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Tuesday March 19, 2024

A chink in Imran’s armour

By Ghazi Salahuddin
October 23, 2022

While Imran Khan’s disqualification by the Election Commission of Pakistan in the Toshakhana reference on Friday was very predictable, it has triggered a new cycle of unpredictability. At the same time, there is no doubt that this judgment is a major bend in the road for Pakistan’s highly combustible politics.

An immediate upshot was the protest staged by angry supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in many cities across the country. There were sit-ins at scattered places that blocked traffic or severely hampered its flow. Rather late in the evening, Imran Khan told his supporters to call off the protests.

But a larger concern was to make sense of the judgment and to interpret its impact on the future of Imran Khan’s politics that has gained considerable momentum in recent weeks. There are some legal ambiguities that the experts, visibly touched by their partisan passions, are trying to decipher.

One big question, of course, is whether the PTI chief can get early relief from superior courts. And the party supporters seem upbeat about it, mainly because Imran Khan’s recent encounters with the judiciary have not been disappointing.

Then, what about the promised – threatened – long march? Suspense about its timing has been building up since that aborted campaign in May. Now the end of October is set as the deadline for this decisive assault on the citadel of power. Will Friday’s jolt affect any change in the plans?

As it is, there is a hint of Hamletian dilemma in Imran Khan’s objective of defeating the present arrangement with the power of the street. The prospect of any large-scale violence is truly forbidding. Besides, judgments made or decisions announced formally by higher institutions, including the ECP, cannot be set aside by public rallies, however massive they may be.

In his pre-recorded message that was nationally telecast, Imran Khan stressed that his mission against the ‘thieves’ would continue and asked his followers to be ready for the long march. That the date was still not given would inspire conjectures that the PTI’s hope for a compromise through backchannels was still alive.

Imran Khan can win an election with the support he has gathered (and also create a lot of mischief in public spaces) but it is not for him to storm the Bastille and lead a social revolution. That is only possible when he can overwhelm the power of the state, irrespective of how the opinion may be divided on the high table of authority.

One coincidence on this eventful Friday was that Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa emphasized that he would not be seeking another extension in his tenure that ends on November 29. He reiterated that the army had decided to distance itself from the country’s politics.

There was another coincidence that transpired in the evening of Friday when the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global money laundering and terrorism watchdog, removed Pakistan from its ‘grey list’. This was certainly good news for the country, with its positive impact on our financial affairs.

It so happened that Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of the ruling Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), was live on TV, calling Friday an auspicious day because of ECP’s verdict, when the FATF decision interrupted as a breaking news.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called Pakistan’s exit from FATF’s ‘grey list’ as a vindication of “our determined and sustained efforts over the years”. He particularly commended the role that the army chief had played in achieving this target.

Now, there is one message in the ECP judgment that relates to Imran Khan’s most important political strategy: to throw the ‘chor, chor’ slogan on the faces of his political adversaries. He can now be considered to have been painted by the same brush. In any case, there may be a little less shine on his narrative, which has worked so well so far.

PTI leaders and supporters have their own arguments against the ECP judgment but the facts reported about the Toshakhana affair and details emerging from the ECP judgment should at least make the doubters think twice about the PTI leader’s protestations of innocence. There is no dispute about the fact that Imran Khan sold some gifts that he had received from foreign dignitaries when he was prime minister for large profit, after acquiring them from the Toshakhana at a concessional price.

Other Pakistani leaders had certainly ‘bought’ similar gifts in the past and some may even have stolen a few items but the ignominy of selling these gifts in the market belongs only to Imran Khan. Even if there is some legal justification for doing so, it cannot be condoned on ethical grounds. Imran Khan’s indiscretions are known to have affected Pakistan’s ties with an important friendly country.

Whether the higher courts rescue Imran Khan or not, his detractors are convinced about his financial transgressions. They have for long been arguing that evidence in both the foreign funding case and the Toshakhana reference was straightforward. And the foreign funding case is still pending.

It seems likely that Friday’s ECP ruling and its consequences would further deepen Pakistan’s political polarization and accentuate a sense of turmoil in the nation’s affairs. There are many other facets of a situation that is perilous. So, is there no relief for the people who are left with little patience for the waywardness of the ruling class spread across all political parties and other sectors of society?

Well, for at least a day there is a precious gift of diversion. Pakistan and India are playing their World T20 match in Melbourne today. There is nothing more exciting for us in Pakistan and India than a game of cricket between the two countries. We still cannot play in each other’s country and are not sure if this is a gentleman’s game or an act of hostility against the other. Be that as it may, let us hope that the game brings some cheers for us today.

The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached at: ghazi_salahuddin@ hotmail.com