S T H

Syed Talat Hussain It is misleading to say that Pakistan, an embattled nuclear country of over two hundred and twenty-two million people, is facing a political meltdown. We have been at this point so frequently that any call to attention of an impending emergency sounds boringly familiar, evoking yawns.  And yet it is what it is: the Bandiyal Court’s final warning to the Shehbaz government about the consequences of not releasing funds for the Punjab elections on the 14th of May has gone unheeded. The government has stayed with its stance that the parliament has declined the request for the funds and it cannot bypass that restriction. In fact, today the meeting of allies at the PM House has reinforced this view: it has added more bite to the stance by its reiteration that the petition the Bandiyal Court is using to make the government pay up the money has been dismissed by four dissenting judges. The speeches that followed in the parliament including the one by the finance minister ...

  Syed Talat Hussain It is pointless to hope that this court will back down from becoming a One-man National Show, taking charge of everything---from State Bank Consolidated Fund allocations for their self-decided date for the Punjab polls (KP election dates are yet unknown) to the Election Commission role and responsibilities. It has left for itself no room for compromise, neither with the government nor with the senior judges who have spoken with one voice on the transgression of the so-called suo-moto powers and the mal-practice of arbitrary bench making.  It has also chosen its position against the General Asim Munir-led Army high command. The Army has no love for Imran Khan, partially because they discovered in four years what loving him entails, and primarily because they think he is unfit to rule. His international lobbying especially with the Americans---how ironic considering he accused Washington of conspiring to throw him out of power---and his trolling of t...