The law – and not the lockdown – will now take its course, after all. A crippling crisis has been staved off in Pakistan, and the country’s Supreme Court has once again reaffirmed its position as what it calls the “supreme forum to resolve conflicts”. The judiciary was, since Musharraf’s time, the fourth player in the power games – in addition to the civilian government, the military, and the legislature. Tuesday’s judicial directive to probe the Panama Papers scandal, involving charges of corruption against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family, has served to avert Imran Khan’s threatened “lockdown of Islamabad”.

Eyebrows have been raised over the remarkable promptitude with which the leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) dropped the idea almost immediately after the court order. He has substituted the agitprop – orchestrated by hundreds of thousands of his foot soldiers – with a Thanksgiving Day, that has now ironically been scheduled in the country’s capital. It would be premature to speculate whether the court order affords a breather to Sharif; much will hinge on how the enquiry by a judicial commission pans out. Suffice it to register that in the immediate perspective, the cricketer-turned-politician’s plans for the PM’s ouster have been reduced to irrelevance as is the speculation that he would rather the Army takes over. In constitutional terms, the apex court has without question tamed both sides of the fence. In a sense, both sides have agreed to agree, specifically to abide by the directive, call off the “lockdown”, and file their respective Terms of Reference (TOR) for the probe panel that has been constituted.

There is little doubt that Sharif’s position as Head of Government becomes still more fragile. Pakistan now has a Prime Minister who is under the judicial scanner for spurious fiscal dealings, and it shall not be easy to shore up his credibility  at home – despite a thumping electoral triumph in 2013 – and still less in matters diplomatic. To that extent, Imran can be said to have scored a moral victory… which ought not to be confused with a comedown. Yet he has effected a critical about-turn, ignoring his party’s repeated proclamations that it would besiege Islamabad on 2 November. Is it possible that the strategic change was prompted by the government’s massive security beef-up, indeed a cordon sanitaire around Islamabad? Reports do suggest that the PTI was facing problems in sustaining the momentum of the protest given the obstacles that had been laid on the route from Khyber Pakhtunwha – where Imran’s party runs the government – to Punjab, under Sharif’s PML(N). It is significant too that the PTI’s change of plans was matched by the government ordering the removal of barricades. A halfway house may have been reached; but Pakistan being Pakistan, the crisis is bound to fester for sometime yet.

–Editorial