Threat to the constitution

After the initial shock of Sunday’s events, all eyes are on the Supreme Court as it decides an important constitutional question after Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government seemed to have decided power trumped law and constitution and dissolved the assemblies. True to the nature of Pakistan’s politics, the ensuing crisis has been polarized too: the opposition and most lawyers, civil society activists and progressives calling Sunday one of the darkest days in our history but the PTI and its supporters celebrating their ‘victory’. On Monday, the SC said that it would give a ‘reasonable’ verdict regarding the matter in court but the case was adjourned till today. In the meanwhile, as the nation waits for the court to decide the fate of democracy, the prime minister continues to address the nation via telethons and pushes the conspiracy narrative while his former allies hold pressers laden with hints of bombshell revelations.

First, the ‘government’ as it stands: the prime minister is the prime minister – till the time a caretaker setup is introduced. It is perhaps not too surprising that PM Imran Khan and his team seem set to take full advantage of this situation and have gone on an intense outreach offensive already. We have said it before as well: the PTI is and will be treating these days as the launch of its election campaign and it seems to have a firm plan in mind. By first dissolving assemblies, in what can only be called an attempt to subvert the highest law of the land and democracy, Imran Khan and his party have shown they will do whatever it takes to hold on to the power that have become so used to welding with so much more impunity than other democratic parties have had in recent years. Ideally, such cynical overthrow of democratic principles by PM Imran Khan should have led to the opposition becoming even more active than before. But the opposition has neither managed to put across its narrative in an effective way nor understood that it has already been thrown into the start of an election campaign. They may have finally realized this on Monday, with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari tweeting that the military establishment needs to clarify if the National Security Committee meeting had declared opposition members as part of a foreign plot to oust Imran Khan. This is a fair demand given that 197 members of parliament have been accused of being disloyal to the state for being part of a foreign conspiracy.

Perhaps a more potent opposition at the moment are PM Khan’s former allies, who seem to be in the mood to talk. One by one, they are holding press conferences and threatening to ‘reveal’ tales of corruption in the Punjab government. These allegations – by Chaudhry Sarwar and Aleem Khan – are serious and they are likely not yet done. The prime minister has proposed the name of former chief justice of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmad as the interim prime minister of Pakistan. With the opposition not willing to play ball in what they say is an unconstitutional and illegal process, this matter too may end up in court (in keeping with the unfortunate increase in the judicialization of politics over the years) – unless the SC reverses the dismissal of assemblies. It would be an understatement to say that uncertainty is the last thing the country needs. This was well reflected in the dip in the stock market on Monday. No one – including the opposition – had imagined that a sitting prime minister would choose to disregard his oath of protecting the country’s constitution – just to avoid a vote of no-confidence. If the idea is to have elections in any case, then has the country been held hostage to the ego of one man? Can Pakistan afford to remain in a flux because of the whims of whichever leader wants to stay in power for as long as possible, especially someone who has lost the majority in parliament? It is due to such questions that the SC has an especially important role to play. There have been analyses that perhaps the court should just let bygones be bygones and the country and its politics should look ahead to the elections. Such dependence on necessity – while bringing back unpleasant memories of ‘necessity’ from our judicial history – doesn’t help with ensuring a better precedent is set than the act of suspending the constitution by PM Khan. Otherwise, Sunday will have proven that Musharraf was right all along and the constitution is no more than just a piece of paper to be thrown in the dustbin.