No easy solution

The emphasis should be on a shared and joint action

It is a positive development that the Supreme Court (SC) has stepped back from the case regarding the alleged money transactions between Arsalan Iftikhar, son of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, and Malik Riaz, a real-estate business tycoon. The federal government has been directed to investigate the matter in accordance with the relevant laws. The SC had taken up this case on its own (suo motu) which generated controversies in political and legal circles and the media because of the personalities involved in this matter.

The winding-up of the suo-motu activism in this case may be a departure from most suo motu cases taken up by the SC but it has dampened the debate on this issue. This also provided an opportunity to the parties in the case to rethink the whole issue. Though the SC views all this as a conspiracy, the questions raised in the debate on the alleged money transactions to the advantage of the son of the Chief Justice (CJ) require clear answers in view of the periodic complaints of the unwarranted behaviour of the family members, especially sons, of the people holding the key state offices.

Some commotion and partisan polemics will continue with reference to the latest controversy about the role of some anchor persons and the media houses as well as the politically loaded cases that are currently before the SC. These include the Speaker’s ruling on the disqualification of the prime minister, the memo issue and the Mehran Bank/Asghar Khan case.

These cases have a divisive impact in the socio-political domain. The legal community is divided on the question of disqualification of the prime minister. A section of the lawyers, especially those affiliated with the PML(N), Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), view the Arsalan-Malik case as a conspiracy against the CJ and the SC. If some lawyers are raising pro-CJ slogans in their meetings and outside, others are expressing reservations on the handling of the political cases.

A similar division has cropped up in the political domain. The PML(N), the JI and PTI support the CJ. The PPP and its allies have varying degrees of reservations on the handling of the political cases by the SC. There is a widespread perception in the PPP circles that the SC is interfering in the domain of the federal government to keep it under pressure.

The major political forces are at war with one another. They judge the performance of the superior judiciary with reference to their partisan interests. They also view the judiciary as a convenient arena for political contestation. The judiciary has to deal with the issues that should be settled in the parliament or through the dialogue among the political forces.

The SC may assert its constitutional authority by disqualifying the prime minister but it will not change Pakistani politics. The PPP-led coalition will elect a new prime minister who will carry on with the same policies. Perhaps tension between the executive and judiciary will increase.

In the past, the military, a non-elected state institution, assumed power for rectifying the ills of Pakistani politics and society. Now, the superior judiciary, another non-elected state institution, is attempting to cleanse Pakistan politics tainted by corruption and mis-governance.

Pakistan’s experience shows that civilian institutions, processes and leaders cannot be refined, improved or removed from the political scene permanently by non-political administrative-military or judicial means. They need to be dealt with only by political means.

If the expanded role of non-elected institutions offered a credible solution, Pakistan’s politics should have been very organised and systematic after four periods of direct and indirect military rule. The military regimes failed to remove the causes that weaken political institutions and processes.

If the current political trends of multiple conflicts among the political parties, state institutions, the media groups and societal entities, continue unabated, no government, whether by this or that political party, will be able to pull in one direction. The situation will become anarchic in many parts of the country and the state affairs will become unmanageable.

There is a likelihood of moving in the direction of salvaging the current socio-political and economic degeneration. It requires cooperation among the state institutions and the major political parties. Both the SC and the military will play a role but in cooperation with the political forces.

The SC may put on hold the politically loaded cases. There is nothing unusual in it. Many cases stay pending for years. The postponement of the current political cases will ease tension in the political system. The PPP-led federal government will overcome its insecurity syndrome and come out of its defensive mould. The opposition will no longer hope or try for removing the government through court’s action or by military’s direct and indirect pressure. The PML(N)’s agitational zeal will be dampened.

This should be accompanied by an arrangement among the major political parties to appoint an acceptable chief election commissioner, followed by a consensus on the caretaker federal and provincial governments for the election period. The federal and provincial elections should be held before the end of the year. The military should, like the 2008 elections, maintain a neutral position, and provide security during the elections period, if needed.

The new elections under mutually agreed arrangements that enjoy the blessings of the military and the superior judiciary offer some hope for coming out of the current predicament.

Meanwhile, Pakistan should seek peace on its border. It should defuse tensions with India and Afghanistan. The latter should be viewed as a neighbouring state rather than Pakistan’s problem. Pakistan should also normalise its relations with the US by allowing transit of its goods to Afghanistan under new arrangements.

The new mandate and related steps increase the probability of the new government moving in the direction of resolving the present day crises. However, if the political and societal leaders are not willing to change their ways and Pakistan continues with internal turmoil because of multipronged power struggle involving political parties, state institutions and non-state players capable of using violence, there is no way to stop Pakistan’s downward slide. No single party or a state institution can stop Pakistan’s drift towards anarchy. The above formula emphasises a shared and joint action. This may be based on some wishful assumptions but it offers some hope. There is no precise and clearly cut-out solution of Pakistan’s current predicament.

The writer is an independent political and defence analyst.