Now the hangover
This was a different kind of ‘kicking the can down the road’. It was certainly not the ‘historic moment’ the very honourable Supreme Court had everyone, especially the media, expecting. But this won’t be the usual JIT either, even if – in Sharif’s worst case scenario – damning evidence leads to a fresh round at the court, followed by a possible appeal, etc. The 60-day clause, and the judicial oversight, means that this report, at least, will see the light of day. And no matter how long legal technicalities and bureaucratic processes take to play out, people will take the hangover to the poll. So a novelty might yet come out of this five-hundred-something page confusion.
Interestingly, as the chips began to fall, PML-N’s celebration turned out about as misplaced as PTI’s initial annoyance. The JIT will need a quantifiable, measurable money trail; something the Sharifs were unable to provide through the trial. Whether they can wriggle well enough to avoid this axe will be the central point. And Qatari letters, etc, are not going to work. Perhaps it was the realisation that the noose was still not far from the neck that led to a quick cancellation of the PM’s address to the nation on the night of the verdict. This will become clearer in days to come, of course.
And PTI, for all its faults, turned out to be the only party to push the issue of ‘corruption of the elites’ all the way to the Supreme Court. That the court was pushed into the JIT – with two of five judges asking for the PM’s removal – is in itself a stride forward for the party. That it completely mishandled the media aspect of the verdict is another matter altogether. But if anybody should be celebrating how Panama is rolling out, it isn’t PML-N.
