Business Recorder Column May 23, 2023

Endgame PTI

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The events of the last two weeks have shaken Pakistan to the core. Imran Khan’s arrest on May 9, 2023 by the Rangers from the premises of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) set off a firestorm (literally) of protests by his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) workers and sympathisers. However, the choice of venues and targets has rebounded severely against the PTI. It is a matter of debate still whether the violent attacks against civilian and military targets was purely spontaneous rage, a pre-planned contingency reaction by PTI in the event of Imran Khan’s arrest, or, as the PTI has claimed post facto, the work of infiltrated provocateurs. It is also a matter of conjecture and hypotheses so far whether sensitive military installations were deliberately left unguarded as an entrapment tactic, or a decision not to resist the charged mobs to avoid bloodshed was considered the wiser course.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the PTI had reportedly been making plans for the possibility of Imran Khan’s arrest, which had been made difficult because of his refusal to respond to judicial notices or appear before the courts in the (myriad) cases against him. Even a botched raid on his Zaman Park, Lahore residence had failed to nab him. The manner in which the protest against his arrest was carried out, however, has ensured the military establishment has chosen now to doff its veneer of ‘neutrality’ and decided to deal with Imran Khan and the PTI in a singularly harsh manner.

Imran Khan says the entire PTI leadership is under arrest, along with 10,000 party workers and sympathisers throughout the country. Media reports have quoted 4,000 arrests. It is difficult to ascertain the exact number accurately since the crackdown against the PTI is so widespread, the dragnet is not sparing even some innocents, the families of suspects are being harassed, etc, in the inimitable style of our police. The arrests have, for perhaps the first time in our history, reached deep into the social elite, causing consternation, apprehension and deep seated fear.

The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) coalition government headed by Prime Minister (PM) Shahbaz Sharif appears to be treating this turn of events as a heaven-sent opportunity to ‘sort out’ the PTI. It has flip-flopped from a wholesale acceptance of trials in military courts for every rioter to now proclaiming that the Army Act (and trials in military courts) would only apply to those involved in attacks on military targets, while civilian target rioters would be tried in the anti-terrorism courts. Reportedly, this is the government’s damage control response to criticisms of wholesale trials in military courts by Pakistani and international human rights platforms. Whether the actions of the rioters who attacked civilian targets falls within the purview of ‘terrorism’ is a moot point, but anti-terrorist provisions have become almost the automatic choice of governments for serious crimes over the last few years. What this does of course is blur the line between real terrorism and serious crimes and breaches of the law. As far as trials of civilians in military courts is concerned, the law brought in to this effect in response to the serious challenge from terrorism, especially since 2014, lapsed in 2019. Expect therefore, another judicial conflict over such trials per se, and their verdicts.

Imran Khan has put the chances of his arrest again while appearing in the IHC on May 23, 2023 at “80 percent”. What would be the reaction by his followers to any such eventuality this time round? It would be unreasonable to assume it would be the same as after the May 9 arrest. The simple fact is that the arrests of thousands of PTI workers, their leaders and sympathisers appears to be a strategy of cutting the ground from under Imran Khan’s feet. It is perhaps thought that would leave him dangling in the air, a leader without street power. There is plenty of talk and rumour doing the rounds of ‘minus one’ formulas (i.e. the ‘removal’, here or abroad) of Imran Khan from the political scene. If Imran Khan’s cult following is no longer able to respond to his wishes, especially to react against his arrest or other actions against him, this may be considered bad enough by the PTI. But if Imran Khan is ‘minused’ from the scene, the PTI will dwindle, if not die. On the other hand, another well known phenomenon in Pakistani politics is now playing itself out. The usual ‘rats’ are deserting the sinking PTI ship. They are seeking safer (perhaps greener) pastures in the embrace of other parties, or some may be considering strengthening the dissidents inside PTI (such as Jahangir Tareen) to fill the void of Imran Khan’s ‘absence’.

However, those who know Imran Khan’s character feel he will not go quietly into the sunset. The danger is that this may trigger even harsher measures against his person and party. There are rumours of him being advised to give it a rest, go abroad and be safe. Let us see what he decides in the face of a seemingly impossible cul de sac into which the PTI has driven itself. In any case, anyone familiar with the political history of Pakistan, especially the see-saw fate of the establishment’s hand-picked ‘candidates’, would be inclined to accept that Imran Khan and the PTI’s day is over. He will never be allowed to return to power, whatever it takes to keep him out. Therein, dear readers, lies perhaps another tale.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Need for a national dialogue

 The situation in our beloved country Pakistan has everyone stressed out and extremely worried. In these circumstances, the felt need is for a national dialogue to grapple with the challenges and suggest ways forward. The national dialogue being suggested can take place online and face-to-face. Friends are requested to respond to the idea and send their thoughts and suggestions.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Editor in Pakistan, ZUVA!, joint quarterly journal of the Pakistan India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Former Editor, Frontier Post, Daily Times.

Business Recorder Column May 16, 2023

PTI’s future?

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The conflict between the two sides of the political elite, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) and the military, the ruling Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and parliament on the one hand and the Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial on the other, all have coalesced in a conjuncture that threatens to tilt the country over the edge into civil strife on an unprecedented scale. Needless to reiterate, the impact on the economy is nothing less than devastating. The damages from the PTI’s violence after Imran Khan’s arrest is still being tallied, but even preliminary estimates point to billions lost.

The SC CJP and the present Islamabad High Court’s (IHC’s) favourable bias towards Imran Khan was on display after he was arrested by the Rangers from the latter’s premises on May 9, 2023. Despite the fact that his supporters, allegedly according to a preconceived plan, attacked public and private property, including the GHQ in Rawalpindi and the Corps Commander’s house in Lahore in an unprecedentedly violent response to the arrest of a political leader. Previously, the PTI workers were charged with violently resisting earlier attempts to arrest Imran Khan from his Lahore residence in Zaman Park. Not only did CJP Bandial open himself to further controversy by his demeanour towards Imran Khan when he appeared in the SC after his arrest, the IHC offered him unprecedented blanket relief of bail in all the cases against him, without troubling itself as to the merits and seriousness of individual cases!

Raids and arrests of hundreds, if not thousands, of PTI leaders and workers, particularly those identified as responsible for the egregious violence throughout the country, are in progress. If the biased superior judiciary does not come to their rescue, the PTI’s ‘protest’ drive may not be sustainable. As it is, two facts are worth noting. One, despite the violence of his supporters after his arrest, the numbers of the protestors countrywide were not impressive. Two, despite Imran Khan’s call for ‘freedom’ protests on May 14, 2023, only a handful of PTI workers and supporters turned out (peacefully, mercifully). In addition, it is one thing mobilising a street demonstration or rally, which can be strengthened by participation from all corners of the country, and translating ostensible support into electoral victory (assuming, of course, a fair and free election).

The PDM has begun a rally before the SC in protest against the bias of the CJP, which may well turn into a sit-in. The National Assembly has passed a resolution and sent to a committee the proposal for moving a reference against CJP Bandial. A more perfect storm between institutions of the state would be hard to imagine. Worried voices calling for sanity and ‘normalisation’ seem to be whistling in the wind, given the state of such many sided conflicts at the heart of politics and the state.

Readers may well be exhausted by the pace of events of the last few days, but even more so by the repetitious nature of the ‘debate’ on who is right and wrong. While desirous of sparing weary readers more repetition, it is perhaps not possible to fully understand what is going on without tracing the main trends and reasons for arriving at the present conjuncture.

Pakistan has been bedevilled over the 75 years of its independent existence by the interventions of the military in politics, aided and abetted by the bureaucracy and the judiciary. This ignoble track record bears recalling. The path, arguably, for Ayub Khan’s military coup in 1958 was paved by the superior judiciary’s ‘doctrine of necessity’, which basically upheld a successful ‘revolution’ (coup) as providing it legitimacy. From there on, Yahya’s takeover when the people rose against Ayub in 1968-69 further deepened the military’s self-anointed ‘right’ to rule, especially after crises broke. Of course, this Yahya bumbling regime lost us half the country and our majority population by refusing to transfer power to Mujibur Rehman, the hands down winner of the1970 general elections, choosing instead the disastrous course of a genocidal military crackdown in East Pakistan, which paved the way for Indian military intervention and the province’s breakaway to emerge as independent Bangladesh. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, installed by a military junta that revolted against Yahya Khan after the 1971 debacle, eventually succumbed to the resistance of a popular movement and was later hanged by Zia’s regime with the collaboration of the superior judiciary. Zia’s darkest rule ended in flames in Bahawalpur, in one of those unresolved mysteries with which Pakistan’s history is replete.

The military was compelled to concede a general election in 1988 and accept (with tremendous strictures on her freedom of policy) Benazir Bhutto as the country’s leader. However, Plan B was already in place in the person of Nawaz Sharif. The 1990s reflect the military’s drive to ‘play’ the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) against each other until both, bloodied but unbowed in exile, signed the Charter of Democracy in 2006 to assert civilian supremacy and resist any attempt to fall victim to the military’s manipulation against each other. This compact outlasted Benazir’s assassination in 2007, resulting in the first peaceful transfer of power through the ballot box from Asif Zardari’s PPP to Nawaz Sharif through the 2013 elections.

The coming together of the two largest mainstream political parties (and their allies) to resist being ‘played’ as in the past by the military, alarmed our deep state, which ‘prepared’ its next pawn: Imran Khan. Unfortunately, as in the past, these ‘pawn’ games have a nasty habit of not turning out quite right with the passage of time and the ‘pawn’s’ installation in power. Forget the past, the most spectacular falling out has been between right-wing, pro-Taliban, populist Imran Khan and his erstwhile mentors and supporters in the military establishment.

It seems obvious, given this background and recent developments, that the military has crossed out Imran Khan’s name from the list of hopefuls aspiring to power. Whether he can still achieve the seemingly impossible by defying, vilifying and physically attacking the military’s institutions, is a conundrum defying confident prediction so far. If not Imran, can the PDM government (with the possible return and rehabilitation of Nawaz Sharif) fit the bill? The fate of the country rests on the for the moment difficult answers to both questions. But the prospects in either case seem not so good when arraigned against the challenges Pakistan now faces.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

My Karachi visit

 I will be in Karachi May 16-21, 2023. Friends wishing to contact me may do so on my cell numbers: 0302 8482737 (operates WhatsApp) & 0333 4216335.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Editor in Pakistan, ZUVA!, joint quarterly journal of the Pakistan India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) (forthcoming)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column April 11, 2023

Institutional meltdown

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The business of writing a weekly column has become increasingly stressful in recent days. One reason for this is the fast, and increasingly speeding up, pace of events. Second, perhaps column writers are forced to repeat the same facts and arguments, an endeavour that risks reader burnout. Nevertheless, all these obstacles notwithstanding, the column beckons.

Pakistan has been witnessing a clash between the institutions of the state. Foremost mention in this regard belongs to the superior judiciary (particularly the Supreme Court or SC) on the one hand, and the executive (federal government) and parliament on the other. The three pillars of the state therefore appear at daggers drawn. The manner in which this conflict is playing out resembles nothing more than a virtual institutional meltdown. At the time of writing these lines, the breaking news is that a joint session of parliament has passed the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Bill 2023, clipping the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial’s suo motu powers and his sole prerogative to set up benches of the apex court, especially in sensitive political cases.

How have things come to such a pass? The explanation is neither easy, nor without twists and turns throughout our history. But if this complex history can be boiled down to its essentials, it is the role of the powerful military establishment and its repeated interventions in politics that all roads lead to. This includes four military dictatorships, and the penchant of the military establishment to create, nurture and bring to power new political leaders since at least General Ziaul Haq’s regime. It is another matter that each time, the cat’s paw sooner or later falls out with its creator, leading to fresh crises that have both similarities and some differences with past such endeavours. To mention in one breath the likes of Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan, despite what appears to be their current ‘fight to the death’, is indicative of this mixed up and down fate of all satraps of the military establishment.

Of course the military establishment’s efforts have received legitimacy for their own seizures of power and the birth of ‘new’ collaborative leaders from our superior judiciary, starting from the infamous ‘doctrine of necessity’ authored by then CJP Munir in the late 1950s to the disqualification and imprisonment of Nawaz Sharif in 2017. Along the way, the superior judiciary can also ‘boast’ of its hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, cooperation with Ziaul Haq’s distortion of Pakistan’s polity and culture through so-called Islamisation, and giving Pervez Musharraf the ‘gift’ of the power to amend the Constitution without even being asked!

Musharraf’s removal of then CJP Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the imposition of an emergency that confined all judges of the superior judiciary who refused to accede to his unconstitutional and illegal dictatorial wishes, gave rise to the Lawyers Movement, demanding the restoration of the judiciary. That did eventually transpire, swallowing up in the process the Musharraf regime. But one unintended consequence of this victory was the growing tendency of the restored judiciary to flex its muscles in matters political. CJP Bandial’s handling of suo motu cases and formation of benches has proved so controversial that the government felt it had no choice but to fight back through parliament. Interestingly, while the government has succeeded in its front foot strategy against the CJP and his handling of the affairs of the apex court, this development may have triggered a change of heart in that the CJP, reluctant all along to accede to the government and other stakeholders’ demand that the full court hear cases pertaining to, for example, the Punjab elections, has reportedly now reached out to his brother judges to try and heal the breach in the ranks of the SC judges.

However, CJP Bandial may have changed tack too late. The government’s (and many observers’) perception that the CJP has proved in practice alleged partiality for Imran Khan and his campaign to keep the country on the hop and destabilised to open up the possibility of him being returned to power, has dealt serious blows to the prestige, dignity and respect of the CJP and indeed the SC as a whole.

In the joint session where the bill clipping the CJP’s powers was passed, speeches made by parliamentarians from the treasury benches (the opposition, such as it was, spent the entire session raising loud slogans while being gathered in front of the Speaker’s dais) argued that political logic and the ground realities made holding elections in Punjab first tantamount to skewing unfairly the prospects of all electoral stakeholders in the federation in the general elections later, given the preponderant weight of Punjab in the parliamentary structure. They therefore argued once again, despite the controversial three-member bench of the SC’s ruling to hold the Punjab elections on May 14, 2023, that all elections, National and provincial Assemblies, be held on the same day. In a separate session, a resolution to this effect was passed by the Senate, the objections of the PTI opposition notwithstanding.

The question of providing Rs 21 billion to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by the federal government on April 10, 2023, as ordered by the SC, could not be resolved so far, and a Ministry of Finance summary regarding the matter has been referred to a National Assembly committee to pore over and decide on the matter. This implies the ECP will be unable to report on it to the SC on April 11, 2023, as ordered. What that will produce is perhaps a subject for another day, another column.

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Column April 4, 2023

 Hanging by a hair’s thread

 

Rashed Rahman

 

As these lines are being written, all eyes are once more fixed on the Supreme Court (SC) hearing on the issue of delaying the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provincial elections beyond the constitutional 90-day limit till October 8, 2023 as decided by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), citing security and financing problems. The SC appears deeply divided as a result of the perceived manner of forming, breaking and reconstituting benches hearing sensitive cases such as the one above. The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government has responded to alleged bias and partisanship in the formation of benches by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial by getting a bill passed by parliament (both houses) restricting the sole jurisdiction of the CJP in the formation of benches, particularly in suo motu notices. Instead, the bill lays down new rules requiring the CJP to constitute benches in consultation with the two most senior judges of the SC. The SC has seldom betrayed the kind of rift in its ranks witnessed today, despite the superior judiciary’s chequered track record in our history, a phenomenon that may make even the new rules difficult to implement. The bill also has introduced an unprecedented clause allowing appeals against suo motu judgements under matters within the purview of Article 184(3) of the Constitution, with retrospective effect. Observers are wont to ascribe this innovation to the government’s desire to appeal against Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification and jail punishment, as well as the desire to review the SC’s interpretation of Article 63 of the Constitution on floor crossing MNAs not being allowed to vote in a no-confidence motion.

It bears reiterating that this situation is the cumulative tipping point of the judicialisation of politics, which has had the consequence of politicising the judiciary (further?). One cannot predict the outcome of the April 3, 2023 SC hearing at this point. The government has criticised the fitful ‘shrinking’ of the bench hearing the case to three judges instead of the original nine. The original nine member bench went through wrenching twists and turns because of some judges’ recusal and dissenting notes feeding into the unending debate whether the SC’s order upholding the 90-day election limit and allowing the President to announce the election dates was passed by a 3-2 majority or failed to pass by a 4-3 majority. The CJP has so far refused to countenance the government’s demand, given this anomalous outcome, for a full court to hear the case to iron out the differences between judges, or allow dissenting judgements to see the clear light of day.

The serious crisis thrown up by these happenings in the apex court reflects an incremental institutional breakdown. The reasons are not hard to seek. When Imran Khan fell out with his facilitators the military establishment in 2021, the vote of no-confidence brought against him unseated his government and replaced it by the (then) opposition’s PDM coalition government headed by Prime Minister (PM) Shahbaz Sharif. According to media reports, Nawaz Sharif from exile in London advised against the no-confidence move, perhaps because he of all the PDM leaders understood the negative political fallout of inheriting Imran Khan’s mismanagement of the economy, in which borrowing 76 percent of all the country’s previous loans since Independence was clearly going to impact Pakistan’s current account and balance of payments deficits. Also, Nawaz Sharif’s reasoning was that Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government should be left in place to complete his full term in order to let him further fall flat on its face in the presence of open conflict with the military establishment. However, Asif Ali Zardari’s anxiety to get the noose of the cases against him off his neck and perhaps the ambition of Shahbaz Sharif (in his brother’s absence) to avail what may be his only chance at the premiership prevailed over Nawaz Sharif’s astute political insight. The result has been the government’s steady and incremental loss of political capital because of the dire state of the economy, back-breaking inflation and increasing unemployment stemming from factory closures because of lack of dollars to open Letters of Credit (LCs) for necessary imports of plant, machinery, parts for assembly and raw materials. Imran Khan has rallied his troops on the street and in the media (mainstream and social) and his narrative is giving the government a run for its money. That is what explains the PTI’s decision to dissolve the Punjab and KP Assemblies where it was in power, calculating that its political momentum would help it secure electoral victories in both provinces as the curtain raiser to victory in the subsequent general elections.

Whatever the outcome of the case in the SC today, the floundering PDM government’s only hope of reversing its flagging fortunes is to seal the IMF deal as soon as possible, opening the door to (increasingly reluctant) other international and bilateral lenders. Between now and the October 2023 general elections, if some relief on the economic front becomes available to the government, it hopes its chances in the electoral contest would improve. However, the jury is still out since there is still many a slip between the cup and the lip.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The April 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The April 2023 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Achin Vanaik: Marxism and Nationalism – I.

2. Kamil Khan Mumtaz: The City and the Poor: Master Plan Lahore Division 2025 – A case study of a Work in Progress.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)