPP’s financial czars. Shehbaz appears to be no different; he has also been following Imran’s footsteps as he has already swapped ex-finance minister Miftah Ismail with incumbent Finance Minister Ishaq Dar when things were starting to get a little better. Political commentators believe that replacing Miftah with Dar was the decision that increased the country’s financial woes manifold as since then the government has been unable to reach an agreement with the IMF.
Filing bulk of cases against the opponents has remained the hallmark of the ruling parties in the country over the years. The battles have largely been contested before the courts that too in cases that sometime lacked basic ingredients. Most of the cases were filed just to drag the opponents in legal corridors and build a narrative merely on the basis of the cases. No one cares about the final outcome of the court cases anymore as the desired results are largely achieved through media trial and social media bashing; even the acquittals later on have not been able to provide a clean slate to the ones who faced cases and stood trials as poisonous narrative had already spread in the young and old minds alike.
At the moment, there are more questions than the answers; more lust for power than sacrificing the political capital in the national interests; more stubbornness than sanity and more confrontation than dialogue. The reason: there is more ego than humility; and no one is ready to set aside their egos. Surprising as it may seem, Justice Athar Minallah has pointed out the same in his judgment on Punjab poll case: “The country is on the brink of a political and Constitutional crisis and it is high time that all those responsible take a step back and resort to some introspection. All the institutions, including this Court, need to set aside their egos and strive towards fulfilling their Constitutional obligations.”
Before parting, it would be appropriate to borrow a bit more from Justice Minallah, as he has rightly pointed out what happens when the political parties take all their issues to courts. “When politicians do not approach the appropriate forums and bring their disputes to the courts, the former may win or lose the case, but inevitably the court is the loser.” With four Supreme Court judges’ decision against three SC judges on Punjab poll case coupled with political instability, inflation and other such formidable challenges, the second-round of crisis seems have begun after Justice Minallah’s judgment, stamping the decision in Punjab polls was of four against three judges. With the ruling alliance demanding CJP Bandial to step down, the tussle is likely to increase between the executive and the judiciary – CJP and those labeled as “politicians in robes” to be more precise.
Nevertheless, amid the ongoing tussle among the government, opposition, judiciary and establishment, it would only be wise for the political forces to let go of egos, sit down for a dialogue, closed the door of establishment’s interference in politics for once and all, decide that the road to parliament shouldn’t go through Rawalpindi, refrain themselves from taking all matters to courts and restore the sanctity of parliament as masses have suffered enough in the past seven-and-a-half decades for just being there. It won’t be out of context to quote an African proverb here, which says “when the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled”; people have been sacrificing in every possible way since independence and it’s time for the elites to take their egos to slaughterhouses or else people one day will.