ON the surface everything looks fine. A democratically elected prime minister steps down over corruption charges after the apex court of the country finds him guilty of small crimes and misdemeanors linked to offshore accounts in Panama and undisclosed monies in the Gulf.
Didn’t the Panama Papers spark the resignation of Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson? We also know about the intense scrutiny Britain’s David Cameron had to go through over his family’s tax affairs.
But when we dwell deeper into the nearly eight-month long process that resulted in Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s resignation on Friday, some disturbing questions emerge. It was opposition leader Imran Khan, the head of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party, who pushed the court to hear his petition that Sharif be disqualified for corruption after the Panama Papers named three of the prime minister’s children as owners of offshore companies suspected of laundering money. The court ordered the National Accountability Bureau, the country’s top anti-corruption agency, to file corruption cases against Sharif and his family members based on the evidence collected by the court-appointed Joint Investigation Team (JIT). Curiously, judges included an alleged member of the PTI, a bitter rival of Sharif, in the JIT. Also included were two officials from the military intelligence and Inter-Services Intelligence. No wonder, many cast doubts on the fairness of Panama hearings.
Sharif was not named in the Panama expose. It is not proved that he misused his office to enrich himself or his family. Still, the judges disqualified him from holding public office for life for hiding
assets, and therefore, not being “honest.” Here they could rely on a constitutional clause inserted by
military dictator Gen. Zia-ul Haq. The clause stipulates that every MP must be “honest and sincere.”
But the court did not touch many of the other politicians and officials implicated in the Panama Papers. This as well the head of the five-member bench comparing the Sharif family to the mafia in “The Godfather” by Mario Puzo has deepened suspicions that something other than a crusade against corruption was influencing the court’s behavior.
Even those who applaud Pakistan’s superior judiciary for asserting its independence and power feel quite uneasy when they recall how the court behaved in 1958, 1977 and 1999 when the military ousted democratically elected governments.
Sharif’s resignation or removal falls into a pattern that has become all too familiar in Pakistan where not a single one of the 17 prime ministers that preceded him have completed their full term in office. All were removed by the military, courts or bureaucrats (the country’s first prime minister, Liyaqat Ali Khan, was assassinated in mysterious circumstances; another, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was hanged after being ousted in a military takeover). Sharif is no stranger to this phenomenon, having been removed from office twice before, by the military that thought he was challenging their supremacy over civilian authority.
Pakistan’s next national elections are scheduled for next year. If the judiciary had not intervened, Sharif would have created history by being the first prime minister to see his tenure till the end of its term.
The latest developments raise another question. Have unelected bodies, not the people, become the final arbiters of Pakistan’s democratic destiny? A related question is whether the judiciary is acting as a front for invisible forces.
To raise such questions or express misgivings about the soundness of the judicial process which led to Sharif’s removal is not to exonerate him. The ousted prime minister seems to have made things easier for his enemies with every lie, forged or dodgy document his lawyers submitted to the court or JIT. A document, dated February 2006, but typed in the Calibri font, which came to market only in 2007 showed how truthful he was.
The most important, he seems to have forgotten the principle that Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion.
