Chasing shadows

The Candid Corner

It is utterly depressing to see how the incumbent government is trying to survive the mounting challenge that Imran Khan has thrown at them. Prior to the conspired removal of a democratic government and induction of a criminal conglomerate, I remember numerous animated discussions that would inevitably conclude that Khan would become politically irrelevant the moment he was out of power. Little did his political adversaries and their handlers realise how deep and how extensive was his support base that has continued to surge further since his ouster, not letting them a moment to rest in peace. The criminal ruling band now resembles a harried and harassed lot riddled with myriad demons.

Here is a crowd of anointed leaders who never deserved to be in power. It is no small tragedy that they have been repeatedly handed over the charge of a country which they looted and plundered mercilessly, only to keep coming back with doses of added greed and lust. It is not just the country that suffered their brutal ravages. The real victims have been the multitudes of impoverished and marginalised people who have forever lingered on the fringes of existence, desperately fighting for bare survival, day after day. Because of the elite plunder, they have remained deprived of the basic necessities of life which the state is beholden to providing. In reality, their every tomorrow appeared bleaker than their today. It has always been downhill. But there was no remorse on the part of those who have amassed piles of illicit capital to fatten their deposits and invest in palatial properties worldwide. They also don’t mind sharing this loot with those who would help them secure another opportunity to strip the country naked.

While their previous stints in power were relatively smooth affairs which emanated from the bonhomie between the PML-N and PPP for taking turns at scavenging the country, this time around they had to contend with the might of Khan who took them on with indomitable courage and determination to ensure that they are not given a free hand. For the first time in the political history of Pakistan, criminal acts of these dwarfed charlatans are being exposed fearlessly for the people to take cognisance of and raise their voice, now and at the time of elections. And what a crescendo it is building into! The intensity of resolve to see the back of corruption and its vile perpetrators has grown into a mass movement with every conscientious citizen lined up to dismantle their wobbly edifice as they cower for protection.

In their bid to avert the looming disaster which may spell their collective political doom, they are resorting to every wicked trick they can get hold of in their modern-day Machiavelli booklet. But as much as they try, it is all falling flat on their own faces. On top of it, their leaders keep providing ample occasions by way of comic relief. The latest is the one by none other than that lady who believes that to be a leader is her hierarchical right. In her departing salvo before taking the flight to London after receiving her passport vide a court order, she said that now that Khan was no longer the prime minister, ‘foreign governments are afraid of sending ciphers to us’. Is this the stuff these self-anointed leaders are made of? Did no one ever tell her that a cipher is a coded message and it is not sent by foreign governments? Furthermore, the stock of invectives that she has mastered in puking is unparalleled. I often wonder about the sickly environment that she opened her eyes in and spent her adolescent years. Her narrative, her demeanour, her venom and her abuse are repulsive. She should go and hide her face somewhere. London could be a good destination for doing so. Under incessantly mounting pressure, it is obvious that this criminal mafia has been taken hostage by its own wily tricks and it appears impossible for them to extricate their tottering government from this deepening quagmire. The ruling incumbents did not assume power by winning an election. They did so by acting as paid goons of a foreign power that threatened that there would be (adverse) consequences if Khan was not removed as prime minister by a vote of no-confidence. In the process, incentives of cash and kind were offered in abundance to sitting PTI legislators to win them over. Simultaneously, the coalition partners of the government received the orders to march over to the other side which they dutifully did in the true military spirit. Consequently, a parliamentary majority was turned into minority through use of excessively undemocratic and unconstitutional means. This foreign-dictated project was executed by local operatives and a government comprising crooks, criminals and absconders was commissioned which, in less than six months, has brought the country to the brink of an economic collapse.

Why was this vile act undertaken by our local thugs on the behest of a foreign power? Why was a bunch of criminals imposed to sabotage the fate of a country? Was this done because Imran Khan wanted to formulate and implement an independent foreign policy so that Pakistan would be able to make decisions to the benefit of its people which would include establishing relations with all regional stakeholders? Was this done because he wanted to purchase cheaper oil and wheat from Russia to control spiralling costs of living? Was this done because he did not give in to becoming a tool of the conspiring country in advancing its regional agenda including limiting its relations with China and curtailing the scope of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)? Was this done because Pakistan no longer agreed to become part of any war as it desired peace so that its people could free themselves from the fear of violence and terror? Was this done because he did not want to play politics of blocs and desired to see Pakistan emerging as an economic powerhouse of the region and a harbinger of peace?

While wicked machinations were coined to enslave the fate of a country and its people, justice has its own dynamics. It is the unfurling of these dynamics that we are witnessing now. A game that they played to grant perpetuity to their criminal rule has turned against them, thus gravely endangering their political survival. In a matter of weeks, their wickedness has come back to haunt them as they remain hostage in its tentacles trying desperately to breathe. But there are things which often become elusive when the end is near. It becomes a game of chasing shadows which is what it has turned into.

The writer is a political and security strategist and the founder of the Regional Peace Institute