EDITORIAL: If the 2018 general election was fair, free and transparent, the final word on it is yet to be said. The political opposition has persistently claimed that the entire electoral exercise was manipulated to ensure that neither leaderships of the two previous governments returns to power. And in support of their claim they point out quite a few inadequacies, particularly the inordinate and unexplainable delay on the part of NADRA (National Database and Registration Authority) to release the vote-count, which helped Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) to win election and form its government. On whose behalf the transparency of the general election became hazy they do not name anybody, but they do call the PTI-led government a ‘selected’ commodity. According to a newspaper report, one such incident of ‘outside’ pressure to keep the present opposition out of power took place on the eve of 2018 general election when the then Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Saqib Nisar, reportedly asked a judge of Islamabad High Court to ensure that an incarcerated Maryam Nawaz was not set free. The newspaper based its story on a notarized affidavit of an ex-Chief Justice of Gilgit-Baltistan, Rana Shamim. In quite some detail, former Justice Rana Shamim has narrated how the then Chief Justice of Pakistan got in touch with an IHC (Islamabad High Court) judge to convey his mind. Former Justice Saqib Nisar has stoutly rejected the claim of former Chief Justice of Gilgit-Baltistan. Since there is the claim that higher judiciary was involved in pre-election political engineering, the Chief Justice of IHC took notice of the ‘news’ pertaining to the affidavit and summoned the newspaper’s publisher, editor and reporter, as well as the author of the affidavit, Justice Rana Shamim. After a brief hearing, the court issued notices to them and asked them to appear before it next week. It is quite clear that it is for the court to decide whether or not the said newspaper did commit the crime of contempt of court. We, therefore, have no comment on that. But what should be talked about is the political fallout the saga of the alleged call is going to be on the national political atmospherics as these tend to obtain now when the PTI government is under the opposition’s attack on many fronts. The government has described the episode as ‘a viciously cooked-up story’ to malign the higher judiciary as the opposition leadership finds itself in a hot soup of corruption cases. According to the Prime Minister, for example, “the opposition is digging its own grave”. But the opposition feels elated with Opposition Leader in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif tweeting that former Justice Rana Shamim’s affidavit is “another vindication of Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz in the court of public opinion”. According to Maryam, “the explosive news story peels off a thick layer of a grand scheme employed to target Nawaz Sharif & Maryam Nawaz. Allah has His own way of revealing the truth”. Not only have PML (N) leaders underscored the need for debating this issue in parliament, they have also urged the Chief Justice of Pakistan to set up a commission to investigate it. No doubt, there is a question about timing of the affidavit as it surreptitiously emerged on the scene almost on the eve of the hearing of Maryam Nawaz’s plea seeking annulment of her conviction in the Avenfield apartments reference at IHC. Politics in Pakistan is more complex than it used to be.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021