On January 15, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered that Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf be arrested within 24 hours on corruption charges. The order, signed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has placed the government and judiciary on collision course for the second time in less than a year  and puts question marks over the health of Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition government, which is all set to complete its five-year term in March.

The ruling coincided with the entry into Islamabad of a “long march” led by right-wing Islamic cleric Tahir ul-Qadri. In the name of fighting corruption, Qadri, who has para-dropped  from his perch in Canada, has vowed that he and his followers would occupy the avenue leading to the parliament buildings until parliament is dissolved and fresh elections are ordered under a caretaker Prime Minister.  He is also demanding that a mechanism be established to prevent “corrupt” people from standing for election and that the military and Supreme Court be given a say in the composition of the interim government.

It may be a judicial coincidence but the orders for the arrest of Ashraf, which were in the works for almost a year, have given a boost to the Qadri campaign. It has given a fresh lease to conspiracy theories that have been floating around in Islamabad. Speculation is ripe about a ‘soft coup’ by the generals to impose a government of technocrats to bail Pakistan from its present economic mess.  Leaders of PPP are openly saying that Qadri’s march and the Supreme Court’s verdict were masterminded by the military. President Zardari has not picked up this theme but has publicly warned that there is a conspiracy to push the government from office.

Now, these theories notwithstanding, there is no case that Prime Minister Ashraf is Lilly White. Charges that he received kickbacks have been haunting him for the past couple of years. These relate to the period when he was Minister for Water and Power for three years ending in February 2011. He is accused of showing favours to a few players. He is also blamed for the mess in the power sector, which has resulted in long hours of power cuts even during the winter months.

A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Chaudhry ordered criminal proceedings be initiated against Ashraf and 15 others because of alleged irregularities in the issuing of contracts for power-plant construction.  The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) which has to execute the warrant has balked. The government intends to challenge the arrest order.

Relations between the Supreme Court and the PPP government have long been acrimonious. Last June, the court took the unprecedented step of disqualifying Yousaf Reza Gilani after he refused to comply with the court direction to revive money laundering cases against President Zardari in the Swiss courts.  The refusal was treated as contempt of court though Gilani’s stand was that as President Zardari enjoys immunity from such cases.  

There is bad blood between Zardari and Chaudhry no doubt. It’s mostly because of Zardari’s reluctance to reinstate Chaudhry as Chief Justice in the wake of lawyers’ movement that saw the exit of Pervez Musharraf from the country. As a judge of the apex court, Chaudhry had given legal imprimatur to General Musharraf’s 1999 coup but later run afoul of the general and was sacked.

Qadri is seeking to exploit popular anger over corruption and economic hardship and, in the name of purging Pakistan of venal political elite, hopes to strengthen the hand of the army. His ‘million man march’ attracted no more than 50,000 people though.

On arrival in Islamabad, he denounced parliament as a “group of looters, thieves and dacoit,” while praising the military and judiciary, saying that they are the only institutions in the country that “are functioning and doing their duties of the people.” He also attacked the Zardari government, saying it “has wasted and brought a bad end to our armed forces, those armed forces, who are highly sincere, highly competent, and highly capable.”

Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has not closed ranks with Qadri seeing his long march as a plot of the permanent establishment.  So did many other opposition parties. After a brain storming session in Lahore, they decided to not associate with Qadri and vowed to stay united in the face of “conspiracies being hatched to derail the democratic process.” They asked the government to set the poll dates quickly and set in motion the process to constitute a caretaker government.

Qadri is not the first player to have received covert military support. Nawaz Sharif himself is a beneficiary of army’s plans which had pitch forked him into the political scene during the Zia era. Cricketer turned politician, Imran Khan, is also a beneficiary of army’s plans for the country though his Tehreek-e-Insaf party appears to have lost steam in recent months. He may join hands with Qadri for mutual benefit.

.