Whither Pakistan?

Wording of the April 20 judgment clearly shows the utter frustration and chagrin of the three judges who seem to have been forced to change their concurrence with the other two who declared Nawaz Sharif unfit for premiership and membership of parliament. Next time round they managed to find the straw that breaks the camel's back. Bravo!  Justice could not have been done in the Panama leaks instigated corruption, fraud and misdemeanor cases which are still continuing if Mr. Sharif had remained in office and machinating tampering of records about his past misdeeds. The Chairman of SECP is already facing trial on that account.

Ironically, Nawaz Sharif missed completing his term for the third time by nearly a year keeping intact the record that no prime minister in Pakistan has completed his term. It is interesting that none of the parties whose governments were sacked by the president under section 58-2B of the constitution failed miserably in the follow-up elections, which means that they had lost their popularity and right to rule when they were sacked. Even this time every politician and educated member of the civil society had been asking Nawaz Sharif to resign but he clung to power like a leech until his sins took him down.

Areticle 58-2B was deleted in the 18^th amendment and now voices are being heard from some quarters that Mr. Sharif who was disqualified under article 62-1F of the constitution is trying to muster the support of other corrupt politicians to abolish this law that requires the aspirant of a seat in the parliament to be just, honest and truthful. Indeed the constitutional provisions are inadequate as the Quranic standard of uprightness is given in Chapter 4 (An-nissa) verse 135 as below:

Although he owes his rise in politics and attendant accumulation of wealth to army generals, Mr. Sharif has been quick to forget favors and failed to get over the trauma of the death cell after a mutual overthrow dogfight which Gen. Musharraf won. This man, his family and his cronies simply hate the national army and seem to be prepared to compromise national security in a bid to discredit the army and establish his absolute monarchy.

Mr. Sharif’s animosity of the judiciary and judges dates back to his second stint as prime minister when he tried to amend the constitution to make MNAs totally subservient to him and the supreme court struck it down as bad law. According to Wikipedia “Chief Justice Sajad Ali Shah, however, continued to assert his authority and persisted in hearing Sharif's case.^[85] On 30 November 1997, while the hearing was in progress, Sharif's cabinet ministers and a large number of his supporters entered the Supreme Court building, disrupting the proceedings.^[85] The chief justice asked the military to send the military police, and subsequently struck down the Thirteenth (XIII) Amendment thereby restoring the power of the president.^[85] But, this move back fired on the chief justice when the military backed the prime minister and refused to obey the president's orders to remove Sharif.^[85] The prime minister forced President Farooq Leghari to resign, and appointed Wasim Sajjad as acting president.^[85] After the president's removal, Sharif ousted Chief Justice Sajad Ali Shah to end the constitutional crisis once and for all.^[85]” This created severe sense of insecurity among the judges.

However, a couple of years later when Mr. Sharif tried to stage a coup against his own appointed COAS and CJCOSC Gen. Pervez Musharraf while he was on a flight back from Sri Lanka, the army turned against him and not only staged a counter coup but also tried him for attempted hijacking of Musharraf’s plane and sentenced him to death.

The judiciary took a sigh of relief and when Gen. Musharraf sought their blessing for a plan to rule the country for three years as military dictator keeping the constitution suspended, they willingly gave him a free hand which helped him to remain president until 2008. Looking back, it seems that Gen. Musharraf was not as brave or as smart as he thought himself to be. When asked by the Saudi King he surrendered Nawaz Sharif on condition that he would not interfere in Pakistani politics for 10 years.

In 2007 he was outwitted by Benazir Bhutto who after making a deal with the Americans that they would be allowed to bring personnel and equipment and have the use of Shamsi airbase to carry out drone attacks within Pakistan, promised to let him remain president if she was allowed to return to Pakistan and contest and win the elections in 2008. Nawaz Sharif was also allowed to return prematurely and his main function was to lead all honest and patriotic parties away from the election.

The 2013 general elections though certified by everyone to have been free and fair were actually heavily rigged. The rigging mainly took place in the secluded women’s polling centers. With poor security, weak administration and low turnover, these polling stations that were not very strictly monitored, provided ideal opportunity for bogus voting. In fact, Khwaja Rafique was caught on camera casting bogus votes in a women’s booth.

As of now both PMLN and PPP are anti-army, anti-judiciary and mired in corruption. It is imperative that a third political party with clean and patriotic leaders forms government in the next general elections which need to be really fair. To achieve this Imran Khan needs to recruit and train at least two polling agents for each polling booth in every constituency. Women polling agents need special training and should be in adequate numbers to ensure that rigging is prevented. Imran Khan also needs to have support of local vernacular TV and radio channels that have a lot of weight in forming public opinion in rural areas.