Pretending that the Panama leaks scandal has nothing to do with him and the opposition is out to get him for no reason except power lust, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told a gathering in Quetta on Monday "investment comes to a halt in a country where sit-ins and protest rallies lead to political chaos." Indeed, business does not like instability but protests are a part of democratic process, and hence need not lead to chaos if the government responds to them in a responsible fashion. The response has been anything but responsible.
The two main opposition parties in Parliament, the PPP and PTI, have a duty towards their electors to hold the government to account for its acts of omission and commission and the latter obligated to clear its position. The right thing for the PM to do was to present himself for accountability in whichever way the opposition wanted. Instead he and his party men have been resisting demands for a judicial commission under the Chief Justice to hold an impartial investigation into the Panama leaks linking his children to foreign assets bought through offshore companies. They have been employing all sorts of evasion tactics from levelling counter-accusations against opposition leaders to insistence on picking a retired (and pliable) judge to head the proposed commission, and setting their own terms of reference (ToRs) for the investigations. Which would be an exercise in futility, and therefore unacceptable to those demanding honest answers.
Although the government came around to forming a judicial commission headed by the CJ, as demanded, it wouldn't allow any change it its own ToRs. Surely this third-time prime minister knows that an accused cannot set his/her own terms for investigations against self. But he also knows that he is in an indefensible position. Hence in an attempt to hoodwink public opinion came the offer that the CJ could decide the ToRs - something he cannot do for at least two reasons: (i) judges do not devise rules and regulations, they only interpret and apply existing rules and laws; and (ii) the CJ could get entangled in political controversy since either the government or the opposition could raise objections. The government, of course, could see the CJ would be unwilling to accept the responsibility when it made that offer.
From the public perspective, a positive development is the coming together of nine parties on the single point agenda of holding the PM answerable for the Panama revelations. Although three of them - the PML-Q, MQM and ANP - oppose the demand made by the PTI, PPP and Jamaat-e-Islami for the PM's resignation terming it premature, all nine parties have rejected the government's ToRs for the proposed judicial commission, putting forward their own ToRs. Diligently crafted by leading lawyer-politicians, they give no leeway to the government. The initial demand for hiring foreign forensic experts to help a CJ-headed commission investigate the corruption scandal stays - which considering the impenetrable layers of several foreign jurisdictions would be a useless endeavour - but the focus has now shifted where it should be.
The opposition's ToRs wisely put the burden of proof in all matters "entirely on the respondent (the Prime Minister) and his family to prove their innocence" within a three or four months timeframe. Furthermore, the proposed judicial commission is urged to probe the sources of income available to the 'respondent' and his family for the 1985 thru 2016 period, complete with details of bank accounts in which these funds were kept, and the income tax paid by the 'respondent' along with dates and banks through which these funds were utilised for buying of properties abroad and the name of person(s) from whom they were bought. Other points call for equally severe scrutiny.
One can bet on it that the government is not going to accept any of this, and we all know the reason why. What it can and will try to do is to divide the opposition. Some of the smaller parties such as the ANP, Qaumi Watan Party and NP (the last one is Nawaz League's coalition partner in Balochistan) and probably the MQM could play spoiler's role, but at least three major parties, the PTI, PPP and Jamaat-e-Islami, are expected to keep the pressure on. The situation is headed towards confrontation which could lead to chaos and political instability the PM said is bad for the country. The onus is on him to save the situation while he can.
So far the political class in this country has repeatedly disappointed the people who have struggled long and hard against military regimes in the hope that restoration of democratic order would improve the quality of life for them, only to see their elected leaders focus on self-enrichment schemes at their expense. Wealth stolen from the poor of this country kept going into buying expensive properties and/or to run businesses abroad as well as to maintain foreign bank accounts. As Finance Minister Ishaq Dar (inadvertently) disclosed in a written statement before the National Assembly two years ago, ie, May 2014, a whopping $200 billion belonging to Pakistanis are sitting in Swiss banks. Media reports say a lot more is stashed away in other foreign banks and properties. To have an idea how much Pakistani money is parked in Swiss banks alone and what it means for the people of this country, nearly half of whom are born in abject poverty and die in abject poverty, just one vital detail is sufficient. This country's total external debt is a little over $68 billion. Bulk of the annual budget goes into debt-servicing while the government has been borrowing more money from the international agencies to pay loan instalments. And the loan givers dictate domestic policy asking for removal of subsidies and increase in price of this or that item, making life harder and harder for the common man. It is about time the rulers are held to account for, to put it politely, their apathetic behaviour.
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