Pakistan’s democracy needs to mature
akistan’s Honourable Supreme Court judges’ verdict about the Panama papers is a slap in the face to all those politicians who like to use the court’s platform for their own grudges. The court believes in proper documents and proof of money. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders proved nothing in court. Actually, the Panama papers were not a case for the court, but an issue for parliament.
If Imran Khan had common sense about politics, he would have never gone to court regarding the Panama papers. Khan is an athlete without sportsmanship and politics is far away from him. Democracy is still lagging behind in Pakistan where a rubber stamp parliament exists. The morale in parliament has decreased and now public enthusiasm about voting will also be affected. Khan is politically immature and this has been proven time and again. If he gave importance to parliament and fought within and outside parliament for Panama papers, then maybe the result would have been different. Khan has lost another opportunity and his decision will haunt the PTI in the 2018 elections.
Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will get another opportunity to grab and fill the gap created by Khan’s immature politics. Unfortunately, PPP is lacking vision and they have very few spokespersons and have lost moral ground in the Sindh province of Pakistan due to bad governance. In this whole situation, the public’s belief in elections and leadership of political parties will further suffer. Our political parties and their leadership have lost moral ground. At this stage, an early election will save the face of politics and political parties. The government has lost the moral ground, but who cares about the morality? Our political leaders’ morals are resting in deep freezers!
Politicians have made judges more controversial. I request that judges take care of regular cases and dispense justice to common people. Thousands of cases are pending and no one is giving any attention to governance.
The reader is a freelance writer based in Karachi, Pakistan.