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Thursday March 28, 2024

When did committees solve anything?

By Ayaz Amir
May 20, 2016

Islamabad diary

One would have to be out of one’s mind to think that Asif Zardari would be interested in anything like genuine accountability. He and Mian Nawaz Sharif are two faces of the same coin and it is Pakistan’s misfortune these champions represent Pakistani democracy.

Syed Khursheed Shah, redoubtable leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, takes his cue/instructions not from the ghost of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto but the living person of Asif Zardari. So how can anyone in his right senses think that he would be serious in hauling Nawaz Sharif over the coals regarding the Panama leaks? It doesn’t add up.

No wonder, Khursheed Shah, most of the time, looks less leader of the opposition and more Nawaz Sharif’s secret weapon. Only a secret weapon could have contrived the opposition walkout from the National Assembly after the PM’s dodging and evasive speech…a great chance missed and fudged.

Young Bilawal has brought a cutting edge to his recent speeches, leading the more hopeful to think that the PPP was being revived. But he walks in his father’s shadow and cannot set the direction of the party he nominally heads. That direction is set by the likes of Khursheed Shah and Rehman Malik and it is no secret where their inspiration comes from.

Aitzaz Ahsan is the only prominent person in the PPP touching the right notes. But he’s a lone figure, swimming against the main current. He must reread his Shakespeare – “There’s a tide in the affairs of men…” and the rest of it. If he thinks this is an historic moment in the nation’s life, as I suspect he does, he’ll have to decide pretty soon whether to go along with the tasteless broth that is the PPP or strike out on his own.

And if Imran Khan, the memory of the dharnas weighing upon him, thinks that coalitions and compromises, and parliamentary committees, are the best means to force a decision he needs to do some rethinking. The present combined opposition is good window-dressing. But given the disparate interests and compulsions of its various components, it can also become a drag, diverting focus from the main issue and giving relief to the embattled ruling party.

The steadfast parties in this combine are the PTI and the Jamaat-e-Islami. The MQM has gone as it was bound to go because it has other pressing concerns on its mind. The ANP has its own skeletons to account for, and the PPP has other things to worry about. If there has to be some kind of popular mobilisation to put pressure on the government the responsibility for this falls primarily on the PTI and the JI – and PPP dissidents who may no longer relish the prospect of facing the wind in a leaking boat.

It is not a question of what the nation wants. In any event, who can speak on behalf of the nation? The national mood varies. It is sometimes upbeat, at other times despondent. Leadership is about judging the situation correctly and taking the right decision, and then shaping the national mood to conform to that decision. There is no leadership without clarity and decisiveness.

The Panama leaks have overshadowed the political horizon, obscuring and pushing to the side everything else. In that this is an opportunity to take the politics of Pakistan forward – to take a burning sword to the demon of corruption – this is a seminal moment in Pakistan’s history. Opportunity thus beckons and the field of action lies open. We keep chattering about corruption and the bankruptcy of our governing classes. Here’s an opportunity to do something about it, to turn talk into action.

The tragedy is that the historicity of this drama is not being matched by the quality of the players. Imagine Othello or Lear being played by two-bit players from Chakwal or Gujar Khan. This is what is happening on the national stage…Hamlet being played by Khursheed Shah. Then we are wondering why the audience is not electrified.

Does anyone think the PML-N will agree to terms of reference (ToRs) for a judicial commission which serve to put the party leadership leader on the mat? The ruling party from day one is playing a game of dodge and obfuscation. Real ToRs mean the entire ruling family in the dock – not just the PM but Shahbaz Sharif too and Maryam Nawaz. There is just no reconciling the misstatements and the facts. The Sharifs have been declaring different things in their income tax returns and election nomination papers. The Panama Papers reveal a different story.

Malik Abdul Qayyum as high court judge virtually acted as family judge of the Sharifs. All cases pertaining to the Sharifs miraculously found their way to his bench and his luminous judgements lived up to their expectations. Only he can save the Sharifs, if he is brought back from retirement and made head of the judicial commission on the Panama leaks. No other stratagem will do, nothing else will suffice.

The Sharifs are into survival. Past masters at this art, they are the biggest survivors in Pakistan’s history. Does anyone think they are going to agree to terms which serve to tighten the noose around them? They will play for time right until the end. Democracy and its future are for armchair sentimentalists and the chattering classes. The Zardaris and the Sharifs – two sides of the same glittering coin – are into survival and wealth preservation, wealth earned through the wages of democracy.

French chateaux and Mayfair flats, do we call these the instruments of democracy? True, what we have is a thousand times better than Ziaul Haq. There’s no questioning that but it is still no democracy. This is an oligarchy, rule by a small group of people with vast riches at their disposal. In a Third World country like ours parliamentarism is no better than a beguiling fig-leaf if it means no social uplift and no redistribution of wealth and resources.

For the past one month media and political class have been debating the ownership of Mayfair flats. In a poor country with a permanent begging bowl, the ownership of foreign property should be the biggest disqualification of all. Here leaders feel not an iota of shame justifying such ownership.

On the shoulders of three persons, I suspect, will fall the burden of seeing this thing through: Gen Raheel Sharif, Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and – hold your breaths – President Mamnoon Hussain. Gen Raheel has done many good things by the nation. There is a last service waiting to be performed: strengthening the hands of the Supreme Court so that it is able to deal adequately with the issues raised by the Panama leaks. The president, who has already spoken out on corruption, can provide moral support to this entire process.

There is not much time. This is Gen Raheel’s last summer as army chief and very soon there will be talk of his successor, and then there will be the usual politics around this question. This moment will pass and the opportunity before the nation will be lost. And Mayfair owners will laugh all the way to their offshore accounts, and the governing classes will read the nation another lesson in virtue and patriotism. If time was ever of the essence it is now.

Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com