Paradoxes galore, a virtual script for destruction
The prime minister’s latest statement regarding the NRO implementation case has introduced a new dimension to what is generally perceived as intellectual dishonesty. In a recent address at a public gathering, he stated that if he does not write the dreaded letter to the Swiss authorities, he could be held for contempt of court and interned for six months, but if he does, he could be tried for treason and hanged. Elsewhere, he has also stated that if he were to write the letter, he would have done so a long time ago.
Measure this public posturing against the stance taken by the prime minister in the Supreme Court vide his learned attorney, now a senator, that he had not written the letter because he had followed the rules of business which he was supposed to do. This prompted the court to issue a fresh adjudication advising the prime minister to write the letter irrespective of any advice. Which of the two diametrically opposite positions – his public posturing or his stand before the SC – would the prime minister want us to go with?
Let’s take another case – that of the NRO. When the ordinance had outlived its stipulated period, the SC asked the government to put it before the assembly and turn it into law. The government tried desperately to do just that, but was unable to win over its allies to support it in a vote in the lower house. Thereafter, the government informed the SC that it did not want to defend the black law upon which the apex court, after following due process, declared it void ab initio and ordered that all cases withdrawn as a consequence of its promulgation should be re-instituted as they stood on the day the ordinance was first unveiled including the Swiss cases against Mr. Zardari.
For over two years, the prime minister refused to obey the SC directive. It is then that the court finally started asserting its authority and summoned the prime minister in contempt. Look at the dishonesty factor inherent in the government stance: what is it that the prime minister would want us to believe? His initial submission before the court that the NRO was a black law and all that transpired as a consequence of its introduction should be reversed? Or, whether all gains should be reversed except those of Mr Zardari? How crude can it really get?
Another recent scandal revolves around a certain memo. The star witness Mansoor Ijaz claims that a conspiracy was conceived and a memo written to the US authorities by the former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani seeking their intervention on the side of the political government in exchange for critical structural and personnel changes to be made within the national security infrastructure to help the cause of the Americans including their boots on ground within Pakistan’s borders. The scandal has already claimed the scalp of the former ambassador understandably on the basis of incriminating evidence secured through the intervention of the premier intelligence agency.
Mansoor Ijaz has willingly given his side of the story together with supporting documents and record of telephone calls and messages exchanged with the former ambassador, but Mr Haqqani remains generally ambivalent, interspersing his submissions with bouts of hostility, but almost always unwilling to cooperate with the investigating commission set up by the SC. He refuses to provide the record of his interactions with Mansoor Ijaz as he has ‘misplaced’ his phone sets and ‘forgotten’ his pin codes, he is unwilling to forego his privacy status and is generally hostile to the idea of being interrogated by the commission for his conduct in the matter of the memo. Why? Is he not accountable before law? Should he not be questioned for his actions particularly when they can fall within the broad realm of treason? Is there no mechanism in the country whereby he, and others like him, could actually be forced to bow before the dictate of law? Or, is it that there would always be one law for the ruling elite and another for the ruled and that we have to live with this inherent dichotomy and demeaning discrimination?
Let’s take yet another case: that of Mehrangate when a bank was robbed and millions distributed among the political elite with the intention of toppling a government and subsequently rigging the elections to bar a certain party from coming into power. Members of a political party who are generally accustomed to playing their game from a high moral ground are accused for having accepted sizeable gratifications and also becoming the ultimate beneficiaries of the scam. In spite of volumes of evidence available to prove the case, a massive disinformation stratagem has been unleashed to divert public attention. In the event it works, they will reclaim innocence, and if it doesn’t, they will put this across as a vile act of their opponents. No accountability – yet again! The case would, in all probability, rest there and be forgotten in due course!
The government’s, nay the entire ruling political mafia’s stance is rooted in the premise of the infallibility of their power, negation of the rule of law and refusal to accepting any responsibility for virtual abdication of governance under one pretext or the other. There is a general unison and much camaraderie across bitter divides among all political leaderships representing the corrupt status quo when it comes to confronting a challenge to their perceived supremacy. There are no principles involved. It is simply a question of perpetuating a degenerate system and eliminating any prospect of improvement in the governance standards through introduction of a measure of accountability. This measure of accountability, if at all, is meant only for the plebeians while the rulers should remain beyond the reach of law. In spite of this demeaning aberration, we ardently believe that we are on the right track and should continue this monkey business.
The writer is a political analyst and a member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. He can be reached at [email protected]
