PPP is finally reading the writing on the wall

Nusrat Javeed.

ISLAMABAD:

With obsessive determination, the PPP regulators of the legislative business had employed every trick to get the contempt of court law amended by the National Assembly during an overstretched sitting on Monday night without any discussion in the house. Without approving their obsessive conduct, one could fathom the motive behind it: the Supreme Court had directed the attorney general to formally tell it on July 12 as to how Raja Pervaiz Ashraf intended to go about writing a letter to the Swiss government. The apex court feels that the said letter can help the government of Pakistan to locate millions that President Zardari is alleged to have parked in various banks of that country.

Yousaf Raza Gilani had refused to write the said letter and found himself ejected out of the prime minister’s office as a convict. Things cannot be different for Ashraf, if he also dilly-dallies on the same issue. With the clear intent of digging some escape routes for him, the government’s legal eagles decided in desperation to soften the law regulating prosecutions under the contempt of court law and got them hastily passed by the national assembly.

The majority of lawyers, however, strongly feel that being the ultimate interpreter of the law and constitution, the Supreme Court may declare these amendments ‘invalid.’ Raja Ashraf and his legal eagles do not seem so pushed about it.

For them, more crucial remains the time that the Supreme Court may consume to go through a comprehensive debate for and against these amendments before throwing them into the dustbin. Disregarding the ultimate fate of the government-inducted amendments in the contempt of court law, parliamentary reporters legitimately anticipated that after getting its amendments passed from the national assembly, the government would now put them before the senate Tuesday morning.

The upper house would also pass the same amendments during one-sitting to facilitate the attorney general’s appearance before the Supreme Court on D-day with some confidence.

To our utter surprise, though, the government did not make any such move in the Senate. Most of its time was rather wasted in sending an amendment to a senate committee that is proposed in the constitution to protect legislators with dual-nationalities. Most members in the National Assembly, in the meantime, continued to squander the day reserved for private initiatives for legislation in rhetorical point scoring. Some PPP members also tried to expend their accumulated bitterness against the Supreme Court through nonstop points of order. Riaz Fatiana was in the chair, when attempts for such wailing were being made and he kept referring to the constitution to remind legislators that the conduct of judiciary could not be discussed in the house.

Most people had been suspecting that the government wanted to furnish the condoning cover for dual-nationality holders, primarily to protect Rehman Malik, one of the most trusted aides of President Zardari. But he also surprised us Tuesday by revealing it before live cameras that he had resigned from the Senate. Though his status and powers as the czar of the interior ministry remain unclear until my writing this column, the news of his resigning from the Senate has forced many legislators and journalists to conclude that the PPP was finally coming to read the proverbial writing on the wall. It was time to get, set and be ready for the fresh election and the appointment of F G Ebrahim as the chief election commissioner by consensus provided a solid indicator for the things to come.

Islamabad is crowded with a peculiar set of path-driven persons, however. They only spin stories of doom and gloom and the same set has been dismissively laughing at the visible possibilities of an early election. Such people anticipate an either/or showdown between the government and the apex court from July 12 onwards that may culminate in absolute chaos and confusion. The usual regulators of our political scene have been trained and addicted to ‘fill the void’ in such moments and whispers for the imposition of a government of ‘honest, able and patriotic technocrats’ continue to gain momentum despite the hope-inducing appointment of Fakhroo Bhai as the CEC.

With a hurt heart, I am even compelled to report that until late Monday night, a peculiar set of sinister ‘deep throats’ worked overtime to plant stories in various newspapers to dampen the feel-good mood over his appointment. When they realised that objections to Ebrahim’s old age were not getting any buyers, some were eventually launched to point out his being from a “non-majority sect”. Who says that the ‘dirty-tricks brigade’ is no more operational in Pakistan?

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2012.