Pakistan is a significant country because of its strategic position and reserves of natural resources which are enormous in quantity. The 70-year old country has seen it all, from partition to fall of Bangladesh, from military rules to so-called democracies, the country has been through the darkest of times.
The 2013 elections gave the country an option in the electoral politics and that was in the form of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf. The youth oriented party led by Imran Khan struggled for more than 20 years and succeeded in making a provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The biggest international corruption leaks in recent times after Wikileaks are the Panama Files that were released on global media and the impact of these revelations led to the resignation of David Cameron, instability in Iceland and disqualification of Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif.
In retrospective, around a year back when Imran Khan threatened the government of Nawaz Sharif for a nationwide protest, there was a political turmoil which needed a foreign intervention either by the judiciary or by the army. The involvement of the army in Pakistani politics has not been a very pleasant sight. Imran couldn’t leave his residence, Bani Gala, for the protest due to unrest in Lahore. The Supreme Court of Pakistan eventually intervened to defuse the political mayhem.
The initial 5-member bench of Supreme Court ask the Sharif family to clarify its stance on the offshore companies that the family owned. The opposition lawyer team included stakes of PTI, Shiekh Rasheed, and Siraj ul Haq. Due to ambiguous and unclear shreds of evidence, 2 out of 5 judges declared Nawaz Sharif incapable of holding any position in the Office, however, as the decision was not backed by the majority of judges, the rest 3 judges ordered the formation of JIT (Joint team investigation) to be established for probing corruption charges on Nawaz Sharif and his family members. The JIT included members from NAB, ISI, MI, SECP, and other officials from important state institutions. The letter from Qatari Prince provided by Sharif’s team as an evidence that Sharif family established its steel mill and other industries through gifts and financial aid provided by Qatari Royal Family.
As the investigation moved on, some major conflicting statements were recognized and fraudulent documents were also discovered. The result of JIT after a strict scrutiny of 2 months was presented before the larger bench of Supreme Court. Both sides of the arguments were heard and several chances were given to Nawaz and his lawyers to prove their innocence but trivial statements and tampered documents led to the final verdict being announced which was against Nawaz Sharif and his family. The 5-member bench unanimously disqualified Nawaz Sharif on charges of having a work permit from UAE where Nawaz was serving as a chairman of a private company and received a remuneration.
Nawaz Sharif has been disqualified and can not contest any more elections. The corruption files have been sent to National Accountability Bureau which will file references against Hassan Nawaz, Hussain Nawaz, and Maryam Nawaz.
The temporary Prime Minister of Pakistan is Shahid KaKhan Abbasi who is accused of massive corruption while working in the Ministry of Petroleum. The scam is claimed to exceed 200 million dollars and is likely to be reopened by NAB as a petition has been filed by PTI.
Pakistan is an unexpected country but one thing can be said for sure that a dark history concerning military dictatorships have taught the Army of Pakistan to stay away from the madness of politics and let politicians fall into the pitfalls that are created by politicians, themselves.
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