The last stand?

It desired that all institutions of the state should operate within domains clearly defined in the Constitution.

The capacity crowd of journalists in the press gallery was on edge when the National Assembly resumed its business on Monday evening. Before breaking for the weekend recess on Friday, Asfandyar Wali Khan had put a motion for due consideration and eventual approval.

With crafty yet meek-sounding words, the resolution aimed at extracting public representatives’ support for reiterating the supremacy of an elected parliament. It also desired that all institutions of the state should operate within domains clearly defined in the Constitution.

The Zardari-Gilani government had maneuvered the presentation of this resolution after finding itself pushed into a tight corner after developing serious tensions with both the superior judiciary and the military elite.

This resolution might have proved of some worth, if it were passed immediately after its presentation three days ago. After the Supreme Court’s decision of Monday afternoon, even if it is passed with a comfortable majority, the same resolution would only get some space in margins of various books written on the political history of Pakistan in future. Nonetheless, journalists feel more motivated – thus the anxious waiting and watching in the press gallery.

Since the incurable cynic in me was just not pushed with the fate of concerned resolution, far more engaging proved the whispers, a few ruling party MNAs and their friends were spreading in parliamentary lobbies to gauge ‘acceptance’ for names they imagined that would replace Yousaf Raza Gilani, “anytime later this week”. Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, lest I forget, appeared emerging as the hot favorite. Khurshid Shah and Qamar Zaman Kaira were also being mentioned by some, while a few preferred to discreetly suggest that Asfandyar Wali must not be ignored in the hotly discussed context.

Notwithstanding the trial-ballooning regarding the possible replacement of Gilani, let me clearly confess that ‘historic happenings’ in the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Monday did not come as shocking news to me. Around a dozen legislators, both from the ruling party and from amongst its allies, have been telling me for more than two weeks that during meetings with them, “Gilani continues to behave as if utterly fed up with perennial crises related to his office.”

He started feeling doubly upset after Nawaz Sharif’s going to the Supreme Court to plead probing of the whole truth on ‘Memogate.’ He never expected this coming from a political leader, who suffered exile due to developing differences with the praetorian elite in the late 1990s. As if his disappointment with Nawaz Sharif were not enough, the Supreme Court virtually shocked him by demanding direct answers from the army chief and the DG ISI on ‘memogate’.

He had tried hard that both these officers should submit answers that the prime minister would approve. The aim was to show it to the court and the world that the political and the military leadership were on the same page vis-à-vis ‘Memogate.’ Since his desire did not materialise in the end, he seriously began preparing for going home.

The dovish practitioners of real politick inside the PPP and in the allied parties tried hard to pacify him. While fully standing by him, the president also suggested that, instead of just going home after submitting his resignation, Gilani must resist and fight till the end. The fact that the attorney general had to inform the Supreme Court that he had nothing to report regarding compliance on a clear court order for writing a letter to Swiss courts, in effect, showed that the line suggested by Zardari had now been fully owned by Gilani.

Until my writing this piece, both of them were sticking to the decision that this coming Thursday Gilani should go to the apex court in all humility. The prime minister firmly intends to tell the court that the Constitution he had taken the oath of observing and protecting also has Article 248, which, according to his reading, does not allow the prime minister to initiate criminal proceedings against a sitting president. How the court will take it? That remains the X-factor.

Yet, the eager promoters of the would-be-prime-ministers continue claiming that Gilani might go to the court after resigning from his office. They fail to realise that, after Gilani’s fall, this National Assembly will never be able to elect his replacement. Even if someone else is finally elected, would he be willing to write “the letter” as desired by the Supreme Court? This is the question. Funnily, no one in our vigilant media and excited politicians seems seriously considering this question.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2012.