A nation waits with baited breath
Today is to be the latest instalment in the showdown between the government and the judiciary. The last one, lest candid posterity forget, did not go so well for the government. And it wasn’t too peachy for the judiciary either. This isn’t said often enough; while even the mightiest office in the land being subjected to the court’s directives might be exciting for a particular demographic for a period of time, the gravity of sending an elected premier home does not need much explaining to the public at large. Increasingly, some of the accusations of intransigence on the matter of the Swiss letter have begun to be leveled against the judiciary as well.
It is clear that for the stability of the system that both sides need to exercise restraint. Till now, it has been an eyeball-to-eyeball battle of attrition. Prime Minister Gilani going home isn’t meant to be interpreted as the ruling party blinking; it implies quite the opposite. They’re digging in their heels. The judiciary, on the other hand, had shown its cards much earlier in this saga when it revealed the six options it could consider. One of the options was making the NAB chief write the now infamous letter. Another option was, barring a few words here and there, straight out of the PPP playbook. If the government was indeed hell-bent on maintaining a confrontational attitude, said the honourable justices, then, given the delicate position of the various pillars of state, the court would not insist on the issue and transfer the matter to the court of the people.
By sending a prime minister home, however, have the honorable justices burnt all other options? Given that none of the other stimuli have changed, how would they be able to justify one judgment in Yousaf Raza Gilani’s case and quite another in Raja Pervaiz Ashraf’s case? Obviously, if things are going to be different this time, there needs to be some cooperation, anything really, from the government’s side, for it to be even considered.