PM Shahbaz’ recent pilgrimage to Qatar was also part of the script to spawn a salubrious political clime for Nawaz’ second-coming to the Land of the Pure

 

Fascism Galore in Mafia Land
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

One social media commentator summed it up so well: let the honorable judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan padlock their court, as well as all other courts of law in Pakistan, and put a notice outside each locked door, ‘Henceforth, this land of Pakistan will need no courts; because it’s a country without laws of any kind.’

The social media guru’s acerbic comment was prompted by a brazenly provocative act of disparagement of the Constitution and laws of Pakistan. On August 28, a disgraced Nawaz Sharif—who was removed from the office of PM of Pakistan under a verdict of the apex court that found him unfit to hold any elected office under the Constitution of Pakistan; who was sentenced to serve a prison term for corruption, and who is a proclaimed offender and fugitive under the laws of Pakistan—was allowed to appear on PTV and speak, live, from his hideout in London, to his fans and followers.

PEMRA, the official watchdog and regulatory authority tasked with responsibility to ensure compliance with the law, watched the whole spectacle and moved no finger. This PEMRA is the one that proscribed ARY, the largest television network of Pakistan, from airing its telecast because it was considered in error for carrying a supposedly culpable statement of Dr Shahbaz Gill, a right-hand man and chief-of-staff of PTI Chief and former PM, Imran Khan (IK).

It’s the same PEMRA that proscribed live transmission of IK’s Telethon, on August 29. Notwithstanding PEMRA’s mischief, IK did splendidly well in his telethon, raising more than 550 million Pakistani rupees, in a matter of two hours, from overseas Pakistanis, for his flood relief work.

What has raised hackles among the social media vigilantes is the total lack of any notice from the Supreme Court of the brazen defiance of its edict by Nawaz Sharif and cronies. Of course, the machinery of the present governing mafia, ruling the roost, in Islamabad was complicit in the sordid affair. It’s inconceivable that PTV, owned by the government, could have extended the facility of live telecast to a fugitive of law and proclaimed offender without a nod from the Information Ministry, presided over by the daughter of an erstwhile maid servant of the Sharif clan.

It’s the same apex court which had opened its shop at mid-night, four months ago, when the conspiracy to unseat IK was in its final act. The Honorable Chief Justice of the apex court was, on that occasion, extra-alert and vigilant to take suo motu notice of an alleged violation of the Constitution by the then Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly.

So, the people of Pakistan—whose sole vehicle of expression in an increasingly despotic culture of governance under the current power mafia in Islamabad is the social media—are entitled to ask the question: why is the apex court so insensitive to open violation of its own edict by a disgraced politician—a fugitive and a proclaimed offender? Social media vigilantes voicing popular sentiment of the people of Pakistan are right in suggesting that courts of law better be padlocked, since they are no longer able to sit in judgment over the shenanigans and mischiefs of offenders.

But to those knowing the building rocks of the Pakistani edifice of power know, for a fact, where the root of the problem is.

Nawaz Sharif, a criminal on the lam absconding from the reach of law in Pakistan, has the green light from his patron-saint power holders to be heard live on PTV and other ‘loyal’ television channels. Who cares if it’s in gross violation of the apex court’s verdict. The power-barons have enough clout to ensure that there will be no squeak of protest, or murmur of any activity, from any court of law.

Silencing a pesky news media is a lynchpin of the plan to rehabilitate Nawaz Sharif and bring him back to Pakistan as an alternative to IK. Never mind the present hurdles—legal and constitutional—in the way to accomplish this diabolical blueprint. The swaggering power holders have adequate muscle power to muzzle the media and bend a toothless judicial system.

Puppet PM Shahbaz’ recent pilgrimage to Qatar was also part of the script to spawn a salubrious political clime for Nawaz’ second-coming to the Land of the Pure.

On his return from Doha, Shahbaz had the gall to hoodwink the nation with rosy news. He claimed Qatar would ‘invest’ three billion dollars in Pakistan. Nonsense. Baloney. What Shabaz didn’t share with the people of Pakistan are the terms of this promised ‘investment.’ He has put the Islamabad Airport as a collateral for the ‘investment.’ More damaging to Pakistan is the lease to Qatar of the prime Roosevelt Hotel, owned by PIA, in Manhattan, New York. That property, alone, is worth much more than the measly three billion dollars for which two prized national assets of Pakistan are being bartered.

The unprecedented deluge of biblical rains and floods in Pakistan may be used as god-sent by the ruling mafia to brush aside any suggestion for early general elections in Pakistan. The alibi of floods—and the havoc wreaked by them—couldn't be more logical.

There are already murmurs of gossip of an impending ‘Emergency’ imposed on the country, for which the floods and damage wrought by them would come in so handy.

But IK’s surging popularity and massive welcome approval at the level of the people of Pakistan could still throw spanners in the works of the power-barons. Pakistan’s macabre political drama may still come up with an Alfred Hitchcock-like denouement. Hold on to the edge of your seats, people.

- K_K_ghori@hotmail.com

(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)