When all fails, ban them

In what is being dubbed as a desperate move by legal and political experts -- in fact, anyone with a sense of the political -- the federal government has decided to spring yet more chaos on a people it seems to hardly care about, announcing its decision to ban the PTI as well as file references against PTI founder Imran Khan and former president Arif Alvi for treason under Article 6. In a press conference on Monday, Federal Minister for Information & Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar said that the decision was taken in light of the former ruling party's alleged involvement in the May 9 events and the PTI's former or current leaders' attempts to sabotage Pakistan's deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and an anti-Pakistan resolution in the American Congress. The minister said the ruling alliance has also decided to move a reference against the then-prime minister Imran Khan, then-president Arif Alvi and then National Assembly deputy speaker Qasim Suri for dissolving the National Assembly illegally during the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan back in 2022.

This is not the first time we have heard of a possible ban on the PTI. For the last two years, the PDM parties had been hinting at this, leading one to ask: Why now? What has changed now that Article 6 is being invoked for a move that happened two years ago? If the government didn’t do it then, why does it need to do it now? As for banning the PTI, the procedure in itself is quite long and the buck stops at the SC, which will most likely not entertain this rather tragic display of desperation by the government days after the apex court had given the reserved seats verdict in favour of the PTI. The SC had also ruled that the PTI was a parliamentary party and thus should be given reserved seats as per its numbers in the assemblies.

Apart from being an astoundingly terrible move politically, the attempt to ban a bonafide political party also goes against a document almost all our political parties seem to forget as soon as they come into power; the constitution of Pakistan. The move to ban the PTI would easily be seen as a violation of party members’ right to association under Article 17 of the constitution. Perhaps the government seems to veer more towards the 'if you can't beat em, ban em' logic but that goes for bullies -- and no democratic force should ever want to go the bully's way. There can be -- and have been -- disagreements with the PTI’s politics over the years but banning a party because it could not be defeated effectively on the ground due to its popular support is not just vindictive but also patently self-defeating as a strategy. It is highly improbable that the SC would give its stamp of approval on either the ban or on invoking Article 6. So, in all likelihood, much like other such attempts, this will also backfire and lead to even more polarization in a country where there is hardly any economic stability, where terrorism is making a comeback and where there is shrinking space for fundamental freedoms. From the Punjab government’s defamation law, to banning X (formerly Twitter), to attempting to install a firewall, to giving intelligence agencies legal power to tap phones, PDM 2.0 is quite happily becoming Hybrid Plus. Observers say that it is disappointing how the parties in the ruling alliance which always advocated for more democratic freedoms when in opposition are now taking these measures -- perhaps not even as their original ideas -- without so much as even blinking an eyelid. A government that should have focused on its economic policies to bring relief to the people is only indulging in political gimmickry that will erode every democratic principle in the book just so it can survive. We'd be laughing if this weren't so dangerous -- for us all.