The onus to prove Nawaz ineligible lies with PTI, PPP

   Disqualification references

ISLAMABAD: After firing their first salvo of filing references against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) now face a great challenge to prove the grave charges they have leveled.

This tough job apart, their act of submission of references, seeking disqualification of the prime minister, establishes that they are working within the system, exercising an important legal option, which doesn’t cause any disruption of public normality and order like sit-in and agitation in the streets.

Obviously, the PPP and PTI have sponsored these references to put Nawaz Sharif under pressure and take political advantage but the onus will be on them to produce evidence and documents to back up their claims. The petitions are part of their anti-government campaign after the disclosures about the offshore companies, identified in the Panama leaks or named otherwise.

This is the second reference in four days after an identical petition was filed by the PTI, hurling similar allegations against the prime minister.

The charges leveled against Nawaz Sharif by the PTI and PPP are largely same. However, this is one key difference between the petitions. PTI’s losing candidate from NA-120 Lahore in the 2013 general elections Dr Yasmin Rashid has sought unseating of the prime minister only under constitutional articles 62 and 63. PPP leader Sardar Zulfikar Khosa wants ouster of not only Nawaz Sharif from the National Assembly but also Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar, Capt (R) Safdar and Hamza Shahbaz from the parliament for having become ineligible.

The PPP knows that for being incomplete due to the retirement of its members, the ECP will not be able to proceed on its reference. Therefore, it will not raise hue and cry, demanding of the ECP to immediately take up its petition. It will press the electoral body to take action on it only after its four members will be nominated in the next few weeks.

While the prime minister and others will make their efforts to defend their positions, and the PTI and PPP will put in their hard work to establish their charges, the newly appointed four ECP members will come under instant stress and pressure from day one as the first key assignment they will have to wrestle with will be these references. Obviously, they will be led by Chief Election Commissioner Justice (R) Sardar Raza.

“Nawaz Sharif is not ‘Sadiq’ and ‘Amin’ anymore and therefore is not eligible to hold a seat in the National Assembly,” the PPP reference said and claimed the prime minister and Shahbaz Sharif have hidden assets of various family members and that Ishaq Dar also kept secret his son’s assets.

The allegation against the finance minister is devoid of truth because he has been declaring the loan given to his son in his statement of assets and liabilities filed with the ECP for years, and also giving other details of his assets.

The submission of references by the PPP and PTI to the ECP clearly showed that they have abandoned once and for all the bipartisan parliamentary committee, formed to prepare Terms of Reference (ToRs) for judicial probe into the offshore companies. They have ditched the committee and embarked on this path of references without consulting with the seven other parties of the loose combined opposition alliance.

The other parties have aired their grievances in this connection. After saying that they have walked out of the committee, the PTI and PPP had announced that they would consult with other parties in this connection. If the parliamentary body is dysfunctional, the opposition alliance is also in tatters.