In Pak's theatre of absurd, who'll be last man standing?

Even in the best of times, politics in Pakistan resembles a theatre of the absurd. Events of the past two days, with one elected Prime Minister disqualified from office on the extraordinary intervention of the judiciary and an arrest warrant served on the leader who was being lined up to take his place, the drama may be moving closer to a climax. It appears that the Army and the judiciary are working in tandem to discredit and whittle down the authority of the civilian government headed by President Asif Ali Zardari, who is for now clinging onto office. [caption id=“attachment_352692” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Shahabuddin was chosen as the PPP’s nominee for Prime Minister today. Reuters”]  [/caption] If yesterday’s political drama was orchestrated by the Pakistan Supreme Court, today’s action - the serving of a non-bailable arrest warrant by the Anti Narcotics Force (ANF) against Makhdoom Shahabuddin,  the ruling Pakistan People’s Party’s nominee to replace disqualified Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani - has the stamp of the Army. ANF officers are drawn from the Pakistan Army, which has been at loggerheads with the Zardari government for months now. An arrest warrant has also been issued in the same case against Gilani’s son. They are to be arrested and produced in court in a week. Given the shifting loyalties and the differing interests of the three agencies, it is impossible to say who will emerge as the last man standing. But the certainty with which the Pakistan Supreme Court acted on Wednesday and the alacrity with which the arrest warrants were issued today, barely hours after Shahabuddin accepted the nomination for the Prime Ministership, is revealing. The two-pronged attack on the civilian government - by showing its leaders up as corrupt - is proving effective also because, much like in India where many MPs have criminal cases pending against them, the perception that the civilian administration is steeped in corruption is widely shared. Opposition political parties, including those of Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif, who are looking to exploit the political situation to their advantage, are fishing in troubled waters.  They have reason to believe that they stand to gain from an early election, particularly if the PPP gets progressively enfeebled. But their plans could backfire if the PPP is seen as a “martyr” to the democratic cause. The PPP, along with its allies, commands a sufficiently strong majority in Parliament and can get its candidate elected but by targeting Shahabuddin on the day he was nominated, the manifest attempt is to embarrass the ruling party. Already, the PPP has been forced on the defensive and forced to line up a second nomination - that of former information minister Qamar Zaman Kaira. But the real target of the Army and the judiciary in this shadow play is President Zardari. The history of the animosity can be traced to the political deal struck between the PPP (under Benazir Bhutto) and the former President Gen Pervez Musharraf to provide amnesty to over 8,000 people charged with corruption and other crimes. Significantly, only about 80 of them were politicians, but of course Zardari was the most high-visibility beneficiary of the deal. Subsequently, the Supreme Court struck down the amnesty provision and ruled that the corruption cases against all of them be reopened. But it soon became clear that the Supreme Court was only gunning for Zardari, who had by then become President following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. By virtue of the office he holds, he qualifies for amnesty- until the time he remits office as President. But the Supreme Court, in its proxy war on Zardari, is knocking down successive lines of defence. Yesterday, Gilani was felled;  he had been found guilty of contempt of court  because he did not take action on the Supreme Court directive to reopen the case against Zardari. Today, the man nominated to replace him has been served an arrest warrant even before he has been elected and can take office. The big knives are coming out faster than ever. Who will be the last man standing?