IF the Shehbaz Sharif government goes ahead with the decision to ban Imran Khan’s PTI, it could plunge the country into renewed turmoil, even chaos. This, at a time when the country needs political calm and stability to fix the economy. The decision announced just days after the staff-level agreement with the IMF for a larger, longer-duration loan programme suggests that the government either doesn’t understand the nexus between economic and political stability or chooses to overlook it in a state of panic.

The panic was obviously triggered by PTI’s legal victory in the Supreme Court; by the verdict that the party was entitled to its share of reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies. In overturning the Election Commission and Peshawar High Court’s decisions, the apex court said PTI is a political party despite having lost its election symbol. This dealt a huge blow to the ruling coalition. With PTI poised to emerge as the single largest party in the National Assembly, and the government losing its two-thirds majority, the ruling party went into panic.

PML-N leaders assailed the court judgement in unseemly language, intensifying tensions with the judiciary. They didn’t see the disconnect between attacking the court and, at the same time, approaching it for a review of its judgement and, later, on the ban issue. The Supreme Court has the final say on banning a party under the Constitution.

The ruling party seemed to fear that the SC verdict would also open up a Pandora’s box calling into question the election to the Senate and president, as the electoral college that elected them........

© Dawn