Is History Repeating Itself? Towards the End of Turmoil

After years of cease­less efforts of politi­cians, jour­nal­ists, lawyers, civ­il soci­ety and oth­er sec­tions of the soci­ety, a fledg­ling demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem has tak­en root in Pak­istan but the polit­i­cal stunts by Imran Khan and Tahir­ul Qadri have put the whole devel­op­ment in jeop­ardy.

Stub­born Imran, crazy Qadri and igno­rant Nawaz Sharif have made Pak­istan a laugh­ing stock in the world. The long march was said to be aimed at reform­ing the elec­toral sys­tem, though PTI with its 34 mem­bers in the Par­lia­ment did not make any effort to do it while remain­ing with­in the sys­tem. Imran Khan’s demeanor shows that his oth­er demands are mere blan­ket over his pri­ma­ry demand of PM’s res­ig­na­tion. As far Tahir­ul Qadri, he seems to be liv­ing in the state of utopia while hav­ing fits of ego­cen­trism every now and then.

Imran Khan has been try­ing to turn pub­lic opin­ion in his favor vis-à-vis elec­tion rig­ging but his argu­ments lose their ground when the out­come of elec­tion peti­tions filed by his par­ty is assessed. Accord­ing to facts, Imran Khan’s PTI filed 77 peti­tions with the Elec­tion Com­mis­sion under Sec­tion 103-AA of Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Peo­ple Act, 1976 which were dis­posed of. Besides, anoth­er 61 elec­tion peti­tions were filed under Sec­tion 52 of the same Act out of which 37 have been reject­ed favor­ing the win­ning can­di­dates.

PTI was giv­en ample oppor­tu­ni­ty by the Tri­bunals to prove their case with con­vinc­ing evi­dence but it failed. Some of the cas­es decid­ed by the Elec­tion Tri­bunal were chal­lenged in the Supreme Court and the Court observed that PTI has not pre­sent­ed reli­able evi­dence where­by the Tri­bunals could have decreed the peti­tions in its favor.

The char­ter of demands as pre­sent­ed by Imran Khan might be accept­ed by Nawaz Sharif if PTI expunges the demand of his res­ig­na­tion. On the oth­er hand, Imran Khan has made it clear that he would not nego­ti­ate until Nawaz Sharif resigns. But by demand­ing the res­ig­na­tion in this way, he is actu­al­ly defy­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion of Pak­istan. The con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides the method of removal of Prime Min­is­ter by way of vote of no-con­fi­dence under Arti­cle 95. Before launch­ing the move­ment, Imran Khan should have exhaust­ed the rem­e­dy pro­vid­ed by the con­sti­tu­tion. He is in no way jus­ti­fied in demand­ing the res­ig­na­tion oth­er than through mov­ing the res­o­lu­tion of no-con­fi­dence against the Prime Min­is­ter. Though the pro­tes­tors have been occu­py­ing the cap­i­tal for about a week, the gov­ern­ment has still not used force to dis­perse them, which is indeed very appre­ci­at­ing.

Nawaz Sharif may some­how man­age to sur­vive the mob led by Imran Khan and Tahir­ul Qadri but the inquiry report of Mod­el Town inci­dent and sub­se­quent events in that respect may keep haunt­ing him. In pur­suance of an appli­ca­tion filed in the Ses­sions Court of Lahore, the Judge has report­ed­ly ordered the police to lodge a First Infor­ma­tion Report (FIR) of the inci­dent where­in Nawaz Sharif has also been pro­posed as one of the accused.

The sit-ins of Tahir­ul Qadri and Imran Khan, which get thin dur­ing the day and thick in the night time, are wait­ing for the out­come. The crowd has been instilled with the assur­ance of res­ig­na­tion of the PM. They would, there­fore, not call it a day unless the PM resigns. The ego of Imran Khan and Tahir­ul Qadri will also be seri­ous­ly hurt if PM does not resign. In such case the appre­hen­sion is that the crowd of thou­sands of peo­ple may turn vio­lent and may storm the build­ings sit­u­at­ed in the Red Zone.

The res­ig­na­tion of Prime Min­is­ter may fill the appetite of Imran Khan but it would set a neg­a­tive prece­dent pro­vid­ing reli­gious and polit­i­cal pres­sure groups with an excuse to stage the sit-ins in the cap­i­tal bring­ing the whole sys­tem to a stand­still. There­fore, the wis­dom demands that the Prime Min­is­ter should not resign under the pres­sure of protests. But Nawaz can­not achieve sal­va­tion and solace even if he stays in the office, as the Mod­el Town case sword is also hang­ing over his head.

As the events unfold it appears that his­to­ry is repeat­ing itself. It was exact­ly 40 years ago when Nawab Muham­mad Ahmed Khan, father of Ahmed Raza Kasuri, was killed in Lahore. Zul­fiqar Ali Bhut­to, then a pow­er­ful Prime Min­is­ter of Pak­istan, was booked in the mur­der case for alleged­ly aid­ing and abet­ting to assas­si­nate Ahmed Raza Kasuri that end­ed up killing his father. Post 1977 gen­er­al elec­tions kick start­ed coun­try­wide protests by Pak­istan Nation­al Alliance (PNA) but it could not do what a mur­der case did. Bhut­to could not escape death which was out­come of the FIR by Ahmed Raza Kasuri lodged at Ichraa Police Sta­tion Lahore. The direct inter­ven­tion by the then Army Chief Gen­er­al Zia made sure that Bhut­to is to be hanged ignor­ing all the ends of jus­tice and prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice in con­duct­ing the mur­der tri­al.

Sur­pris­ing­ly Imran Khan as well as Tahir­ul Qadri have not been insist­ing too much on the reg­is­tra­tion of the FIR against Nawaz Sharif but are shout­ing in air for his res­ig­na­tion. The “stake­hold­ers” have so far retained the legal weapon, the FIR, which could be used at anoth­er time after using all options. Mere the demand of res­ig­na­tion may not work but the mur­der case, if reg­is­tered, would. Appar­ent­ly, Nawaz Sharif had no role in what hap­pened in Mod­el Town but his affin­i­ty with the Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab has the ten­den­cy to be mis­used as pres­sure tac­tic to coerce him. As the law in Pak­istan has the his­to­ry of mis­use, keep­ing in view the con­ve­nience of the mighty. What the long march, protest, agi­ta­tion and vio­lence can­not do, can be achieved by invok­ing sec­tion 154 of the Code of Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure — the FIR. Now it is up to the courts and the fate of Nawaz Sharif, whether he would end up in the glit­ter­ing pow­er cor­ri­dors, or fight a long and risky legal bat­tle.