Thursday 25 / April / 2024
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif may have just been provided a massive breather with an out-of-the-blue confession on Friday from Imran Khan, chairman of the opposition Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) and his biggest political rival, about an offshore link to a flat he acquired in Britain in 1983 to evade ‘more than 35 per cent taxes’.
Khan’s admission followed initial denial by the party. The subsequent explanation that it was a legal move — to set up an offshore firm through his earnings which owned the South Kensington flat in London — because he was not a British resident and that ultimately, he sold the flat and brought the money into Pakistan are finer details which will likely be lost in the political din.
Small wonder, Maryam Nawaz, the prime minister’s daughter — facing the heat after her name appeared along with her two brothers in the Panama papers for owning offshore companies — quickly took to Twitter to take a pot shot.
With the hashtag #Hypocrisy, she tweeted: The 'PIONEER' of offshore companies ..... The TRAILBLAZER award goes to Mr. Khan. (sic)
Khan has long caused Sharifs sleepless nights in what is a continuing third term for Maryam’s father. For the first time since unsuccessfully campaigning in 2014 to force Prime Minister Sharif to resign over alleged electoral rigging the previous year that he believes deprived his party of its due, Khan had begun to find willing takers in the parliamentary opposition to crack the whip on the PM.
That Sharif is still to offer an explanation over how his children came to own offshore companies worth millions of dollars and his efforts to dodge all attempts to present the money trail will now surely be taken over by the ruckus over Khan’s deed, fair or foul.
It will particularly lift the spirits of the ruling party, which has slogged for days and weeks to defend the beleaguered PM and prevent any meaningful discourse on the crisis, much less resolution.
Even though the opposition has present a united front, for the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the fear of Khan was palpable in the ranks until now. This was also evident in the PM’s media talk on his way back from Tajikistan last week where he appeared to worry more about Khan, going to the extent of bitterly complaining about how while he had visited Khan to inquire after his health when he was seriously injured in 2013, Khan was continuously trying to create roadblocks for him.
Sharif is unlikely to break a sweat over the rest of the opposition led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of Asif Zardari, the former president. The logic is simple: not only is the PPP signatory to the so-called Charter of Democracy signed by his late spouse and two-time prime minister Benazir Bhutto with Sharif’s PML-N, it is entirely in the interest of the two parties not to dissolve the marriage of convenience to prevent the possibility of a third force (read the military establishment) intervening to their detriment.
Even though technically, the combined opposition is led by the PPP and not Khan’s PTI, the PML-N is comfortable with the arrangement for precisely the reasons enumerated here. The general impression is that Zardari, who has intriguingly stayed mum over Panamagate, is using his trump cards — Khurshid Shah, Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly; and Aitzaz Ahsan, Leader of the Opposition in Senate — to alternately, raise and lower the temperature. He ups it (by using the belligerent Aitzaz) to weaken Sharif politically for his own party’s future prospects, but then goes soft (by using Shah) not to break Sharif completely, to prevent a situation ripe for third party adventure.
So far Khan has continued to stick with the opposition in a notable break from past solo flights. He may yet take an about-turn if he sees a dead-end — much of that will depend on how the PPP-led opposition confronts Sharif when he finally, appears for a much awaited return to the parliament this week.
Despite being a firebrand unsparing of PTI’s political methods in the past, Aitzaz has remained appreciative of Khan’s anti-corruption message being in sync with the popular sentiment. On Friday, he said it was wrong to equate the offshore scam in which the Sharifs are mired with Khan’s own.
Citing that the PTI chairman’s source of income was declared and that he was voluntarily presenting himself for accountability, Aitzaz said, “We demand accountability for all but as our terms (for a judicial commission) dictate, it should start with prime minister and his family.”
But Sharif may feel less pushed after Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali declined to form what he called would be a “toothless” commission based on government’s ToRs to inquire into charges stemming from the Panama leaks. Even though the top adjudicator’s assertion is an indictment of PML-N government’s much criticised terms, Sharif may have heaved a sigh of relief over the unwillingness of the apex court to pursue the matter.
• The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad.
