After Panama Leaves Sharif Govt Defunct, Is Crisis the New Coup?

Now that he has been disqualified under questionable circumstances, will Nawaz Sharif ‘speak his heart’?

Nawaz Sharif has been ousted as Pakistan’s prime minister following the Panama case verdict on Friday.

(Photo: The Quint)

History wasn’t quite made when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was removed from office on Friday. No prime minister in Pakistan’s history has completed a mandated tenure. Sharif’s tenure became the 17th to be cut short in Pakistan’s 70-year history.

Like in decades past, Pakistan now finds itself in a political mess. Yet, the government hasn’t been sent packing, and the ruling party is still in power, and many believe the turmoil isn’t quite existential for the country on the face of it.

The party that Nawaz Sharif heads, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), will elect another prime minister from within its ranks through a parliament that it controls by a large majority.

Can Shehbaz Sharif Be Nawaz’s Successor?

Shehbaz Sharif (centre) along with his brother Nawaz.(Photo Courtesy: @ShehbazSharif/Facebook)

The elections aren’t scheduled for another year – and there is little to no chance of the ruling party willingly calling early elections because based on this set up they stand to gain a large majority in the Senate as well in March 2018 through indirect elections.

The obvious formula would be for Nawaz to bring in his brother Shehbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Pakistan’s most populous province, and its bastion of power, Punjab. He’s a Sharif, and he’s known and accepted. But Friday’s verdict’s most potent fallouts are potentially things that will come to the fore in the next few days.

First, the popular Opposition politician Imran Khan is also facing a similar case in court. This judgement has paved the way for his disqualification too. Then there are other senior ministers and other political leaders who also have similar circumstances as the ousted premier, and Pakistan is looking at a large-scale political purge once rivals line up to take their cases to court. And who benefits from all of this?

Also Read: Panamagate: Nawaz’s Brother Shehbaz Sharif to Be Next Pakistan PM

Political Tumult During Gilani’s Reign

During the election of the new prime minister, the ruling party will kick into high gear an aggressive political campaign that will lead to the 2018 elections. The nature of this campaign will be telling. When the Pakistan Peoples Party government became, in 2013, the first democratically-elected set up to complete a full five-year tenure, there was a general belief that Pakistan’s democratic system had finally taken root after six decades of enforced premature endings.

However, that historic feat was laced with political tumult that indicated that all was not well just yet. While the PPP had completed a five-year tenure, its prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani did not.

After facing a number of crises in the form of stand-offs with Pakistan’s military establishment – over issues ranging from anti-terror efforts to normalising relations with India – Gilani was disqualified by the country’s top court four years and two months into his tenure, and his Cabinet was sent packing.

The skeptics predicted a new trend: While the system would remain and not be uprooted entirely, it would face constant tumult.

Crisis is the new coup.

If everyone didn’t buy that line amidst the celebrations, they would take note a year later in 2014, a year into the new government of Mian Nawaz Sharif, when the capital was hijacked by a four-month-long political dharna by Opposition party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf. Those four months were of constant tumult.

Nawaz survived, but only due to a national tragedy in the form of the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar.

One of Nawaz Sharif’s senior ministers directly blamed the then ISI chief for orchestrating the dharna – something that many in the party said privately, but not publically. Nawaz chose the path of non-confrontation and sacked the minister instead, as an olive branch.

The Panama Disclosure

Then came the ‘Panama Leaks’ case.

The case was not without controversy – most specifically the investigations by a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) constituted by the court.

The court ordered that it would decide the constitution of the six-member JIT – two of whom raised the most eyebrows; a Brigadier each from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence.

To add to the astonishment of putting military officials into a financial trial was the civilian-led intelligence body, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), being left out.

Tellingly, the two members that were ultimately picked from the ISI and the MI were the very same who were involved in another important investigation: The leaking of a story about the Nawaz Sharif government pressing the military establishment to crack down on anti-India militants that had long found safety in mainland Pakistan. That story was said to have been leaked by the government to embarrass the military establishment and put pressure on them – which caused great resentment within the rank and file.

Time for Sharif to ‘Speak His Heart’?

Then came reports that the JIT had been effectively been taken over by the ISI in terms of its operations and report-making.

It didn’t bode well for the premier.

Ultimately, no corruption was proven, but the JIT came up with a previous work permit that Nawaz Sharif held to travel to the UAE unhindered during his exile years (but which hadn’t expired until a year after he took office in 2013). That work permit, or iqama, showed a salary of UAE Dh10,000 (3,00,000 PKR or Rs 1,82,500).

Just days ago, the prime minister had called this entire investigation a “puppet act,” not mentioning who the ‘puppeteer’ was. He promised to speak his heart when the moment arrived. Now that he has been disqualified under questionable circumstances, has the moment come?

And what will this moment mean for Pakistan’s fragile civil-military relations?

That, in the end, will determine how historic the prime minister’s disqualification will be.

(Gibran Peshimam is a Pakistani journalist. He is a former fellow of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. He tweets @gibranp. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses, nor is responsible for the same.)

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