Stating the obvious

• GT Road constituencies will be won and lost on the basis of which narrative sells best

Elections are due in a few months. Fiscal debt, energy shortage, foreign policy or even, to an extent, law and order will take the back seat as spotlight is taken by the same issue that has drawn much of our electronic and print media’s attention i.e. the tension between accountability of public office holders on the one hand and the respect of the ballot on the other. An important factor within this debate will be the role of the judicial branch within our constitutional framework.

At least to the extent of the urban constituencies of central and northern Punjab (more commonly known as the “GT Road Constituencies”), which have traditionally been trendsetters in determining the incoming federal government, there are two heavyweights, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N). The GT Road constituencies will be won and lost on the basis of which narrative sells best.

The PTI’s narrative is a simple one. It relies on the premise that corruption is Pakistan’s biggest problem. At the root of this problem are the corrupt political elite, who have for decades embezzled public resources to build empires of wealth abroad. Therefore, the only way out is to replace this rotten-to-the-core political leadership with the PTI’s sparkly clean, world-cup winning, cricketer-philanthropist-politician, Mr Khan. Much like those detergent advertisements, Mr Khan will rid the nation of all the “dirt stains”. That he can do this, after the disqualification of the PML-N’s Mr Nawaz Sharif, is not a question anymore. One “dirt stain” at a time, Mr Khan is already on his mission clean-up. The argument seems impenetrable on the face of it. What could be wrong with accountability? That corruption is a problem is hardly debatable. There is also no cavil to the proposition that the political elite has engaged in financial corruption.

The devil, as they say, however, lies in the details. On his way to ensuring that Pakistan’s political canvass is rid off all “dirt stains” like the sheets they display in those detergent advertisements, Mr Khan is doing something that is, much like the PTI’s top-tier leadership, not all that sparkly clean. And this is exactly what the PML-N’s argument is. What is actually happening is that the representative institutions of the state are losing an already uphill battle against the non-representative institutions. This is the point that is made by the PML-N after every hearing of the accountability court and at every public rally, more emphatically by some than others. But this is not as simple, and crisp as the argument of the PTI. To argue this, one has to tread the delicate balance between attacking State institutions on the one hand and justifying corruption on the other. In public rallies and on talk shows, there is little room for nuanced arguments involving the civil-military imbalance that has been a conspicuous characteristic of our past.

The challenge facing the PML-N in the upcoming elections is to state the obvious, but to do so, without coming off as blatantly hostile towards state institutions, because to come off as that is nothing short of political suicide

The question before the electorate then can be reduced to this: is corruption Pakistan’s biggest problem? If the PML-N is to win the elections, they have to convince the majority that it is not. The argument is not without merit. Pakistan’s biggest problem is the lack of accountability not the prevalence of financial corruption. Accountability, not just of public representatives, but of all state functionaries. In Pakistan, accountability has always been ad-hoc, and ostensibly political; harsh against public representatives, and relatively toothless against other state functionaries. For this reason, it has never surged without its fair share of controversy. Accountability of this nature, which surges in politically strategic times, will never be able to eliminate, or even reduce corruption simply because that is not what it is meant to achieve. It can only be efficacious, if it is consistent and more importantly, systemic. Only when there is a general and universally applicable threat of accountability before law will state functionaries be successfully prevented from financial corruption.

The PTI argues that this instant surge of accountability is different. The men in robes are free, independent and non-partisan, and the men in khakis are indifferent and oblivious to political realities. All historical evidence, however, is against this claim. The khaki-robe alliance is no stranger to Pakistan. It is no secret that coup after coup the judiciary has gone to great lengths to find shaky legal foundations for grossly unconstitutional actions. What has changed? Why should we believe that things now are different, and that the nexus has broken? Why should the people forget that, not too long ago, the robes authorised a man in khaki uniform to make amendments to the constitution with the stroke of a pen?

The challenge facing the PML-N in the upcoming elections is to state the obvious, but to do so, without coming off as blatantly hostile towards state institutions, because to come off as that is nothing short of political suicide.

If this country is to truly rid itself from corruption, accountability needs to be non-partisan, and that is possible only if it rises above individuals and political parties. No judicial decisions, no joint investigations and no NAB references can achieve what can be achieved by a law, equally applicable to all.