The JIT’s findings have dealt a severe blow to the Sharif family. The JIT framed serious charges against the prime minister and his children. Even though the prime minister had previously managed to survive in the Supreme Court, he is likely to emerge bruised, both morally and politically, and the charges framed in the JIT report will continue to haunt him. The hostile media and his political opponents will have enough ammunition to undermine his political legitimacy.
The Supreme Court will decide the political fate of the prime minister and his children. If the JIT’s report is implemented partially or in its entirety by the apex court, the Nawaz era will come to an end. The PML-N needs to seriously rethink its legal strategy. A flawed strategy has already landed its leaders in this volatile and tough situation. They failed to understand the gravity of the issue and adopted a casual approach. Now, they are paying the price. They find themselves in this situation because they underestimated the strength of their opponents and overestimated their own.
One thing is clear. The Supreme Court can disqualify the prime minister and bar him from holding any public office in future. But can the Supreme Court make him a political dead horse through the judgment? If the process of accountability will be stopped after the conviction of Nawaz Sharif, the perception of political victimisation and conspiracy will be strengthened.
The PML-N is already building a political narrative of victimisation and conspiracy. If the Supreme Court accepts the basic principle of accountability that everybody living beyond his or her known means is corrupt, they should also apply it to judges, civil and military officers, businessmen and politicians across the board. There should be no sacred cows.
Corruption is undoubtedly one of the major issues faced by the people. The police, the revenue department, the lower judiciary and various government departments are involved in corruption, nepotism, wrongdoings and the misuse of authority. Both small and medium-sized businesses and comparatively larger ones are busy making money from all the means that are available to them.
Traders and businessmen do not want to pay taxes and prefer to engage in unregulated and unregistered business activities so that they can avoid taxes. State officials create unnecessary hurdles to mint money from the people.
Corruption, tax evasion and money laundering has come back into the limelight. Both sides are embroiled in hypocritical mudslinging and have made accusations against each other through the media. The bourgeois politicians and their parties are exposing each other in the eyes of the working classes. There is a strong perception among various segments of the population that Pakistan’s corrupt and reactionary ruling classes are enriching themselves at the expense of millions of impoverished people.
Rampant corruption is a symptom of an ailing system, which is repressive, exploitative and inadequate and has malfunctioned over time. Corruption cannot be rooted out from this system without making radical and revolutionary changes in it. No mainstream party wants to make such changes in the system. All these parties want to use the slogans of a corruption-free Pakistan and accountability to fool the poor. The state has also used this slogan to malign and discredit the politicians while politicians have also maligned each other. Now the question is whether the ouster of Nawaz Sharif will automatically end corruption. The answer is a simple no.
No one can support corruption and corrupt practices by the government institutions, politicians, the civil and military bureaucracy, traders, businessmen and industrialists. But there is no serious will or effort on the part of politicians and the establishment to tackle this issue. If all sides are willing to start across-the-board accountability, they should form an independent and permanent commission to stop bribery, corrupt practices and the misuse of authority and probe all the allegations of corruption, tax evasion, loan write-offs, kickbacks and money laundering once and for all.
Starting a genuine, independent and impartial across-the-board accountability process in an institutionalised manner without having sacred cows is the need of the hour. This is the time for politicians and civilian rulers to prove that they want to strengthen democracy and rule of law and make this system accountable and transparent.
Politicians have failed to form an independent and credible commission to start across-the-board accountability as per the Charter of Democracy. The present situation arises from this failure.
This reflects another power struggle between different factions of the corrupt and parasitic elite. They are fighting with each other to safeguard their own interests. It also indicates a power struggle between two factions of the elite. One faction wants to cling to power while the other wants to replace it. The working class has yet to enter the political arena as a political force. Once the working class starts to express itself within the political arena through a mass movement, it will mark the beginning of the end — not only for corruption but also the exploitative and repressive system as a whole.