EDITORIAL: The unfortunate showdown on Tuesday wasn’t as much about what was done as how it was done. Both the manner of PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) Chairman Imran Khan’s arrest – Rangers storming into IHC (Islamabad High Court) premises as opposed to the capital police formally presenting the warrant – and PTI’s reaction – physically attacking military installations instead of concentrating on the Al Qadir Trust case – left a lot to be desired.
The result is that we now find ourselves in a situation where too many lines have been crossed to expect any sort of sanity, already in painfully short supply, to prevail in the political realm all the way to the elections, whenever they are held.
The first order of business, for everybody’s sake, ought to be controlling these protests and ensuring that they remain peaceful. PTI leaders as well as supporters seem convinced that the Al Qadir Trust investigation is merely an eyewash, contrary to the details of the case, and it is the establishment that has decided to go after their chief.
Either way, they must still be made to respect by the PTI second tier leadership, the fine line between genuine protest and breaking the law, attacking and destroying public property and disturbing the people’s peace. And it’s one thing to have issues with the military’s habitual meddling in politics, but it’s quite another to export images of charged protesters, most of them barely out of college, physically destroying army properties to the whole world to see and make fun of.
PTI’s senior leadership, which can be usually found surrounding and echoing Imran Khan, was also conspicuous by its absence in most places and in two places in KPK where the provincial leaders tried to discourage the protesters from violence they were physically manhandled by the protesters and had to flee the scene.
While the protests are getting out of hand the protesters need to be reminded that their chairman never had an issue with the military as a whole, just a few persons that he consistently named and blamed. Now one can bet that neither the government nor the military will easily let go of these attacks, and fresh cases stemming from the rioting will assume a life of their own and divert yet more attention and resources from the real issues at hand.
The sooner it is realised the better it will be that neither the PDM (Pakistan Democratic Movement) alliance nor the powerful military establishment can simply wish the leader of the largest political party out of the bigger picture, no matter how much the latter himself stretches the boundaries of the law.
There are genuine issues in the Al Qadir Trust case that must be addressed, no doubt, and with Imran Khan not cooperating when issued notices and his party tearing the country down upon his arrest, it’s not immediately clear how any progress can be made unless the judiciary takes the lead once again. And that, as we have come to understand only too well, tends to muddy the waters even more instead of clearing them. So, we go round in circles without any tangible result.
Nobody needs to be reminded that the country is, quite literally, on the very brink of bankruptcy and financial ruin. Yet instead of joining hands and heads to get the people out of this crisis, all political parties and now even top institutions are completely consumed by this zero-sum game of power and privilege that has been playing out on the airwaves as well as streets of Pakistan ever since Imran Khan lost the government in a rare, successful vote of no-confidence.
How can we expect the IMF (International Monetary Fund) to bail us out and friendly countries to vouch for us, by committing billions of dollars to shore up our reserves when the people and institutions that hold this country together are at each other’s throats?
Push has indeed come to shove and unfortunately one can say with certainty that this game of thrones will get incrementally uglier till at least one of the principal parties is comfortably out of the way.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023