Only in Pakistan would you be able to accomplish everything you set your mind to if you had a lot of money and the power that comes with it. Pakistan is a tragic nation ruled by mafias and cartels. They have surrounded the state, and as time passes, their grip is growing more and more restrictive. The obscene symptoms of this disease are playing out in front of our eyes every day as hordes of offenders walk free of the serious crimes for which they have unimpeachable proof. SikandarZulqarnain, the (currently suspended) special prosecutor of the FIA, claimed that his director-general had instructed him not to appear before the court on April 10 of last year to indict Shahbaz Sharif and Hamza Shahbaz in money-laundering cases worth billions because, on that day, they were taking office as the chief minister of Punjab and the prime minister, respectively. This statement reflects grave neglect of duty and participation in criminal activity.
Even more sickening is the way that Ishaq Dar, a confessed felon and fugitive who was flown out of the country by the previous prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, on his government jet, has been welcomed back and appointed to the position of finance minister. The court has not moved. Nothing has shifted the scorn.
One of the main tenants of Imran Khan’s party platform was accountability. When he first took office, he made a valiant attempt to put it into effect, regardless of one’s position of authority or wealth. He desired that everyone be subject to the law and held responsible for whatever crimes they may have committed while in positions of authority. The state and its institutions stepped in to put a stop to the plan when he sought to carry it out. Nothing appeared to be moving. Nothing appeared to function.
It wasn’t until later that the causes became clear. Khan, the nation’s chosen prime minister, did not hold the reins of power. Unseen powers, who prefer to remain hidden in the shadows, were using that power. Almost every trick was used to help these national criminals get off the hook, including fabricating a fake medical certificate to get Nawaz Sharif out of the country; granting his daughter interim bail to care for her ostensibly ill father and not having it revoked later, and delaying the hearings of numerous cases involving the Sharif and Zardari clans and their goons. Khan was not going to give in, despite these dishonest strategies. This caused his space to get smaller over time.
His presence had also grown irksome for the foreign master who had long been telling Pakistan what it could and could not do because he had also delved into the realm of regaining Pakistan’s independence and asserting its authority to make decisions that were to the benefit of the state and its people. This sell-out, which was solemnised soon after Pakistan’s independence, established the course its foreign policy would take over the next decades, including its foray into conflicts with the former Soviet Union and acts of terrorism that resulted in significant material and human casualties. Khan’s position at the helm meant that the country’s conventional system of governance was no longer feasible. Therefore, the foreign master and its local allies plotted to remove him by introducing a vote of no-confidence. The threat made by a top official of the host nation was described in full in a cypher delivered by Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States to that effect.
Khan was defeated in a vote that was made feasible by lavish inducements given to some PTI backbenchers. The entire institutional structure of the nation participated in the plot to overthrow Khan’s legitimate, democratic, and constitutional government and install a cabal of ex-convicts, criminals, and fugitives as rulers who immediately set out to secure themselves lifetime pardons for a wide range of heinous crimes. As a result, Pakistan achieved another unpleasant distinction: it was the only nation where powerful criminals could manipulate their way into positions of authority before using that influence to pretend to be judges and have their cases dismissed.
It is humiliating how much of a part the mainstream media has had in staging this horrific incident. To convince people of what was so wrong, the major media outlets and their agenda-driven agents launched a horrifying blitz of fake news. Additionally, the news was made up to build a narrative that supported the criminal network. This is due to how well the system has been built, which allows it to function by distributing the rewards of graft such that each functionary receives its just reward and is therefore kept in check. This amounts to a sizable and poisonous crime organisation that has inserted its tentacles into every level of the executive branch of government.
Where are the justice-delivering courts meant to be? Where is the bureaucracy, which is meant to serve the people rather than the government? Where are the institutions tasked with ensuring openness across the board in governance? Where is the media, which bills itself as the state’s fourth pillar? Where are the lawmakers who chose to violate their oath of office by selling their souls? In the court of people, they are standing nude. Additionally, they have made the state take on the role of a criminal.
However, times have evolved. People have been unable to accept the idea of crime. They’re out there making noise. Their voices are echoing throughout the space. It is intensifying and becoming a lively movement. The difficult part is not reinstalling Khan as the ruler. The tricky part is figuring out how to do it peacefully.
