Accountability and democracy must go together

Like all his predecessors, except Bhutto who was judicially murdered, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif once again seems to be destined to not complete his mandated term. This time on the charges of “living beyond his means” and various financial irregularities allegedly committed by his children, including perjury, fudging, forgery, lying and concealing. All this mainly regarding the Sharif family’s unaccounted for businesses abroad.

The prime minister should have resigned on higher moral grounds immediately after the Supreme Court judgment, instead of taking a confrontational course. If Imran Khan was rightly accused of his failed attempts to derail democracy during his two dharnas, the PML-N will now be held responsible for subverting the democratic transition if it takes the suicidal course that it is inclined to.

Unlike the sacking of his first government by the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1993 and the overthrow of his second government by a military usurper in 1999, when he was clearly a victim of authoritarian forces, Sharif’s likely disqualification by the judiciary may bring an end to his long political career on a very shoddy note. The more he resists, as he is inclined to, the greater will be the ignominy. The more the investigators go deeper into the riddle of the yet-to-be-fully-uncovered money trail, the greater will be the exposure of black money, which is otherwise the hallmark of our crony and rent-seeking capitalist formation. But, strangely, the investigators have not been able to dig out billions of corruption money allegedly siphoned away by plundering the national exchequer.

Nawaz Sharif, who has been an exceptional beneficiary of judicial magnanimity in the past, is for the first time facing the wrath of the blindness of the law – with the facilitation of the short-circuiting of the due process of justice on certain counts. The traditions set by former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry provide an extended juridical space to the superior judiciary to scuttle the wings of the executive and even act as the super executive and the trial court at the same time.

Article 184 (3), if extended beyond its literal scope, may allow the exercise of judicial ‘prerogative’ to sack an elected prime minister, even before a trial by an appropriate judicial forum. By adding overriding teeth to the members of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) over their respective departments and including the two powerful secret military agencies, the trial bench of the Supreme Court created its own investigative arm to unearth the mystery of the money trail in foreign lands. If former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani could be sent home with contempt, a step that was vehemently endorsed by Nawaz Sharif, why can’t it happen this time? This is being reciprocally demanded by the PPP and Imran Khan, whose political fortunes entirely depend on removing Sharif from his way to sweep Punjab in an almost one-sided-contest.

What the JIT could do in a short time was to disprove or find inconsistencies in the fairytale story of the defence, even though the prime minister remained a missing link despite being the primary focus. As in all undocumented wealth, it is difficult to put together consistent accounts without obvious anomalies. Half-baked efforts at fudging records to cover up anomalies always leave lacunae in the details, which is where the devil resides. All these properties, offshore companies and locally unaccounted for foreign businesses were there for decades and the Sharifs succeeded in escaping accountability. Even if a backdated deal was signed between Hussain and his sister, Maryam Nawaz, to relieve her of the burden of beneficial ownership of offshore companies, Neilsen and Nescol, it doesn’t amount to blatant corruption but fudging to suit the respective interests of the owners.

The two pieces of evidence that the JIT has been able to get against the Sharifs are surprisingly from the UAE: confirmation of Nawaz Sharif’s ownership of FZE Capital by Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority, UAE, and the denial by the UAE Ministry of Justice provided by the respondents of the details of the businesses in Dubai. This upsetting cooperation from the UAE seems to be the consequence of the Sharif government’s refusal to join the Saudi aggression against Yemen and the prime minister’s reluctance to join the Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance as opposed to General Raheel Sharif who accepted the offer to lead this force after not getting an extension here. The blatant entry of the Qatari letter cover-up seems to be an outcome of the distance created between the prime minister and his erstwhile Gulf patrons. Besides verification of the beneficial ownership of two offshore companies – which contradicts the statements of the prime minister and his daughter before the Supreme Court – and hostile evidence from the UAE, the JIT has mostly relied on the discrepancies found in the statements of the respondents.

Alleging that it’s a case of living beyond means is rather amusing since their fortunes – documented or otherwise – are much bigger than meet the eyes. However, overwhelmingly the JIT is mostly judgmental in its findings in a rush to prove something tangible to attract culpability under the wider scope of the draconian Articles 62-63.

The Panama case and the shabby businesses are a good example to reflect upon how we see accountability as a mean to selective accountability, settle political scores, destroy the legitimacy of an elected government. They can also be seen as an example of how Pakistan’s elites make and run their fortunes. The House of Sharif is a model of the crony and dubious capitalism that dominates our social formation.

The JIT is heavily relying on Section 9 (a)-v of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, that applies to disproportion between income and assets and Section 14(c) that assumes a person guilty unless prove otherwise, which is a travesty of due process. And the apex court has been disqualifying members of legislative assemblies on the un-palpable virtues of ‘sadiq and ameen’. Ironically, the NAO and Articles 62-63 are the legacies of military usurpers that are now being, tragically, applied to the upholder of half of Zia’s political legacy.

We have witnessed the one-sided accountability of selected politicians and use of accountability to enforce authoritarianism that, in turn, further expanded and deepened a rotten system of pelf and pilferage. The accountability of the mighty must not end with Sharif; it should be even-handed and without any exception and must extend to all those who live beyond their means – civilians and non-civilians. But it should not be used as a smokescreen to derail democracy, as certain quarters seem to be quite desperate to do.

In every crisis in Pakistan, the emergence of an arbiter – mostly the army chief and occasionally the judiciary – has always been problematic. Let the superior judiciary adjudicate while upholding due process. The PML-N must find Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s replacement to keep the democratic transition on track. Accountability and democracy must go together.

The writer is a senior journalist. Email: imtiaz.safma@gmail.com

Twitter: @ImtiazAlamSAFMA