Leaders’ fortunes, people’s loss
The Panama leaks have left the Pakistani prime minister in deep waters. For the last week Nawaz Sharif has been under fire for allegedly investing millions of dollars in various offshore companies in an apparent attempt to avoid taxes. According to these leaks, the family of Prime Minister Sharif has made millions of dollars investments in a number of offshore companies.
A day after the leaks, Sharif addressed the nation and vowed to take appropriate legal steps while denying that any of his family members had made money illegally. These revelations were hardly a surprise for anyone as the Sharif family’s corruption and money laundering tales have been an open secret for many years. The Independent in 1998 published an article which noted that, “The investigation into Mr Sharif and his family was originally commissioned in 1993 by an interim government, after Mr Sharif’s dismissal as prime minister, which asked the agency to investigate 13 separate allegations of corruption and money laundering through overseas bank accounts.”
Prime Minister Sharif’s son, hassan Nawaz, during an interview given to the BBC in 1999 – which has surfaced again – failed to explain the ownership of the flat which he was living in: “I’m just like any other student living with his parents. I don’t necessarily have to know the facts and who owns the flat, and who pays for the rent and who pays for my living.” However, recently hassan Nawaz admitted having owned those properties: “Those apartments are ours and those offshore companies are also ours.”
These revelations have put Sharif in a difficult situation: unlike any previous challenge which by and large was mounted by a single party, the current situation has pooled together number of opposition parties. Besides the PTI, PPP and Jamaat-e- Islami have also come out with guns blazing.
However, the dilemma is that not a single opposition party is interested in seeing an end to these allegations: all opposition parties have joined hands not because they are genuinely interested in seeing an end to this crisis rather because all of them stand to gain something from this crisis.
If any of the opposition parties wanted to scrutinise Sharif’s sources of wealth or any other member of his family, they should have done it a long time ago. But the unfortunate fact is that not a single party has the courage, credibility, commitment or political will to take that path.
With this crisis, Imran Khan – who has proved to be an opportunist – sees another chance of derailing democracy; this time with a sit-in in Lahore rather than Islamabad. Moreover, PTI is interested in making some inroads in Punjab by thrashing the PML-N’s credibility.
Asif Ali Zardari is also out to negotiate his place in Sindh affairs by mounting pressure on Nawaz Sharif. Zardari’s political party has been sidelined in Sindh since the start of the Karachi Operation. The present situation gives Zardari a chance to counter attack the federal government which has only brushed aside the former’s demands. Furthermore, the PPP is also interested in reviving its lost political capital in Punjab. The party did poorly in the last general elections in Punjab and has virtually vanished from the province. By going after the PML-N in their province, PPP is looking to appease its old support base who became disillusioned during the party’s last rule, which was marred by bad governance and similar allegations of mega scale corruption.
The Islamist parties, on the other hand, are looking to restore their lost space inside the state. The Sharifs, in the last two years, have taken some progressive legislative steps that have earned them considerable ire of Islamist parties. The latest case in this regard is the Women Protect Act. While the Islamist parties do not have much presence inside the parliament, their power and ability to paralyse the government by mobilising their street power cannot be ruled out. A week ago, the protests celebrating Qadri in Islamabad demonstrated this bitter reality. With this crisis, the Islamist parties are likely to pressure the government into rolling back on this crucial legislation.
The current state of democracy in Pakistan is in tatters. Prime Minister Sharif’s credibility has declined sharply after these revelations and seemingly whatever legitimacy he had before this crisis, has faded away. These disclosures will further limit Nawaz Sharif’s say in issues related to national security vis-à-vis the military.
Heads of almost all political parties in Pakistan have, at one point or the other, remained complicit in corruption, if not economically then morally and ethically. It’s ironic how these leaders, with flags of this very country branded on their chests, tell lies to millions of people and present themselves as saviours of this nation. All they have been doing is securing their own futures at the cost of millions of people.
