Political Fiasco or Judicial Coup?
The date is 11th of April, 2022. Shahbaz Shareef, the VP of PML(N) has been elected the 23rd Prime Minister of Pakistan. But the country is highly polarized on this occasion. The reason is simple; the distrust. The distrust between PTI ,PDM, Judiciary and Military Establishment. None of these parties can count on any other. Even PDM itself has bitter past few months back.
Biggest Dilemma of Pakistani Politics
Unfortunately, the biggest dilemma of Pakistani politics, ignored by most intellectuals and almost entire public, has come into scene this time. The dilemma is that since its inception, Pakistani politics has a hug — really hug power vacuum. The political infrastructure is extremely fragile, compromised and underdeveloped. What has prevented the total anarchy in Pakistan for decades, is its powerful military. Ideally, military should have not any role in politics at all, but we are not living in an ideal society as well. Military establishment, a necessary evil, has acted as buffer in Pakistani politics. If you want to stabilize the equation of politics in Pakistan, you need to keep the military establishment in it. On 23rd March, 2022 at Pakistan’s Day Parade, COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa said while talking to journalists
“Army gets abused anyway; whether it involves itself into politics or not….. You should ask politicians, they fight in the morning and have get together the same night.”
This statement took military out of the equation so, no wonder, Pakistan’s politics was bound to become unstable.
Lettergate Scandal and Non-Serious Attitude of Political Parties
Coalition partners of the government were already posing a threat to it. To add on it, about 25 member of PTI defected to opposition allegedly after being given millions by opposition. On 27th March, then PM Imran Khan, while addressing his Amar-bil-Ma’roof jalsa in Islamabad, waved a letter claiming that a foreign power was directly involved in the pending Vote of No-Confidence against him. It was a serious allegation and direct attack on foreign policy of Pakistan. What followed it was complete non-serious attitude of both government and opposition parties. Government tried to convince its allied as well as opposition by showing them letter in one option after another, from inviting them in National Security Council’s meeting to offering them an in-camera briefing of National Assembly session. Opposition could have easily diffused the situation by accepting any option to diffuse the political chaos and prove the government wrong. On the other hand, government started openly taking name of USA as the foreign power involved in the conspiracy. This move induced reservations inside foreign office as well military leadership about effects of this allegation on relations with USA. Although NSC’s statement clearly accepted the validity of the CYPHER but this statement also refrained from mentioning USA in it. But this statement also could not convince opposition and allies of PTI. This behavior of PTI and PDM only fueled the political crisis in the country.
Role of Media and Dis-information
One of the most controversial characters in this crisis has been the electronic media of Pakistan. Like general public, the media has also been extremely polarized. The relations between the media and PTI’s government has been in bad taste since PTI came into power. Most of the media houses published unverified news either in favor or against government. It was hard to get an unbiased news for a real analysis which fueled the polarization of the general public. Pakistan has a very low literacy rate, both in education and politics. In fact illiteracy in political domain is far high than in education domain. The concept of governance, economy, politics and social welfare are aloof to even some of the most educated class of Pakistan. Every person has his own political opinion but in most cases, it is not well informed as well as not free from bias. The primary role of media is to keep the public well informed as well as provide unbiased analysis. And media has failed miserably in its responsibility as there is no differentiation between news and analysis while reporting.
Analyzing ‘Neutrality’ of Military Establishment
The military leadership claimed on multiple occasions that
“Military has nothing to do with politics…. Keep military out of it.”
Military has in fact mostly kept itself out of politics in this case for a first time. But there are alot of questions being raised on neutrality of the military. The answer to these questions is not to be found in behavior of military but in the immature and corrupt political system of the country. The political culture of our country is extremely unregulated and non-codified. There is complete anarchy of politics if it is left unchecked. Before this government, role of military was keep a check on the political behavior so it may not out of hands. But this time, military experimented with lifting that check and returning Pakistan’s political culture in it genuine and original form. The result was immediate and chaotic. About 20 members of PTI defected to opposition benches, allied started to threaten to withdraw the support, an extreme propaganda campaign and much more. This gave an impression of military establishment being on opposition’s side. But this was not the case, but as we as a nation has not been used to this, so PTI’s supporters could not digest it. But that is how Pakistan’s politics is.
Judiciary; the most controversial player
Judiciary has emerged as the most controversial institution in this whole scenario. It took just one week to happen. On 4th April, Deputy Speaker of NA using his powers declared the pending No Confidence Motion ‘Unconstitutional’ and dismissed it. Government used a legal loophole in the constitution which in its Article 69(1) clearly states that
“The validity of any proceedings in Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) shall not be called in question on the ground of any irregularity of procedure.”
Article 69 ensures Separation of Power between legislature and judiciary which a must-have rule for a parliamentary democracy. A person can argue on the moral status of Deputy Speaker’s ruling, but its legal status was quiet undisputed and clear that judiciary could not do anything with this decision. Within minutes of this meeting Supreme Court of Pakistan took a Suo-Moto notice of this decision and Supreme Court was opened on Sunday on urgent basis to hear on this decision. This was the first controversial step of Supreme Court as just one day before this Islamabad High Court had dismissed a petition to form an enquiry commission on Lettergate Scandal and halt the No-Confidence Motion till its result is concluded by saying that
“Judiciary can not interfere in the proceedings of Parliament”
And just next day Supreme Court was opened on Sunday to hear on National Assembly’s meeting.
Next controversial moment came when Supreme Court decided on the Suo-Moto case withing 5 days while the President’s reference on floor crossing and interpretation of Article 63A was still pending for more than 10 days. This raised questions on priorities of Supreme Court.
The climax of this controversy came when Supreme Court decided on Suo-Moto case by not only declaring the Deputy Speaker’s ruling ‘unconstitutional’ but also binding National Assembly to call its session on a specific date, decided its agenda for the session and binding NA to hold voting on No-Confidence Motion on the same day. This was not only clearly against Article-69 but also Supreme Court did not mention a single article of the constitution which was violated by Deputy Speaker’s ruling. This heightened the tensions between Government and Judiciary.
The last nail in the coffin came on the night of 9th April when voting was supposed to be held. While the assembly was still in session as directed by Supreme Court, near midnight Supreme Court and Islamabad High Court simultaneously opened. Supreme Court was getting ready to rule on Contempt of Court if voting could not take place in the assembly, which still had at least 2 hours. IHC opened up to hear on a petition on rumors of dismissal General Bajwa by PM Imran Khan and to stop this act. Both of these courts opened up to hear on 2 different acts which had not been committed yet. This not only raised eyebrows on the extra activeness of the judiciary on the cases related to government matters, but were also contrary to the remarks given few days back by CJP Umar Atta in President’s reference
“How can we decide on the penalty of an act which has not been committed yet”
While 2 apex courts opened up on weekend’s midnight to hear on 2 different acts which were not committed yet.
What have learned from this Fiasco?
“Our system is not ready for a political, bureaucratic, economical and, to some extent, social change.”
Our system first failure was that it could not cope-up with the vacuum created by military pulling out of the matters. Our political immaturity, corrupt mindset and lack of checks and balances only added chaos to the turmoil of the country. Extreme polarization and distrust among the stakeholders has been the primary cause of this.
PTI government had a lot of failures , mainly in economic and administrative grounds, and there is no doubt about that. But what also is a reality is that it took some very un-popular but crucial long-term steps for social stabilizing the economy including the universal health insurance scheme, diversifying economic base, improving the taxation infrastructure, legislations on FATF, electoral reforms, encouraging IT sector and more. But as a society we are much more impressed by the popular steps taken by a government than the unpopular one.
Most important of all, most of us don’t have our political rules and priorities defined. We are bound and blind to the narrative of the political party we support including PTI, PML(N) and PPP. None of the party comes out clean in recent political mess and we need to accept that. But one thing absolute, this mess could have been resolved in a much better way if all major political parties had behaved properly. And if your first thought after reading this sentence is deciding on the biggest culprit party then you are still biased, because all are on same level and Pakistan is the ultimate loser.
It is an utmost vision of every enlightened citizen to have civil supremacy, social welfare and non-interference from military establishment. But we have to face the truth sooner or later. We are still not ready for it. There are 2 options available to people, either go with the flow and keep thing going as they have been traditionally going or to try to change the system. But there is a price to be paid if you want to challenge the deep rooted bureaucratic, political and social dirt which we don’t want to pay. We still think as an individual at the end of the day and till we have the same mindset, don’t bother to worry about the future and progress of this country. Because it is going to remain same as it has been since 1947.
