Panama Papers Fallout
Panama Papers took the entire world by a mix of responses on April 4th – disbelief, disgust, disdain. While many struggle to make both ends meet, the wealthy have been busy parking their wealth in offshore companies. Their money, their will, one might way. However, while storing money offshore might not be the disease itself, it might be the symptom of various problems like drug trafficking, money laundering and tax evasion.
In Pakistan, the story is no different. One would think that world’s biggest data leak cannot be an everyday story. Yes, it is not but the response is. Opposition bluntly asking the prime minister to resign overlooking everything, saying that the premier is losing any and all moral authority to hold the reigns, and finally chanting the needs for judicial inquiry without giving any specific procedures are some of the salient features that seem like déjà vu to anyone who has been following local politics even casually. It is just a repeat telecast – it’s not happening for the first time in recent past.
The problem therefore in our scenario shifts from corruption and tax evasion to immature policies, and lack of procedural shrewdness on part of the opposition. Here, it is important to give the disclaimer that presenting a critique of the opposition does not make me a follower of the ruling party. Yes, it is a termite that has totally engulfed our society – but if we want to get rid of this termite then maybe we need to first prepare our own selves for this matter. Marches are effective tools, but not when they become routine. What we need now is procedural maturity and a commitment to democracy – here I would clarify that procedural maturity means an intention to get rid of various plagues like corruption. However, how this would happen is difficult to understand since people in position to do just that refuse to talk on the matter. When I tried to discuss the matter with both the pro-pmln people and the opposition, they declined to comment.
While they weren’t willing to talk, they were seemingly more than willing to tweet about it. Social media presents good evidence in this domain on the dichotomy of opinion.
Muhammad Zubair, Chairman of Privatization Commission of Pakistan tweeted, “PM’s 2 sons r settled abroad for more than a decade and doing their businesses. They r meeting all the tax n other requirements n that’s it .”
The chairman of PTI, Imran Khan, on the other hand is adamant that PM’s time is over. He wrote on twitter fairly recently, “Why doesn’t our PM realise that in a democracy once a PM loses moral authority he cannot hold that office?”
He also quoted the example of the Spanish head of state who resigned in the wake of similar allegations, without any inquiry committee, since he had lost moral ground – hinting that PM Sharif should be doing the same. Ironically, Mr. Khan himself needs to figure what exactly his party wants. Shah Mehmood Qureshi had been talking about what an ideal judicial commission should be like on a TV show with renowned anchor Moeed Pirzada. We shouldn’t be paying heed to that if PM has to go in the first place. Furthermore, our opposition needs to realise that in a population of over 180 million, the masses constitute the basic units of democracy and they choose who needs to stay or go. It will be appropriate therefore to follow some procedure, and then wait for the masses to decide – and masses mean every single person, not just the opposition!
The moral authority debate
The PTI chairman has recently made it very clear that the PM has lost all moral authority to hold his office. Having or not having moral authority is very pertinent in a democracy – as per all popular democratic models. But where does it stem from? It stems from democratic authority or democratic legitimacy for that matter.
The debate of democratic legitimacy has been going on since this government entered its term – with the moral authority being under question constantly. The point is not to nullify the importance of democratic legitimacy or moral authority. The point in here highlights the fact that these things have been said and these terms used so abundantly such that everything loses its appeal very soon, and things start looking and sounding like a repeat telecast.
We all want to see our country in responsible hands, which is not possible without a responsible opposition. Therefore it is important for the opposition to bring up reasonable and strong arguments relying on procedural strength and integrity rather than indulging in a never-ending chorus for years. The event starts getting dimmed against the backdrop of continually hurled repetitions and ultimately nothing happens.
Yes, the government may have lost their moral authority. But what now? Is the moral authority debate going to solve the issue? Asking for judicial commission and inquiry, and then negating it by declaring it needless is not mature politics. Either stay adamant that the PM should resign or stay adamant that a judicial commission be formed and inquiry held. Don’t negate and contradict your own arguments.
Inquiry – what sorts?
Another salient feature of the fallout of Panama Papers in Pakistan is inquiry that needs to be held at this stage in order to scrutinise the entire affair. Since Panama Papers is an international affair, it would be prudent to see what sorts of steps have been taken internationally in the wake of these leaks.
Right on Monday, 4th April finance ministry in France decided it would need to observe and analyse the trail of documents behind these offshore companies mentioned in Panama Papers, in order to figure out the potential evils like tax evasion. The White House too declared that it was reviewing the leaked documents. Similarly, investigations began right on Monday in other affected countries such as Australia and Denmark.
Now, let us turn to Pakistan. Over ten days have passed and we have not been able to decide the procedure. Ultimately the matter will die down, and despite the opposition being so vocal anything productive hardly seems to be achieved.
Prospects of democracy
While the entire debate is about democracy, the government and the opposition need to get a grip on their nerves and emotions. The quality of lives of millions of people depends on the political stability of the country. With opposition hurling threats, without any substance, and government representatives like Pervaiz Rashid scoffing these remarks off, we can see nothing important.
It might greatly please the champions of change to see PMLN government losing all grounds, some points of caution need to be taken in perspective before indulging into anything rash.
- We need strong procedures, with consensus, on the issue of judicial inquiry. PTI leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that no retired judge could undertake this. The government is ready for an inquiry, but the TOR’s need to be agreed upon. Unless the opposition comes up with anything productive, nothing worthwhile would be achieved. Lack of cooperation on both sides will simply delay, incapacitate and paralyse the process. So a political solution and procedure needs to be figured out where all parties are on board.
- The government is already paralysed. Due to economic and capacity constraints, not a lot of progress is being made in the country. But even the little that is being done gets drowned in the chorus of allegations and threats hurled by the opposition. This is something that needs to be taken care of.
- Street power and support of people is important. But the politics of populism does not answer every problem on earth. A march or public protests might have caused other heads of states to resign. But this did not work in Pakistan previously. This might not now. And with the U-turns, the marching parties themselves have lost their credibility.
- We need to realise that brushing off any and all credit for the good work recently done by the government will eliminate the effectiveness of what has been done. An example may be initiatives like Women Protection Act, which has already faced so much criticism that any re-shuffling might cause such initiatives to be washed away.
- Democracy in Pakistan never got to mature. This is the sole cause of many problems. Now that we are struggling on that path and making some efforts finally, let us not derail the process. We do not have many workable alternatives to what we have now, and making the government go and it coming again might not be convenient.
Yes, corruption is a problem. Yes, we need to fight it. But we can only do that through democratic, rational and procedural means, otherwise the cost-benefit analysis clearly shows that there is more cost than benefit and at such sensitive stage, we cannot afford this.
