News - Comment

Pakistan SC unseats PM Gilani

Is this a judicial coup? In a sense, yes, but, broadly speaking, it is a self-inflicted punishment for Gilani, who has given primacy to his loyalty of the Bhutto family. This suits the army, which has had a love-hate relationship with Gilani and Zardari.By axing Gilani, the court has literally put the fear of the army in every politician’s mind once again.

Poreg View: 
Frankly, there is no surprise in the ‘dismissal’ of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Such an extreme step was expected for a while going by the activism that is on full display from the bench led by chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

In a sense, it can be said that governments in Pakistan survive during the pleasure of army and the judiciary.  Justice Chaudhry’s real target in the crusade against corruption was (is) President Asif Ali Zardari, whom he would like to axe, as the price for delaying his reinstatement at the end of lawyers’ movement. But this is a difficult task. That doesn’t mean that whoever succeeds Prime Minister Gilani will not face the same ‘judicial’ music.

The fact of the matter is that Gilani was not hauled up for any act of treason. His crime was refusing the court’s directive that he should write to the Swiss authorities to re-open the money laundering cases instituted against Zardari and his late wife Benazir Bhutto.

Gilani refused to heed the decree. His stand was that the Zardari as President enjoyed immunity from civil and criminal proceedings and hence he could not purse the cases. Justice Chaudhry refused to accept the argument. Rest is history. Probably, Gilani could have averted the show down had he sought a review of April 26 verdict that had disqualified him as law maker. He did not for whatever reason and now the court has confirmed the April 26 order as final and unseated him.

Is this a judicial coup, as some commentators have already started saying? In a sense yes, but broadly speaking it is a self-inflicted punishment for Gilani, who appears to give primacy to his loyalty of the Bhutto family.

Will Gilani’s ouster deepen political crisis? It may in the sense that Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N and Imran Khan’s PTI will see the ouster as the opening they needed to force an election by the year end. So will be sundry parties, particularly the religious fringe, who have no reason to hobnob with the PPP.  

This suits the army, which is the real centre of power in the country.  The army has had a love-hate relationship with Gilani and Zardari. It didn’t precipitate any crisis but allowed its actions to show who the real master is. Like for instance in the Memogate, which the army used to fix Hussain Haqqani, a Bhutto loyalist and Pakistani envoy to the United States.  The army also thwarted Gilani’s plan to place the ISI under the administrative control of the Interior Ministry, and rejected President Zardari’s plan to send ISI chief to India.

Military coup is not new to Pakistan. Its army carried out three coups and has kept the country tightly under its grip with the army controlled secret agencies pursuing their own foreign policy and security related goals. So another coup will not be a surprise, though it is doubtful whether Gen Kayani, the army chief, will like to take the plunge at moment.


The country is in a deep economic mess, and the energy crisis has brought people to streets from Gilgit to Quetta and Peshawar to Karachi. Kayani will not like to be frontline at this stage. He is comfortable in his Rawalpindi perch. In other words, the army will continue to remain on the sidelines and let the bench do its work.  By axing Gilani, the court has achieved this task- it literally put the fear of the army in every politician’s mind once again. This is in line with the tradition in Pakistan of the judiciary siding with the army.

This is bad news for Pakistan’s democracy. Because, Chief Justice Chaudhry was hailed only in 2007 as a democratic hero for standing up to the last military strongman, General Pervez Musharraf.  The fall-out of judicial activism on Pakistani economy, which is in tatters, is difficult to predict. The country needs a quick IMF bail-out. It may not materailise till the dust settles down and it means the economy will be pushed to crisis level in the meantime inflicting greater hardships on the people.

—M RAMA RAO

Sharing:

Your comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *