The new PM, whomsoever, will have to write Swiss letter

Governance, not a new premier, is the challenge for the PPP.

The test has just begun.

The ruling party now has in front of it a number of questions and puzzles. For starters, whoever the new prime minister may be, he will immediately have to deal with the apex court’s demand to write a letter to the Swiss authorities regarding graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. The court will almost certainly take this issue up instantly – given that the case pertaining to the implementation of the SC’s verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance is very much alive and well.

How patient will the bench be? The court will be keen to keep the pressure up to portray the pressing nature of the matter – given that it did, after all, lead them to disqualify a sitting prime minister. Any lowering of the pressure will raise too many questions. Consider that the process of disqualification will not be as drawn out as was in Mr Gilani’s case – given that there is now a clear legal precedent in this matter, which can be invoked almost instantly if there is any more noncompliance on the new government’s part.

The strategy of hiding behind petitions and challenges to buy time is now obsolete.

On the face of it, there is little or no breathing room left for the ruling party. Either they continue to see their candidates shown the door, or they write the letter. The option of announcing a caretaker setup will indeed buy them time – but certainly not absolute reprieve. If the current direction of the political winds is to be trusted as a gauge, then the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will return for another stint after the general elections – which would then have to be held latest by October or November. Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is not going anywhere up until 2013.

And even once he’s gone, the camaraderie on show between the apex court justices means that the ‘cause’, so to say, will not go anywhere. Surely we cannot see prime minister after prime minister disqualified.  Unless, of course, the caretaker prime minister writes the letter – or, if we see the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz back in power. But that’s another case. The letter will ultimately be written, and attempts to not write it will only lead to more crises of governance.

This is not a sustainable path – particularly if they really believe they can emerge victorious from the next polls as well. Something’s got to give.

As of June 19, 2012, the real test for the ruling party is not selecting a new prime minister. Given the powers of the PPP co-chairman, enshrined in the 18th Amendment, who the new premier will be is a moot point, really. Nor is it actually the shorter-term problem of getting indemnity for the prime minister’s actions since April 26 – such as the budget. The powers that be will not let the country step onto this slippery slope.  Something will be worked out – if nothing else then in the detailed judgment. It has to be – else the consequences will be disastrous, and not of the here-and-now, breaking news variety.

The country is dealing with a host of issues that need immediate attention and concrete policy-making – Nato routes, power crises, to name a few – and can only be solved by continuity of governance. Notions of political martyrdom may be useful when it comes to bringing a party to power – but nothing more.

If the plan is to take the face-saving, but cowardly, route of getting the caretakers to write it, then they should just pull the plug now – because the country cannot take this game any longer, and the PPP has already done all it needs to win the next election.

This is now a matter of governance versus ego. This is the true test.

Published In The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2012.