The PML-N’s hollow call

The threat of a new long march sounds hollow as it will finally depend on the army for its successful denouement.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that the PML-N has decided to unleash a long march against the PPP-led government in Islamabad because it has appointed a loyalist ex-judge as the new chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). To strengthen the grounds for a long march,that would topple the government, he added the charge of money-laundering of $60 million dollars by President Zardari, which the latter is allegedly reluctant to own up to by defying the Supreme Court’s order that the government write a letter to the Swiss government to restart the trial against him. Mr Sharif the Younger has come out more aggressive than usual, indicating new stimulus to the war of words between the country’s two mainstream political parties. Not that tough language was thin in the air in the recent past. A steady blue streak of low political discourse has characterised the relationship the two once claimed they had cleansed of past bitterness in the 2006 Charter of Democracy.

A recent upswing in bruising rhetoric is clearly worth noting. This happened when members of the Lahore Bar Association marched against Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court Khwaja Muhammad Sharif and were cruelly thrashed by Mr Sharif’s police. The lawyers, wrongly seen by some as pro-PPP, used a language that marked the intense level of politicisation the judiciary is facing these days, not least triggered by some careless remarks made by the incumbent judges. That Mr Shahbaz Sharif’s reaction is of recent instigation is proved by his party’s rejection of MQM chief Mr Altaf Hussain’s call last month for a “martial law like” removal of the PPP government from office. That was an appropriate time for the PML-N to join an “internal” revolt against the PPP, causing it to crumble on the basis of numbers in the National Assembly. Also, Imran Khan’s call for a long march against the government if it did not abide by the NRO directive of the Supreme Court would have aroused more civil society sympathy had it been endorsed by the PML-N. To get even, the MQM has responded by asking the PML-N to go to court with its plaint and see if the appointment of ex-judge Deedar Hussain Shah was wrongly done. And Imran Khan says his party will “sweep” the mid-term polls, removing both the PPP and the PML-N from the scene.

The announced long march, if it materialises, will not be as legally and morally robust as the long march that had forced Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to restore the judiciary. Jurists say the president is not bound by “consultation” in the case of the NAB appointment the same way as the 1996 Judges’ case which had equated “consultation” with “consent”. That leaves only the cause of the NRO directive by the Supreme Court, which will simply be repeating the slogan of Imran Khan.

Are conditions different from the ones obtaining in 2009 when the army chief had stepped in and forced the judges to be restored? Clearly they are, and that should normally give pause to the PML-N which is gearing up for a long march. The lawyers’ movement, which served as the prop, is now divided, some big leaders of the legal community objecting to the perceived “excess” of the Supreme Court in pursuing the PPP government and obstinately seeking to “review” the unanimously adopted 18th Amendment. They also see judicial bias in Lahore and Islamabad. Why is the case of “stay” granted to Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif not being heard, they ask, while new petitions challenging President Zardari’s dual office, etc, are being entertained with despatch?

One reason the threat of a new long march sounds hollow is that it will finally depend on the army for its successful denouement. At this point of time, however, the army may not be as ready to issue an ultimatum as was the case last time. And, more worryingly, an ultimatum may not be enough this time around, given some enhancement of the moral high ground the PPP has subtly won after the split in the lawyers’ community and the unruliness of the lawyers in the use of violence against all comers, including the media.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12^th, 2010.