A Watershed Moment For Pakistan

By Editor on 9th July 2024 • ( 0 )

A Watershed Moment For Pakistan

Yet this is the watershed moment to bring about a change. Institutions are fighting for their supremacy, genuine or fake, the people are ready for a change as they have been pushed, rather crushed into a wall with ever-rising inflation and never-stopping corruption.

A massive vote, followed by a fiercely divisive outcome early this year, sucked almost every national institution into a black hole, described by some “as an area of such immense gravity that nothing – not even light – can escape from it.”

While traditional politicians felt they were being wiped out of the political scene in a general election, in the middle of the night between Feb 8 and 9, the ever-dominating Establishment felt it too may be side-lined.

The winning party was confident it had swept the board and went to sleep but when the day dawned, tables had been turned, and a swirling whirlpool had turned into a Tempest, a shipwreck.

The managers of the election quickly turned into subservient flunkeys who carried out every order unleashing a political storm that has since engulfed the Parliament, the Judiciary, the Establishment, leaving millions of people who voted gazing into oblivion and the world wondering what had happened.

Then things happened that left every sane mind spinning. The leader of the winning party was imprisoned and over 200 frivolous, concocted cases slapped on him, most of which he won in even compromised courts.

The losers were asked to dress up and move into positions of power, knowing their strings would be pulled by others, more powerful.

Crackdowns on the voters pushed them into shells, shocked by what they were experiencing and the judiciary was told not to entertain any meaningful case that could disturb their nefarious plans.

Then over the months, institutions started realizing what had happened and the world also started taking notice.

Slowly reactions started turning into actions, nothing that was planned produced results, international bodies and then main world capitals started challenging the actions.

The leader of the winning party showed extraordinary resilience and ultimately the sleeping judiciary started waking up, feeling it may be the next target after the Parliament had been trampled upon.

Every trick in the magician’s hat was used, thousands of personnel who would otherwise be guarding the borders and keeping track of conspiracies against the country, were deployed to follow innocent civilians, trapping them into submission, coercing them to change loyalties and supporting the fake set up that had no legs to stand, anyway.

Some heads of key institutions were lured into following the script with offers they would get extended tenures at their top posts, leaving their juniors wondering what would happen to their careers.

But all this has brought the country closest to a real change, fanning the winds of resistance and defiance against the status quo.

A political leader, who was not taken seriously until a few years ago, has shown the grit of turning into a real revolutionary, spurning all offers and sugar-coated deals.

This show of belligerence has endeared him more to the masses and every big or small legal trick, outrageously stinky charge against him and his family, has produced counter-productive results.

But what is more important, his tenacity has inspired other key institutions to gather confidence.

The most crucial is the judiciary.

Slowly from one judge to a group and then many in their high positions started raising challenges and refusing dictation publicly, on live TV.

The snowball effect has now reached its peak. The fracture and splits between Supreme Court and High Court judges have become public property, the nation watching them questioning each other on key cases.

Yet this is the watershed moment to bring about a change. Institutions are fighting for their supremacy, genuine or fake, the people are ready for a change as they have been pushed, rather crushed into a wall with ever-rising inflation and never-stopping corruption.

If enough judges get the required courage to undo the smartly-crafted plan of beating the system, by allotting undeserved seats in Parliament to defeated people and amending the Constitution to the benefit of a few, Pakistan will have finally buried the Doctrine of Necessity.

The writer is a veteran Pakistani journalist.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.