A three-member bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan has spoken. Brothers Sharif, Nawaz and Shahbaz, of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz stand disqualified from holding public office or contesting elections.

While the verdict has ended the younger Sharif’s second tenure as chief minister of the Punjab, it would be too soon for the PPP to raise the glass to this “victory”.

The political intent of this ostensibly legal action is clear from the subsequent proclamation of Governor’s Rule in the province for two months. But Pakistan has always been the story of the murky area where law and politics intersect and law is either trumped or made to act as the concubine of politics.

Here’s how.

The PMLN and the PPP were in a coalition in the Punjab. Even if Shahbaz Sharif was disqualified, that, in and of itself, should have been no reason to change the political arrangement in the province because it had no effect on the headcount in the provincial assembly where the two parties were in a coalition.

But, and here’s the rub, it was Nawaz Sharif who, in his 1997-99 tenure, legislated then-President Farooq Leghari’s “accountability ordinance” into law. It stipulates that any leader disqualified from holding office also ceases to be the party leader. Brothers Sharif are therefore no longer leaders of their own party according to the operation of the Political Act; the PMLN, if it retains them as leaders, will have to re-register with the Election Commission, with someone else heading that party!

... contd.