Daily Times
The Rot Intensifies
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
PTI’s spectacular triumph in the by-elections of Punjab—where it bagged 15 out of 20 Provincial Assembly at stake—amply vindicates the party gurus’ claim that Imran Khan (IK) has awakened the sleeping giant of public opinion across Pakistan.
What IK couldn’t do in his three-and-a-half years in power as Pakistan’s popularly elected leader, he has done as the man out in political wilderness. Those who’d engineered IK’s fall from power and thumbed their noses at his claim of Tabdili (Transformation) have reason to feel egg on their faces. The spontaneity and enthusiasm of the people of Pakistan’s response to IK’s clarion call to save their country from a mafia of known plunderers and looters is fully reflected in the outcome of the Punjab Assembly by-elections.
For all intents and purposes, IK has arrived where the architects of the coup against him—and the motley gang of jaded politicians with criminal credentials, saddled with the task of justifying IK’s removal from the scene—least expected him. Used to seeing disgraced politicos, such as Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, turning their tail in and quickly disappearing into the fog of overseas sanctuaries, it must be a new experience for these traditional kingmakers of Pakistan that IK not only stood his ground but catapulted himself—through sheer dint of labor and personal charisma—to the pinnacle of people’s popularity as their undisputed leader.
IK’s impressive victory at the polls, on July 17, came despite a powerful cabal of PDM politicians—with the ‘Establishment’ standing four squares behind them—doing all sorts of dirty tricks to intimidate and bamboozle the electorate voting for PTI candidates. The Punjab bureaucracy and police—long been in hog to their PML-N political masters—has had more than its fair share to create hurdles and obstacles in the way of PTI sympathizers. Last, but not least, a partisan Election Commission, unabashedly tied to the apron strings of the Sharifs, left no stone unturned to doctor the outcome of the poll.
Measured against all this paraphernalia of hostile forces arrayed against him, PTI’s performance at the polls is nothing short of spectacular, which has even forced a loud-mouthed and theatrical nemesis of IK, like Maryam Nawaz, to concede victory to him and accept her party’s ignominious defeat.
However, IK’s thumping victory quickly spawned a flip side of it. Within 24 hours of it, Karachi Stock Exchange, the proverbial barometer of Pakistan’s economic health, or indisposition, shed, in a matter of early trading hours, more than six thousand points.
Much more spectacularly, the poor Pakistani Rupee—under constant pressure since the current ruling mafia ascended to power three months ago—plummeted to Rs. 224 to One US dollar, a plunge of more than 8 rupees from its par exchange rate of 24 hours ago, vis-a-vis the dollar. US dollar was trading at Rs 178 when IK’s government was ousted last April 10; it has climbed by 46 rupees in three months.
All these powerful economic indicators speak volumes of gross economic mismanagement of the mafia and reinforces IK’s narrative that Shahbaz and his gang of shaded politicians have been tasked to engineer the demise of Pakistan’s moribund economy, as per the script written by IMF, which the gang has been following to the hilt.
The steep decline in the value of Pakistani rupee, vis-a-vis the dollar, owes more to the uncertainty of IMF’s promised Holy Grail landing in Pakistan’s hungry lap. It’s obvious that the IMF is playing hide and seek with Pakistan, whose corrupt ruling clique is slave to its diktats. So, to drain out whatever nominal self-respect this pack of rulers may have had, IMF has been incessantly moving the goal post—of dos and don’ts for the puppets at the end of its string.
But the ruling clique in Islamabad seems, apparently, ill-prepared to stomach the humiliation inflicted on it by IK and his PTI in the Punjab by-elections. The meeting of PDM heavy-weights, the morning after, in Islamabad decided not to give in to the demand—now echoing from every corner of Pakistan—to call fresh general elections in order to let the people of Pakistan choose the party and the leader to lead them out of the overwhelming crisis of confidence.
The visuals of the PDM stalwarts, beaming from mouth to mouth and slapping each other’s knuckles in schoolboys’ banter, must have been disgusting to the people of Pakistan, crushed under a mountain of spiraling cost of living. They have not had a moment of relief in three months since the current cabal has been in the saddle in Islamabad.
It’s not only that Shahbaz & Co. have decided to hang on to the power given to them as prize for their willingness to subvert IK’s government, but the cabal also seems intent to not spare any trick to disrupt a peaceful transfer of power in Punjab, where Shahbaz’ son has been ruling the roost, courtesy of Pakistan’s master political engineers.
The plan is to deny PTI’s candidate for Punjab CM, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, the benefit of the magical figure of 188 MPPs in his corner. This figure of 188 members has been attained by PTI as a result of its daunting triumph in the by-elections. But instead of accepting defeat with grace and bow out, Hamza is enlisting the help of Rana Sanaullah, to doctor a situation that may deny PTI the presence of its elected MPAs, in full strength, on July 22, the day mandated by the apex court for the election of Punjab’s next CM.
Rana is the man who had let loose the Punjab Police on PTI’s peaceful marchers on May 25. He’s in the habit of shooting his mouth. Every time that he does it, it’s in the lingo of a street thug warning his quarries of dooms day scenario. He’s threatening the ‘disappearance’ of some of the elected PTI MPAs. Those knowing the man and his fame have learned to not take his bombastic lightly.
But what’s perplexing to even a casual observer, not to mention a grazed, jaded pundit, of the Pakistani political scene is that the all-powerful and omniscient ‘Establishment’ of Pakistan is turning a blind eye at these antics. This nonchalance of the powers-that-be to give their favorites a free run of the field and try tighten the screws on IK and his followers, is a dangerous ploy. It’s fraught with myriad imponderables and outcomes.
IK’s most spectacular achievement—so graphically translated at the by-elections of Punjab—is that he has made the erstwhile ‘silent majority’ fully conscious and aware of their inner strength in the country’s democratic context. It’s their ‘Will’ that’s supreme, as enshrined in the preamble of Pakistan’s Constitution. They, the people, are the masters of their polity and not those who have arrogated this right to themselves in the erroneous belief that the barrel of a gun is the font of all power.
Anyone among the core elite of the ‘establishment’ with claims that their love for Pakistan outshines anybody else’s, ought to do only one thing: prevail upon the ruling mafia in Islamabad to hang their gloves and let the people of Pakistan decide who should manage their affairs and lead them. Let the people’s voice and their supreme will be heard. - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com (The writer is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
