2016 — the year of Panama

2016 would always be remembered as the 'Year of Panama, though this case will continue into the next year too. The Supreme Court on Friday decided a new bench will now hear the petition with a new chief justice in January 2017. The year is ending apparently with a sigh of relief for the ruling camp and lessons for the opposition leader Imran Khan. 

With the names of daughter and sons of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with around 600 other Pakistanis, the Panama Leaks became the issue of the year, particularly for the opposition, but like in the case of electoral rigging, the match once again slightly slipped out of Imran's hand, though all is not lost, as the hasty decisions never gave him early results. 

Last seven or eight months have seen country's politics revolving around the Panama Leaks case,' and Imran Khan must be given the credit to keep the issue alive. The issue took country by storm and the pressure was so much on the Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif that he addressed the nation twice and the Parliament once. 

The PM could have opted to resign, nominated his trusted man as the PM, and return after getting his family cleared through judicial process. In those critical days, Nawaz was also to take the crucial decision of naming the new army chief at a time when the civil-military relationship was not at its best. All this kept Sharif from thinking about quitting. 

Imran Khan's decision of going to the Supreme Court itself released political pressure from the PM and PML (N), but it divided the PPP and PTI camps, put the opposition’s Panama bill on the backburner and frustrated the move for a joint opposition movement. 

As a result Imran did not got the required support from the other opposition parties when he gave the call for Islamabad lock down. Even his closest ally, Dr Allama Tahir ul Qadri, was disappointed and he went abroad.

The opposition, opposing the lock-down call, only provided token and moral support to PTI and that too when the government used force. The most disappointing was the response from the PTI itself, and had Chief Minister Pervez Khattak not taken the initiative and Sheikh Rasheed not used his political experience to create a scene, all would have ended up in total embarrassment for Khan. PTI's capacity to agitate stands exposed, but the party can learn a few lessons from this failure too.

Another aspect which Imran needs to look into was the decision of replacing PTI's founding member and most prominent lawyer, Hamid Khan, with PPP Senator and senior lawyer Babar Awan and making the case more political. 

Hamid Khan, commands respect in the judicial circle but he has his own style of contesting cases. He was against politicising the case and refused to discuss the case in the media. Therefore, Imran replaced him with Babar Awan who is quite vocal outside the court and replaced Naimul Haq with an outspoken Fawad Choadhry to keep the Panama alive in the media. 

The legal match, going to end in 2017, makes it more thrilling as the next year is of election campaign for 2018. Perhaps, the fate of Panama Leaks case will seal the fate of 2018. 

What happened on Friday was expected after the decision of PTI and Imran Khan against the proposed Judicial Commission. Perhaps the PTI leadership and its legal team failed to assess the situation and the proposal for a one-judge commission. They also failed in their assessment in analyzing as to why government had kept its option open and even went ahead with proposing daily hearing by this bench and did not oppose the formation of the commission either. 

PTI’s announcement of boycotting the commission and asking the bench to hear the petition on its own gave the government an opportunity to rethink its strategy for the hearing. 

Imran might have a point in opposing the Commission, but at the end of the day they opened all their cards before the crucial hearing. 

The PML-N and the PM would be badly mistaken if they feel that now they have an edge over the PTI for Panama Leaks case is more of political case than the legal one. It’s not dead, and despite some respite, it will keep Nawaz Sharif and the family engaged well into in 2017 till the final verdict gives them relief or ‘relieves’ them. Eventually it is the SC decision, not media court, that matters. 

If Imran really want to be in the next election on the basis of the Panama scandal, he has to win the case because he, despite some advice from people like Ch. Aitzaz Ahsan, decided to go to the SC. Even Sheikh Rasheed was against going to the SC, but then he himself filed the petition. Sheikh Sahib now has to come out with a few new predictions as most of his predictions did not come true. 

It may not be a bad news for Imran Khan and his party as the Panama case will continue to engage the PM, but this time it will be new bench, a new chief justice and a new year too. All is not lost for Imran though victory remains elusive.

(This writer is the senior columnist, analyst of Geo, The News and Jang. Twitter: MazharAbbasGeo)