Ours is a vibrant democracy with a vigorous free press. Agreed, but how unbelievable it is that an elected parliament has demanded an elected prime minister refuse to implement the country’s apex court’s verdict through which the latter has declared the unconditional notification of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) void and fixed May 14 as new date for Punjab assembly elections.

A deeper reading of the resolution adopted by the lower house of parliament clearly shows that the legislators have gone too far this time, so to speak.

How ironic it is that they are assailing the apex court and urging it to review its decision made by a CJP-led three-member bench in the same breath.

Little do they know that you can’t have the cake and eat it. The growing political uncertainty in the midst of economic meltdown had clearly suggested some deeper deterioration in the situation, the country will come to such a pass is highly disappointing nevertheless.

What are we doing with Quaid’s Pakistan? What are we doing with ourselves as well? All political parties, in my view, are equally responsible for the current political turmoil in the country. They have been acting irresponsibly for only one reason: power. They are not much bothered about the economic slide that the country is facing.

That the apex court may have erred in the past is a fact. Some of the decisions made by it hurt the country’s social, political and economic progress.

Having said that, I have a question for our politicians to answer: what did they do when the Supreme Court led by the then CJP Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry caused irreparable harm to the country’s economic prospects through its highly unjust verdicts on Reko Diq and Pakistan Steel? They did nothing because those verdicts didn’t undermine their quest for power and pelf.

Savera Kaleemullah (Islamabad)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023