Political catwalk

With not much to do in legal terms, at least for now, the coalition government has obviously decided that ceding space at this moment would spell even more doom. Which is probably the thinking behind the National Assembly's resolution rejecting the three-member Supreme Court (SC) bench’s 'minority' verdict on the Punjab elections. The resolution also makes it 'binding' on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his cabinet not to implement the SC verdict. By almost all legal parameters, this resolution has absolutely no legal implications. But it does have political connotations the government is aiming for -- a show of solidarity if you will. A meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) has been called today by PM Shehbaz to discuss the ongoing situation. PTI Chairman Imran Khan's reading of the meeting is that the government is trying to create rifts between the armed forces and the PTI, and that if today’s NSC meeting delays elections on the pretext of security, it “will pit armed forces directly against not just [the] judiciary but also the nation”. This comes as the PTI had on the other hand also offered to talk to the government about election dates.

It seems the PTI is also paying heed to the rumour mills that elections will not take place despite court orders if the government does not release funds and the military refuses to provide security for elections. If rumours are to be believed, and also what the PDM has been saying quite vocally, elections across the country will take place in October. But some political observers say that nothing can be ruled out and if these matters are not resolved amicably -- and soon -- things might get to a point of no return with either emergency being declared in the country, or a longer caretaker setup in place or even a direct martial law.

Observers believe that the reason is not just the political distrust between the government and the opposition but also between PTI and key institutional stakeholders. The now wide cracks within the superior judiciary have also led to a crisis where there is no final arbitration because all stakeholders have lost their credibility one way or the other and the usual guarantors do not trust the other side. For some, this may be a first for Pakistan in one respect: two of the country's most powerful institutions seemingly not on one page.

In all this, the ultimate loss is that of a country that has already been through trauma upon trauma over the past few years, all of it culminating now in a chaotic economic situation and even more chaotic societal breakdown. Under normal circumstances, elections would have led to stability, both financial and political, but in these times of systematic collapse of all institutions, even elections will not lead to any concrete resolution of issues. We have said this before and we will say it again: it is time for all stakeholders to sit together and sign a new social contract. Every new political development brings with it further descent into chaos. If the government needs to make concrete plans regarding how it sees future politics, the PTI needs to figure out once and for all who it's up against: the constant U-tuns need to be retired now. And most importantly, if both sides of the political wrangling need to resolve their differences, so do the institutions. It's time for everyone to behave like adults now.