- The PTI wanted to keep Nawaz back
AT PENPOINT
Mian Nawaz Sharif has become the first convict to get bail and permission to go abroad for medical treatment. Has there been an NRO? Or has he merely gone abroad for treatment, as his supporters say? What was the whole bond thing? The episode might show that the government has a high figure in mind for taking a name off the Exit Control List, but presumably that is a figure that can be negotiated. Are there going to be many applications by people on the ECL?
One of the interesting features of the decision was that it was not presumed to be what it seemed to be. It is not being presumed that it was simply a court decision. At the same time, it is not a deal. Or rather, that is the other assumption. There have been repeated denials by both the PTI and the PML-N of any deal. The PTI would never agree that it had made any sort of compromise on accountability, and the PML-N that it had asked for a deal.
The possibility of a deal will be confirmed or rebutted by how Mian Nawaz acts when he goes abroad. If he returns when his bail is over, having received his treatment and gotten well, it will be confirmed that there was no deal. However, the bail conditions are such that there is room for doubt. He is not obliged to return on a certain date. The judges granting him bail in the Islamabad and Lahore High Courts have specified that his bail would be extended if he needed to remain abroad for treatment longer than he had been given bail.
Mian Nawaz has options Mian Shehbaz and Maryam do not. While both are committed to their respective stances, Mian Nawaz retains flexibility. If he inclines to confrontation, he is seen as following his daughter; to reconciliation, his brother. A demonstration was the way that his party took part in the JUI-F’s Azadi March. His first priority is to recover, but after that it will be back to politics as usual
That implies that if he asks for an extension in bail, on the ground that he needs more time for treatment, the deal outcries will burst out afresh. It should be noted that the request will be more an intimation, because it has already been granted. One way he could avoid absconding while taking more time than needed would be to have his treatment (which might merely be nugatory) certified by a doctor. The court would be obliged to honour the certification.
The PTI core may be represented by PM’s Accountability Adviser Shehzad Akbar who, along with the Attorney General, claimed a vindication of the government, saying that Mian Nawaz’s name had not been taken off the ECL, but that he had merely been issued a one-time waiver. He is probably speaking for that section of the party which wants accountability in general, but which sees Mian Nawaz as a symbol of that accountability. Letting him go abroad would be taken by this core of the party as a betrayal, of letting the privileged escape their due punishment.
Punishment of the guilty is a seductive concept, though it might be a misleading one. An earlier Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was punished by execution for a murder. That has not stopped PPP supporters from claiming that his execution was a judicial murder. While the PTI has accused Mian Nawaz of many sins, murder is not one of them. He has thus escaped execution. However, it cannot have escaped notice that Bhutto was an obstacle in the political path of General Ziaul Haq, just as much as Nawaz is in the path of Imran Khan.
The PTI may well be coming up with a few of the drawbacks that accountability has: it is inhuman. In principle, there should be no consideration of the act that Mian Nawaz is a former PM, or that he is dangerously ill. The PTI is also finding that it needs to temper justice, if not with mercy, then with realpolitik. Mian Nawaz’s health is precarious. If anything were to happen to him, while he was in NAB custody, in a government hospital, the PTI could end up carrying the can.
One result has been the conflict between the natural impulse to succour the sick, reinforced by cultural and religious values, clashing with the need to punish corruption. That has led to the claim that Mian Nawaz was faking his illness. That would resolve the conflict. However, it almost seems as if the motive is not a coldblooded desire for accountability, which is akin to the emotion that pervades an auditor’s desire to balance the books, but the sort of bloodlust that motivates revenge.
It is almost as if the corrupt have to get the punishment for all the woes that members of the PTI have suffered by the absence of a welfare state, or the lack of respect for Pakistanis abroad. This is at the root of the support for the PTI, the view that corruption was at the root of all those woes. There was also the view that if only an honest man could be given the government, that corruption could be ended only by punishing those who had got away with it in the past. Imran Khan not only sold this view, but sold the view that he was that man. Therefore, getting Mian Nawaz in jail was essential, and letting him go such a big issue. It does not merely mean letting the source, the symbol, get away, but it also means that the woes of the country will continue.
Apart from PTI inner-party angst, Mian Nawaz’s departure has other implications. It means that the PML-N will be deprived even of the guidance it got from Mian Nawaz through those who retailed his pronouncements after visiting him in jail. Now those pronouncements will come through those who speak to him on the phone. It also remains to be see how the going abroad affects the fortunes of Mian Shehbaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz. Going by the last time Mian Nawaz went abroad for treatment, when in 2017 he had a quadruple bypass in the UK, Maryam took charge of PM House, and perhaps more importantly, took charge of communication with him. As Mian Nawaz is out on bail, subject to checks by embassy staffers, more space will be created for Mian Shehbaz to lead the party in the direction he wants.
There is not enough significance given to the fact that the bail came the day after Prime Minister Imran Khan met COAS Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa. As Imran was still making noises which indicated he favoured a hard line, his decision to let Nawaz go may have had to do with the meeting. At least that is how it will be pitched by Shehbaz supporters who oppose any confrontation with the military. And it will be driven home to Mian Nawaz that confrontation was not how the Sharifs got into politics. It will also be pointed out to him that his departure took place the same day Imran met the DG ISI.
Whether this appeals to Mian Nawaz will be seen in who gets more power within the party. However, it should be remembered that Mian Nawaz has options Mian Shehbaz and Maryam do not. While both are committed to their respective stances, Mian Nawaz retains flexibility. If he inclines to confrontation, he is seen as following his daughter; to reconciliation, his brother. A demonstration was the way that his party took part in the JUI-F’s Azadi March. His first priority is to recover, but after that it will be back to politics as usual.
