Imran deserves credit for choking corruption

Of course any crackdown on corruption in Pakistan, whenever it came, was going to be “selective,” just as the opposition is finding out. But that is not to say that accountability, etc., should not be across-the-board, even-handed, and all that. Or that the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) does not have its fair share of corrupt turncoats and Prime Minister Imran Khan does not have a habit of going back on his word.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Across-the-board is definitely the ideal to be aimed at, but how exactly is it going to happen? And who is going to do it? It’s not going to be our politicians. They only time they matter is when they jump ship in large numbers and rally around the most likely next PM, unless they are bending over backwards to get on the right side of a dictator, whenever the brass is running the show.

Judges? Not very likely. Save the two obsessive compulsive suo motto chief justices recently, they have been a meek lot. And even these cowboys readily green-lighted military takeovers under the doctrine of necessity, whatever that means.

Imran is a stranger story. For all his faults, he’s never been financially corrupt, so he always stood out among Pakistani politicians. And he made no secret of going after the two most powerful, richest and most corrupt — yes, everybody knows it — political dynasties in the country; the Sharifs and Bhutto-Zardaris. So what, at least in his point of view, if he had to surround himself with former Sharif/Bhutto-Zardari loyalists, not as corrupt as their former bosses, to hold the biggest fish accountable first? Put that under necessary evil. If you can’t get to the top, you just can’t squeeze the most corrupt, can you?

Now this is a dangerous thing to say, especially in the politically correct confines of the international press, but I’ll still stick my neck out and say that it’s good that Sharif and Zardari, at least, are sweating. There’s no way really that the Panama Papers would have spelled Nawaz’s downfall if Imran hadn’t pushed it to the point of hysteria. You don’t have to look too far back to remember that Pakistan’s Supreme Court first dismissed the idea of trying Nawaz for Panama as “frivolous.” Or that Khwaja Asif — power, defence and foreign minister at different times during the last Pakistan Muslim League –Nawaz (PMLN) government — advised Nawaz not to worry because “everybody will forget this, like everything else, in a few days.”

But it soon turned out that the Sharif family was routing millions in unaccounted for (black) money through at least three continents and bringing it back whiter than milk. In the process Nawaz enriched his children, bought prime real estate in the UK and built himself a city of a palace on the outskirts of Lahore. It’s for this reason that he’s going to be in the slammer for quite a while and his sons, who didn’t even turn up for his defence, are declared proclaimed offenders with warrants out for their arrest. Put simply, nobody could explain how the Sharifs have managed to live beyond their means ever since they began holding political offices.

And a similar noose is tightening around Zardari. Only, according to the JIT (Joint Investigation Team) report submitted to the chief justice and leaked to the Press, his corruption is even more devious. From forcefully acquiring state enterprises at throwaway prices to advancing state subsidies to his firms, to fake bank accounts holding billions of rupees to a nexus of politicians, bankers, leading lawyers and businessmen, it’s a you-name-it-they-did-it kind of scam that’s left jaws dropping everywhere. Still wondering how they acquired those hotels in London and chateaus in Paris?

It’s nowhere near across-the-board, yes, but it does get the ball rolling. And it nails those responsible for the biggest ruin of the exchequer in the last three decades. Little wonder, really, that the national debt exploded just as these families became among the richest in the world.

One can understand just why the opposition is up in arms about their leaders being rounded up by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and staring long prison sentences in the face. But of late this trend has also extended to mainstream media, with journalists routinely asking for a wider reach of the law.

Nobody, not even the few happy with what has happened so far, expect the anti-corruption drive to touch PTI anytime soon. But there is the feeling that even if Imran can’t build institutions or keep the economy from going to hell, he’d still have done the country a great service if he helps send those that looted it with both hands packing forever before he bows out.

It’s nowhere near across-the-board, yes, but it does get the ball rolling. and it nails those responsible for the biggest ruin of the exchequer in the last three decades.