IT was essentially a battle for the demarcation of territory. The prime minister, the president and the chief justice of Pakistan dug deep into their trenches and aimed their guns at each other.Ironically, it was a man trained for warfare who waved a white flag and called for truce.
Despite a huge, historic mandate, prime minister Nawaz Sharif demonstrated that to survive he had to send an SOS to the chief of army staff, General Jehangir Karamat, to bail out his government. But for how long? "Nawaz Sharif's mandate seems to have evaporated into thin air. Is it because the mandate was fake and did not exist in reality? Or is it because the trustees were too immature for the mandate? Sharif cannot govern, nor can he lead, nor does he know the way," wrote the Muslim, an Islamabad-based English newspaper, a day after Sharif took two steps backward after taking one forward in his now familiar and typical style of executing a volte-face.
As the nation was taken on a suicidal mission, it was clear that even after 50 years of Independence the race was essentially among four entities—Parliament, the presidency, the judiciary and the armed forces—each out to prove that it was more powerful than the other. The way things stand, it seems it will take decades of such gruelling exercises before they can mark out their territory and allow parliamentary democracy to function in Pakistan.
The week saw chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah pull out one card after another which had Sharif and his government dancing to his tune. Sajjad ensured that Sharif would appear in court as an accused in the contempt case on November 17. While he did so, the same evening Sharif hit back by getting the National Assembly to amend the contempt law. The amendment allows an appeal against a conviction in a contempt case before the full bench of the Supreme Court. The Senate too passed it the next day and it was sent to President Farooq Leghari to be signed. This was to be an escape route for Sharif in case of a conviction by the court.
But to add to Sharif's miseries, Leghari, openly siding with the chief justice, sat over the proposed amendment. He could legitimately do this since the Constitution allows him 30 days to sign it into law. This is something the legal eagles of the Sharif government had not reckoned with. On November 19, the court stayed the president from signing the amendment into law. The same day, with Sharif once again present in court, the five-judge bench hearing the case ordered framing of charges against the prime minister and 11 others. If convicted, Sharif could face disqualification from Parliament.
By November 20, it was obvious that the situation was getting out of hand. Failing to counter the judiciary through the amendment in the contempt law, an embattled Sharif and his cabinet decided to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president and privilege proceedings against Sajjad Ali Shah, which would have entailed summoning him to Parliament.
The previous day, General Karamat, who was away to England and Turkey on an official tour, cut short his visit and had rushed back to Pakistan. He stepped straight into the breach. He met with Sharif, following which the latter relented and soon after the government put off the move to impeach Leghari and start privilege proceedings against the chief justice. A cabinet member was quoted by the English daily The News as saying: "Now we have decided not to move the impeachment motion against the president as the army chief, General Karamat, has intervened in the matter."
But another cabinet member, thoroughly disgusted with the government's retreat, told Outlook: "Nawaz Sharif should not have given in to the army chief and called off the impeachment motion against the president.Nor should he have stopped the privilege committee from summoning the chief justice. If he really wanted to maintain the supremacy of Parliament, he should have told the chief of army staff that, as prime minister, he was acting within the constitution".
But Sharif hadn't backed down for nothing. He had also apparently sought some assurance from Gen. Karamat that things would be sorted out. Sure enough, on November 21, the Supreme Court adjourned by a week the hearing in the contempt case (in which Sharif is liable to be convicted). Immediately afterwards, it took up another petition seeking to overturn the 13th amendment, that had stripped the president of his powers to sack an elected government. Later this too was adjourned till November 28. Analysts believe that this came about because of Karamat's intervention with the chief justice.
Amidst all this, the government started receiving signals that some of Karamat's hawkish generals felt that it was about uniform who seem to have got the upper hand. Apparently they believe that with the present economic mess, it is best to let the politicians run the country. They realise that they have no quick fixes to pull the country out of the economic morass and stop it from defaulting on its international commitments early in 1998.
AS the confrontation between Sharif and the chief justice escalated, Sharif's economic advisers were claiming that the country was losing Rs 20 billion every day. The Karachi stock exchange nosedived, what with business already at a standstill for over a month all over the country.
Right through the confrontation, the one question being asked was: did the chief justice act on his own or was he playing someone else's game, supported by the establishment? No answers were forthcoming.
But it is more than clear that Sharif's party is not happy with the developments. As a Pakistan Muslim League (N) parliamentarian told Outlook: "The president holds two cards with him now. The first is his discretion to sign the bill, which gives Sharif the right to go for appeal in the Supreme Court; and second, he would have the powers to dissolve the assemblies. We have truly been cornered by all the forces. First it was the question of a new leader from within the House but now all of us are vulnerable."
Sharif has basically been taught a lesson that under the Constitution the supreme court has the power to conduct a judicial review and interpret the law of the land. A government even with a two-thirds majority has to abide by the Constitution. In other words, the taming of Sharif's historic mandate has begun. If he had refused to be dictated to in his first term, he has to quickly make up his mind what he wants to do this time, because there is no level playing field in Pakistani politics.
"If laws alone could save governments, the Pakistani democracy would never have been swept off the rails as it has been so often in the past. Yet this government seems not to be imbibing such simple home truths which after all come not from the passages of Confucius or any other philosopher but our own dark and troubled experience," cautioned an editorial in daily Dawn.
But Sharif seems as confident as ever, at least that is the public posture. While the people who gave Sharif the mandate remain hostages to the whims and fancies of the government, the prime minister himself boasted: "In the greater national interest I do not even mind going to jail for my principles." For now, he only faces political uncertainty.
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