Politics of bargain
 

ISLAMABAD: The PML-N government wants to use references against Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen, recently sent to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by National Assembly Speaker, as a bargaining chip for a compromise with PTI on the issue of PanamaLeaks.

Background interaction with ruling party sources said that the government is **t keen to get Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen disqualified but has to initiate proceeding against the PTI top leaders only after Imran Khan’s campaign against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif sees ** end on the issue of Panama Papers.

It is said that the PML-N moved references against Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen only to convey it to the PTI leadership if it remains focused on targeting Nawaz Sharif, its own leadership will **t be secured either.

The government sources insist that besides one of the references already referred to the ECP against Imran Khan by the National Assembly Speaker, the ruling PML-N has also acquired certified court documents from a foreign country in a case against Imran Khan.

“We are **t keen to move this new case against Imran Khan but can do it if compelled,” a government source said, admitting that this is being done to neutralise the PTI on the issue of Panama Papers.

The PML-N sources say that the government realises that disqualification of a top leader like Imran Khan will **t serve the democracy and thus should be avoided. They say that as a strategy, the ruling party has prepared what they call “solid” references against the PTI leadership to put it on the back foot.

The sources said that such charges of corruption are rampant in different institutions, and democracy can**t be derailed by opening a**ther Pandora’s Box, making everything difficult. They said that even former president Pervez Musharraf could **t do anything in this regard.

They said that some people in the PTI also wand Imran Khan to abandon all this, adding that the PTI chief and other party leader can also be netted in this, so giving it up was beneficial for everyone. The PML-N sources said that Imran Khan was also filing references against the rulers only to keep the government under pressure.

The sources said that these are old cases and it’s very difficult to prove them and get final verdict, adding that there was ** such precedence in the past. They said that such allegations are only used to malign politicians and making a hue and cry.

The N-League sources said that the draft bill their party had submitted with the National Assembly is for all and there would be across the board accountability of all, as there were people other than politicians who do corruption and should face accountability. They said that the country was going through precarious conditions and at this juncture of time it would **t be reasonable to derail democracy.

In the case of Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen, the ECP would finally decide the fate of the two references forwarded against Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen by the NA Speaker. However, the Commission could **t act as an appellate body to undo Ayaz Sadiq’s decision killing references against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

In a controversial decision, NA Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq on Monday last rejected all the four references seeking Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification from the NA membership but endorsed the references against Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen.

Although the NA Speaker killed the opposition’s references against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the similar references directly filed by the opposition parties to the ECP are being heard by the ECP.

The ECP a fortnight back sought response of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and others on the cases filed against them by early this month, a government’s councel sought more time from ECP.

According to a government source, the prime minister’s legal team is considering that instead of letting the prime minister file his reply on the allegations leveled against him, the ECP jurisdiction to hear the case should be challenged. It is claimed that the ECP in Dr Sher Afghan Khan Niazi versus Imran Khan case, the ECP had already ruled that it could **t entertain such references.

Interestingly, the PTI has adopted similar position before the ECP in case of reference against Imran Khan. During the hearing by an ECP full bench of identical petitions seeking disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, it was the Chief Election Commissioner who pointed out to PTI’s senior lawyer Hamid Khan on Tuesday that there was a**ther case in which the party’s stance was that the ECP did **t have the jurisdiction to hear the case and investigate potential violations of relevant laws.

The CEC had pointed out that even after the Commission had ruled that it had all the powers under the Constitution and relevant laws to hear the foreign funding case, the PTI had challenged the order and filed a writ petition in the Islamabad High Court. “And yet in its reference filed against the prime minister and others, the PTI is arguing that the ECP has all the powers to hear and scrutinise past records,” the CEC is quoted to have said.

While deciding to club Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan/PTI cases, the CEC had said: “The reason for clubbing the two cases together is precisely for this reason that I would like to hear from the PTI on why it has two contradictory and divergent stances on principally the same issue of ECP jurisdiction in two cases with underlying similarities.”



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