FATF has joined the grand conspiracy against Imran Khan, and has removed Pakistan from its grey list. It should have expressed its lack of trust in the imported government by moving Pakistan onto its blacklist, so that Pakistan would be forced into default. Other countries round the world would have noticed this, and refused to give Pakistan any flood relief until a genuine government was elected, which could only be the PTI of course.
Virtually the day before, Fitch had downgraded Pakistan’s viability to Ccc+, which was bad news for Pakistan. Getting off the FATC grey list was not much to write home about, because the reason we wanted to get off that list was so that we didn’t lose access to the global financial markets. Of course, even if we had been placed on the black list, we wouldn’t have been shut out. Only we would have had to pay a much higher rate of interest. In other words, Pakistani paper would have had junk bond status.
As a matter of fact, we are heading towards that status with the latest downgrade. Moody’s has not downgraded yet, which shows they are corrupt elements who are part of the conspiracy to oust Imran. Of course, they’ll have to follow suit, and Pakistan will be heading towards junk-bond status. The downgrade indicates that we are that much closer to the default that will show the rest of the world that Imran should become PM.
Of course, the Election Commission showed its complete dedication to corruption by disqualifying Imran in the Toshakhana reference. It might have only disqualified Imran for the life of the current Parliament, which is less than a year, but it leaves the PTI without a Chairman for the time being, may merely be a harbinger of things to come. Of course, Imran should get a stay order from the Islamabad High Court whenever he appeals. After all, he and his party have encountered the court before and got whatever it wanted from it.
Of course, it should be clear that ECP didn’t do anything wrong in selling gifts. In fact, I doubt if any member would have left all those millions to stay tied up in any watches. Where the ECP jumped on Imran with both hobnailed boots was not telling them. He didn’t even tell it he had received the gifts, as he should have done.
It seems that the basis of the PTI’s appeal against the disqualification is that the ECP could hear the case. OK. Then who can? The PTI lawyers seem to have skirted over that point, just as they’ve skirted the issue of whether a crime had been committed or not. I don’t suppose it included as a ground of appeal the failure of the prosecution to produce evidence of a lalkara, where the criminal is alleged to have yelled out a detailed explanation of why he was committing the crime, such as selling the watches because an ancestor of Muhammad bin Salman had stolen one of Imran’s ancestors’ buffaloes. Imran should have stolen one of MBS’s columns in return, but instead he sold the watch he was presented. The CEC got nothing, not even a mention in the statement of assets.
Of course, the ECP is against Imran, or else why would he win by-elections it supervised? Those seats will now have to have by-elections held again. You know, you only need two safe seats to keep a cycle of permanent by-elections going, Back in 1988, Farooq Leghari won both a national and a provincial seat. He opted for the provincial seat. He didn’t get Nawaz, and failed to become CM. BB took him in the federal Cabinet. He now had to find s seat in Parliament, which he did, by again contesting the national seat he had given up.
Imran might be shocked by the cowardly resignation of Liz Truss as British PM just because the economy went wrong, but he should remember that that has created space for the comeback of Boeis Johnson. Are we to see a comeback of the demagogues? Trump is poised to regain the Republican nomination in 2024, and maybe the Presidency. Imran, though he doesn’t have orange or yellow hair, nor is he grossly overweight, is one of the ousted populists. He too has an election to win. Soon or by August next year. Johnson might be made unlikely for the role because of his poundage, but he’s a feather in the wind.
