Is Panamagate the Final Nail in Nawaz Sharaf’s Coffin?

The Pakistan Supreme Court has disqualified Nawaz Sharif as Prime Minister over the Panama Papers verdict.

(With the Supreme Court disqualifying Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif due to allegations levelled against him in Panamagate, Sharif’s political fate hangs in balance even as Pakistan is fraught with a constitutional crisis. This article was first published on 14 July 2017. It is being reposted from the The Quint’s archives in light of the charges against Sharif and his family.)

For the third time, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif might not complete his term.

In 1993, he was dismissed by the president over allegations of corruption, restored by the Supreme Court, only to step down after being persuaded by the army chief. Two years into his second stint as prime minister, he was ousted in the 1999 coup by another army chief, General Pervez Musharraf.

Also Read: Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif Refuses to Resign Over Panama Probe

Third Time Unlucky?

This time, he’s had four years as Prime Minister, but the third time is proving as unlucky. In corruption scandals, numbers are important. But when it comes to politics, it is the abstractions and machinations of history.

Last April, the leak of 11 million documents held by the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca featured the Prime Minister’s two sons and daughter – Hussein, Hassan and Maryam – who were listed as beneficiaries for three offshore companies registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

They were amongst nearly 400 Pakistanis named in the Panama papers, except the opposition insisted – rightly so – that investigations begin with the Prime Minister and his family.

Joint Investigation Team Report

Nawaz Sharif’s opponent-in-chief, Imran Khan and his party, doggedly pursued the matter until the Supreme Court took it up late last year. Several months of daily hearings later, the top court ordered the formation of a joint investigation team (JIT) to answer thirteen questions in order to establish whether the Prime Minister had lied to the public about his assets, and if he and his family had laundered money out of the country by misusing the public office. The six-member JIT was given sixty days.

In these sixty days, the Prime Minister, his brother, sons and daughter, a cousin, and sundry other characters have been questioned, documents summoned and forensic experts hired.

The JIT’s report was released on 10 July.

It tells a fantastic tale that spans Lahore, Doha, Dubai, Jeddah and London; of a Qatari sheikh, the ill-timed use of a font to allegedly forge a trust deed, a grandfather’s will, a business partner and maternal uncle whom no one from the family has met, and an offshore company in the Prime Minister’s name presumably to facilitate visas to the UAE.

Conspiracy Against Democracy?

Pakistan has heard parts of this story already during hearings, while the new details have been fodder for memes and the news media.

However, more important is the political damage. A tainted PM is being called upon to resign, not just by the opposition, but by several neutral analysts and editorials of respected newspapers.

So far, Nawaz Sharif and his party have dug in their heels – “the report is rubbish... this is a conspiracy against democracy and the prime minister will not resign,” they say. Next Monday onwards, the Supreme Court will set a course of action: hear objections to the report and decide whether to disqualify the prime minister, order further investigations or initiate criminal proceedings.

In a normal, functional democracy, holding an elected official accountable would be an excellent thing, to be celebrated. But in Pakistan, as with corruption cases, the numbers don’t always add up.

Also Read: Bigots in Pakistan and India Follow a Similar Template of Hatred

Military Establishment and the Panama Case?

So, a few are raising alarm bells. In an interview to an international media organisation human rights activist and lawyer Asma Jehangir said,

You can’t see the Panama Papers case in isolation. It is not about accountability. The question of accountability, in my opinion, should be that when Nawaz Sharif was close to the military establishment, why were the courts so lenient with him? Now when Sharif is no longer close to that establishment, they are acting against him.

Asma Jehangir, Human Rights Activist and lawyer

What does the military establishment have to do with the Panama case? Some have wondered why ISI and Military Intelligence (MI) officials needed to be on the JIT. Just before the report was released, lawyer Babar Sattar wrote in his op-ed:

Would it not have been splendid if in this process of accountability of an elected PM (on the basis of the efforts of the PTI, the main opposition party, through a process run by the Supreme Court) one could trace no khaki footprint? Given our constitutional history, civ-mil imbalance and continuing calls for controlled democracy etc, could this process not have been run without the ISI and MI?

Lawyer Babar Sattar in an editorial

Falling House of Sharifs

The House of Sharifs tumbling like a house of cards will please many for whom politics is personal, who harbor a visceral hatred for Nawaz Sharif – political rivals with historical axes to grind, retired military men who claim Sharif is Modi’s yaar, middle-class voters disgusted by the Sharif family’s dodgy businesses.

But will Pakistan’s fragile democratic system, pitted with intrigues, be strengthened or weakened by this fresh round of instability?

(Amber Shamsi is a multi-media journalist who has worked for international and national media organisations as a reporter and on the editorial desk. She currently hosts a news and current affairs show on Dawn TV. She can be reached on Twitter @AmberRShamsi. 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.)

Also Read: Maryam Nawaz Sharif: ‘Mughal Princess’ or Future Pakistan PM?

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