The new PM, whomsoever, will have to write Swiss letter
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 20th, 2012.
COMMENTS (5)
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@John B: John, I see your point. The case could start with the new PM all over again. This time the PM should take the plea (which they have not taken yet) that the president has immunity according to Pakistani and International laws and it is against the constitution to write the letter. The burden of proof would be on the SC to prove that the president has no immunity and the PM should write the letter. As Dr. Ahsan said and I have said long ago, the PM write a letter to Swiss authorities stating that he is only doing under the orders of SC even though he knows that President cannot be tried by any foreign country. This futile effort would satisfy the egos of PCO judges and they would have no excuse to push the elected govt anymore. The Swiss cases have been time barred and their legal authorities have already asked "why are the Pakistani courts not trying the case?” These same Pakistani judges have kept Zardari in jail for over a decade and in several decades could not decide a single case against him. The Swiss courts only act after the host country determines that money is from corruption or a crime has been committed. Why did the SC and HC judges not do their job and leave it for the lower Swiss courts? Cheers, Mirza
Here is one important issue which I have raised in few comments on this matter earlier.
The contempt of court citation is against an individual, the PM, not the PM institution. As such, the SC has to start the drama all over again.
If I were a PPP politicians I would seize this political opportunity and will not write the letter. This is give more political mileage in the election time.
The SC will invariably ask the new PM about the letter, and he will say that he will write it in due course. The SC has two options: issue contempt and follow through the drama or put the new PM reply in back burner and may deal with it in opportune time. - a power ploy for SC, if PPP comes to power.
So that means that the sitting prime minister does not need to abide by law as no law applies to him and his president. The writer has a strange logic. The former PM kept defying court orders to write a letter. If writing the letter was so impossible, there should have been legal reason for it and it should have been presented in the court. That was not done as there was no legal reason not to comply. So it was taken at the personal level to show it to the public that courts aare against this so called 'democracy'.
PPP has sacrificed only for power. Once they are power they always indulge in corruption of the worst kind. Shameless leaders and shameless followers.
I think hes being sarcastic when he says that ppp would be voted back into power haha
A little insight into why the writer is convinced that PPP would be voted back into power would have been nice.