The government and the opposition
Arresting a politician, conducting his media trial and maintaining that if he is found innocent he would be set free amounts to rubbing salt into the wounds. When a case of the sort is initiated through NAB, and the victim is a member of the Opposition, it is likely to be interpreted as a manipulation of a federal agency by the government to persecute its political opponents. The relations between the government and the PPP have deteriorated during the last couple of months. The change in the nature of relations has synchronised with the arrest of Dr Asim Hussain, opening of NAB cases against former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, former Commerce Minister Makhdum Amin Fahim and the sentencing of former Federal Minister Ali Nawaz Shah by an Accountability Court for five years in jail.
The NAB has gained notoriety for lending itself for use as a tool by those involved in political engineering. Under Musharraf it collected evidence of corruption against politicians only to pressurise them to join the King’s Party. The way NAB has singled out the PPP causes suspicions. There is a need on the part of the Prime Minister to ensure that national unity against terrorism does not receive a setback on account of NAB trying to be more loyal to the king than the king himself. The NAB must not proceed without exhaustive evidence. If any case filed by accountability body is set aside by the higher judiciary, NAB’s impartiality would be questioned.
While criminals should be given no quarter, the tendency to prosecute politicians only when they are in the Opposition or no more in the good books of the establishment, can be harmful. Suspecting that it is being pushed to the wall, the PPP has launched a counter attack. While its questions regarding the dramatic rise in the cost of Nandipur power project from Rs23 billion to Rs85 billion need to be properly answered, the party has to eschew statements that can only give a fillip to parochialism.
