Political intrigues

Questions galore!

Pakistan is increasingly starting to resemble a Christopher Nolan movie – a brain feasting thriller with an impressively complicated plot.

Recent developments have stumped the canniest amongst us — those gazers of crystal balls and tellers of our future who thrive in our primetime talk-show glory and about whom the media reserves the most venerable epithets: ‘experts’ and ‘analysts’. In a country where blind certainty eclipses honest doubt, where opinions are everywhere and everyone has one, and where the national narrative is punctuated with exclamation marks, today, quite surprisingly, quite a few question marks are emerging for a change.

Now that we have a legit three member commission in full effect, by way of Presidential Ordinance, to be headed by Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk, questions galore. Why did Prime Minister Sharif agree to the formation of a judicial commission that is wholly designed to probe and potentially discredit the very ballot that effectively returned him to his designated throne? Was this an attempt to put down the PTI fire? Did the 126 day dharna led by Imran Khan finally achieve its intended aim, or rather part of its intended aim, considering the intended aim remained as fluid as Khan’s ululating emotions and as fickle as his relationship with Javed Hashmi. But regardless, why would Mr Sharif set off the dominoes of his own destruction? Why would the maker unmake himself?

A few hypothetical scenarios come to mind. One, Sharif is innocent and he knows it. So even if electoral rigging is established, it doesn’t necessarily implicate him as long as there is no incriminating evidence against him. If true, he then manages to placate Khan and salvage much damaged credibility, and ultimately becomes a hero

A few hypothetical scenarios come to mind. One, Sharif is innocent and he knows it. So even if electoral rigging is established, it doesn’t necessarily implicate him as long as there is no incriminating evidence against him. If true, he then manages to placate Khan and salvage much damaged credibility, and ultimately becomes a hero. Now, to anyone familiar with Pakistan’s politics and the Sharif legacy, this scenario is about as likely as a cow mooing in French.

Second, Sharif understands the full scope and scale of the alleged rigging. If he goes down, he understands well, that many will go down with him. Perhaps even the likes of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry – who according to Imran Khan was part of the gig. Surely, such a landslide could not possibly be allowed to occur and the powers that be will step in before that, or so Sharif thinks.

Third, Sharif has signed a MoU with Imran Khan that if the commission can prove electoral rigging, he will dutifully dissolve the assemblies. A MoU is nothing more than what is stands for: memorandum of understanding. In other words, the findings of the said commission are binding on no one. From a legal standpoint, the commission is solely tasked to launch an inquiry into the 2013 elections and share its findings with the government. It is, then, up to the government to take next steps as it deems fit. It would appear that Sharif, along with his army of henchmen, having quite a lot to lose in the event of any incriminatory evidence thrown against him, wouldn’t just raise the white flag that easily. Furthermore, many continue to wholly question the legality of the said commission, violate as it does Article 225 of our constitution – “No election to a House or a Provincial Assembly shall be called in question except by an election petition presented to such tribunal and in such manner as may be determined by Act of 1[Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament)].” In other words, it is not entirely unlikely that Sharif has a wriggle-out plan in the event things go terribly south.

And in the vastly implausible fourth scenario, Sharif has, in what may only be described as magic or miracle, decided to break from his past and allow his recently discovered contentiousness to dictate the course of events. If there best online casino was voter fraud then so be it, says a saintly Sharif in this most hypothetical of universes. It must be said though that Sharif’s coming of age maturity was recently glimpsed when he allowed a joint session in parliament to call a decision on the tricky Saudi-Yemen crisis; undermining his personal leverage with the Saudi royals for, well, as unbelievable as it sounds: the greater good. Suffice to say no one really knows the backstory.

A MoU is nothing more than what is stands for: memorandum of understanding. In other words, the findings of the said commission are binding on no one. From a legal standpoint, the commission is solely tasked to launch an inquiry into the 2013 elections and share its findings with the government

But moving out of hypotheticals, some 20 odd political parties were in attendance at the commission’s first hearing – including major parties like PTI, PPP, JI, etc. This makes clear that the opposition parties are on the same page. And although the commission was far from impressed with the evidence presented by the parties in question, thereby adjourning the proceedings and giving them seven more days to corroborate their cases, it seems likely that the parties will come with more ammunition in the subsequent hearings. With already enough momentum on suspect constituencies like NA-122, it couldn’t be that hard to cast significant doubt on the election results.

Critics of the commission raise some valid points though. Some have raised concerns over why sitting judges are presiding over it. In a country where courts are notorious for pandering to their political masters and accused of astonishing slowness in delivering verdicts, while often abdicating operational command to military courts, with their own former judges and chief justices not entirely free from accusations of foul play, to then form election commissions run by judges is counter-intuitive bordering on the absurd. And with former CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry amongst the accused, a man whose posturing and bravado knows no limits, the judiciary run commission will need to circumnavigate the meandering and deeply pitted terrain of ‘conflict of interest’ among other challenges.

Regardless, the bottom line is that the judiciary’s reputation notwithstanding, this commission is being seen as a huge victory for Khan, and by extension, Pakistan. In a country where 1970 elections excepted, all subsequent elections have borne the muck and sleaze of malfeasance and debauchery, allowing the same decrepit few to suck whatever diminished trickle is left of our national bloodstream, and where a wretched electoral system writhes and squirms in pain, this judicial probe is a welcome precedent and could be the harbinger of better, fairer, and less electorally compromised times ahead.