Pakistan - Imran's Phone conversation - Murky waters

WHEN a secretly recorded conversation between a national politician and one of his advisers is leaked to the media and public, the temptation is to examine the substance of the conversation and explore the gap between public positions and private exultations. But that temptation must be resisted. There is one and only one issue that ought to matter in this rather unfortunate instance of an alleged conversation between PTI chief Imran Khan and PTI MNA Arif Alvi being leaked to the media: who did it, why did they do it, and did they have any legal authority to do so? Unhappily, the PML-N government appears neither to comprehend nor be particularly interested in the fundamental issue here, preferring instead to gloat over the embarrassment caused to the PTI and seeking to add to it in any way can.

The PML-N reaction has raised suspicions that the federal government itself may have authorised the secret recording and leaked it now to put the PTI on the defensive. Certainly, the Intelligence Bureau, which reports directly to the prime minister and whose director general is serving on an extension in duty at the prime minister’s personal intervention, has the capabilities to tap local mobile phones. As for motive, the PML-N’s continuing struggles with the PTI, with Imran Khan again warning of taking to street agitation if the judicial commission to investigate allegations of rigging in the May 2013 election is not convened by the government as promised, give it a surfeit of motives. However, the PML-N, via the IB, is by no means the only possible culprit. It is entirely possible that the most usual of suspects and the oldest of culprits in such matters are once again involved: the intelligence wings of the military establishment.

That there is no parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies, that there are no clear statutory limits on what intelligence agencies can do, and that military-run intelligence agencies report only to the army leadership and regard the civilian side of the state with historical mistrust is well known. What is not known at all is the scope of the intelligence agencies’ snooping on civilian politicians, and to what end. In the Khan-Alvi recording, there can be discerned only political purposes, with the PTI being made to look duplicitous and untruthful. Consider that in recent days the MQM, PPP and now the PTI have all been undermined by sudden revelations amidst a media frenzy. There is no clear or obvious reason why the military-run intelligence wings, pre-occupied as they must be with the fight against militancy, would try to muddy the waters for the PTI too at this moment. But there is enough happening on several fronts now for both the federal government and the military to determine who is behind the PTI leak and put an end to these dangerous shenanigans immediately.