Brigadier (retd) Musaddiq Abbasi, accountability adviser to former Prime Minister Imran Khan, recently revealed in a TV interview with Javed Chaudhry that the NAB was planning to wrap up most of the corruption cases against politicians by December 2022. This means that a number of leaders would be convicted or barred from political activities before the general elections next year.
Meanwhile, the PML-N-led coalition government has managed to amend the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) laws to avoid disqualification before the next elections. The amendment cuts the NAB’s wings and makes the accountability process more meaningless. But what we had before this, more than accountability, was an open season on the political rivals.
Pakistani politicians have been losing against quasi-constitutional purges, accountability, and terrorism. In the recent past, the entire Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) faced a stern crackdown because of its head’s anti-state remarks. The party resultantly split into two benign factions. Before this, the Awami National Party (ANP) plunged into decline, as it was unable to campaign for the 2013 elections, when the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) suicide bombers pushed their leaders away from public spaces. Also General Parvez Musharraf’s notorious National Accountability Ordinance 1999 kept two major parties – PML-N and PPP — out of the country’s political scene for about seven years.
But the most glaring example is of General Ayub Khan’s Elected Bodies Disqualification Ordinance (EBDO) 1959. The ordinance virtually wiped out an entire political class that opposed the military ruler and ‘one unit’. It attempted to pack the careers of over 70 politicians, including Hussain Shaheed Suharwardi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of erstwhile East Pakistan.
Denying the right to politics and paving the way for a never ending reign is not accountability, but an unquenchable thirst for power. Pakistan does not need another EBDO.
In the name of accountability, General Ayub Khan, like Imran Khan, proclaimed to be the messiah, who would deliver the country from the clutches of corrupt politicians and hinged all the national ills on the lawmakers’ embezzlements. This curbed the opposition, and sustained his rule, till a massive student movement showed him out of power.
But what is the rationale for equating Khan’s ambitions with that of a dictator? Throughout his tenure, he constantly implied that he was personally making sure that the “chor and daaku” opposition was put behind the bars. He maintained the stance, even though the NAB was there to act against corruption independently.
His persistence to not grant an NRO to the opposition leaders gave an impression that accountability was a matter between him and the “corrupt mafia”, and little to do with the executive and judicial entities mandated for the task. He portrayed himself as a saint, our only chance against corrupt politics. He disliked parliamentary processes, yet loved to rule.
Whatever the design was — perhaps to wipe out the opposition and have enough numbers to scrap the parliamentary process and dent the federation — accountability was never the end goal. Brigadier (retd) Musaddiq Abbasi revelation only adds credence to such fears. Besides, even if the PTI’s agenda is sincere, the venture to obliterate opposition in the name of accountability is outright dictatorial. Denying the right to politics and paving the way for a never ending reign is not accountability, but an unquenchable thirst for power. Pakistan does not need another EBDO.
