The return of Ishaq Dar to Pakistan - Business Recorder

 

Is It still the ‘Land of the Pure’?
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

 

The return of Ishaq Dar to Pakistan—after more than five years in self-exile in the UK--almost completes the conspiracy that was hatched earlier this year.

Ishaq Dar, aka ‘Dollar Dar’ for his shady exploits as Finance Minister under Nawaz Sharif, who’s also related to him through matrimonial bonds, was the one who had confessed to the apex court—when he was investigated for money- laundering—to have laundered millions of dollars for Nawaz.

However, in keeping with the arcane tradition of Pakistan’s polluted political culture—where no crook with political clout has ever been held accountable—Dar managed to flee Pakistan in style. He availed of the luxury of then PM, Raja Pervez Ashraf’s official plane to travel to London. He remained comfortably ensconced there for nearly six years—just as his mentor, Nawaz, has for nearly three years, so far.

While in self-imposed exile, Dar became a proclaimed offender as a fugitive from law. Courts in Pakistan issued non-bailable ‘perpetual’ warrants against him. But that didn’t ruffle his feathers, at all. He bided his time in anticipation of better climes to come. Those salubrious winds were ushered in last April when IK’s government was toppled.

Dar has come back in similar style as he’d decamped from Pakistan. This time around, he travelled on the official aircraft of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and landed not on Islamabad airport but at a military base on the fringes of the capital city.

This VVIP return, in elegant style, of a fugitive of law didn’t surprise those pundits who know, for a fact, how corrugated and corrupt Pakistani politics has become in the months since IK’s un-ceremonial fall from power. But to the novice and casual observer of the scene, it should be an eye-opener. The influential and powerful, with the right connections in politics, can get away with white murder, no question asked. Dar has done just that, thumbing his nose at all those shouting ‘foul’ at his return in violation of the laws of the land.

But Dar wasn’t done just thumbing his nose at his nemeses. To rub salt into their wounds, he went straight to the Senate to claim his seat in that august chamber. Another wonder of wonders—possible only in Pakistan, where else—he was elected to the upper chamber of the Pakistani Parliament, in absentia, while on the lam in London.

Much against the howling protests of his fellow Senators from IK’s PTI, he was given his oath of office to a Senate seat to which he was elected four years ago. And he wasn’t going to stop just at reclaiming his Senate seat. He became the new Finance Minister, replacing the much-lambasted Miftah Ismail. Miftah has become the

proverbial sacrificial lamb to Dar being once again anointed as ‘Dollar Dar’ and czar of Pakistan’s economic fortunes.

Dar’s controversial return home proves a well-known (to pundits) maxim of Pakistan’s mind-boggling political culture: law of the land is no impediment to one who enjoys patronage of the powerful. Those in Pakistan who may have lost sight of this rule of thumb have just been provided a reminder of this being still the Delphic truth. Those very courts which had the audacity to issue ‘perpetual’ and non-bailable warrants have meekly withdrawn those warrants, paving the way for ‘Dollar Dar’ to return to his green pastures in Pakistan and lay claim to them, once again, like the Biblical Prodigal Son returning to his heritage.

Dar is a principal confidant and cohort of the godfather of what the apex court had the gall to call the ‘Sicilian mafia’ of Pakistan. Don Nawaz, the godfather, has been calling the shots of the government, nay the robber-barons, installed in Islamabad. Shehbaz Sharif, the junior mafioso keeping the seat of power warm in the absence of his big-brother, can’t take a decision on his own; he must clear it, in advance, with the Sicilian mafia’s godfather, comfortably ensconced in his plush hide-out in London.

The return of the godfather is the big prize that the imposters in Islamabad and their patrons and mentors in the power-corridors are after. The agenda given to the puppets wouldn’t be complete until the mafia Don returns from his devious and deceitful exile in London. Shehbaz was there—on the excuse of attending the Queen’s funeral—to get directions from his big-brother on how to go about it.

But there are still some legal impediments that must be smoothed out before the Don feels comfortable in returning to the scene of his myriad crimes. It would be a hard act for the apex court to eat its own words and declare Nawaz kosher for leadership. Even though Pakistan, the so-called ‘Land of the Pure’ has been overly polluted, the apex court may still have a residue of morals—howsoever miniscule—to feel embarrassed in sanctifying the sins of a known offender. - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com

(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)