EDITORIAL: Yesterday, the Lahore High Court reinstated Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi after he submitted he wouldn’t dissolve the Punjab assembly. The Lahore High Court was seized of a petition through which Elahi had challenged governor’s action of de-notifying him as chief minister.
On Thursday night, Punjab governor Balighur Rahman de-notified Elahi as chief minister of Punjab with a view to thwarting or forestalling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan’s plan to dissolve Punjab Assembly.
It is now increasingly clear that the deepening constitutional crisis in Punjab is a severe indictment of the country’s top political class because once more, like so often this year, the courts must wash their dirty laundry and interpret the constitution for the province’s lawmakers.
It’s as if none of them has paid any attention at all to the ongoing debate that increasingly portrays the judiciary’s interference in everyday politics, especially deciphering fine points of the constitution, in very bad taste. After all, the essence of democracy is to explore possibilities of diffusing political confrontations in a way that the business of the state is not affected.
But when the leaders of some parties consider it beneath themselves to so much as sit down and discuss the country’s most pressing issues with leaders of other parties, then an uncomfortable deadlock is the only thing that is assured.
To make matters worse, whichever way the honourable courts lean invariably leaves the aggrieved party, or parties, weaving a new narrative about exploitation, selective justice, and the usual kind of puppeteering typical of Pakistani politics. And so the cycle goes on.
Similarly, after all sorts of threats and counter-threats, calls for dissolving provincial assemblies and late night no-confidence motions, and the pot calling the kettle black all over again, the judiciary must finally decide who is right and wrong in this tussle which is nothing but a naked, ugly fight for power and government resources among the political elite.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the rights or interests of the people of Punjab, or the rest of the country for that matter, whose only demand right now is a normally functioning economy that lets them work and live in peace.
And it’s not as if the court’s verdict about the constitutionality, or lack thereof, of the Punjab governor’s actions over the last few days will be the end of this matter. You can be sure that if PTI does not get what it wants, it will only find other, possibly more controversial, ways of forcing a snap election; regardless of the effects of its actions on the country and its people.
And if the PDM (Pakistan Democratic Movement) coalition feels it has been cheated out of its constitutional rights, then it will also find other spanners to throw into the works and keep the next general election as far away as possible.
Therefore, even the judiciary’s reluctant entry into constitutional politics fails to find enduring solutions. Instead it, too, only keeps the pot boiling at the end of the day.
That leaves the people of this country wondering about who is going to look after their interests, which both the executive and judiciary are mandated to preserve and protect.
The uncertainty stemming from the Punjab standoff, which is in fact just an extension of a wider tug of war in Pakistani politics, is now threatening to push the economy over the edge into downright default. And the only viable solution to this logjam is for the top politicians of the country to sit across a table and hammer out solutions based on mutual compromise – the art of the possible – no matter how much they dislike this idea and despise each other.
It is very unfortunate that they have forgotten their number-one duty, which is to the country and its people, in pursuit of their own selfish interests. The longer they delay this necessary step, the deeper they will push the whole country into the abyss, and the more they will be to blame for the catastrophe that follows.
There is still time to prevent outright collapse. But the key lies with the politicians, and this lot doesn’t seem capable of seeing anything beyond the end of its nose.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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