ISLAMABAD: Khawaja Mohammed Asif, the country’s foreign minister, was disqualified from holding a parliamentary seat by a three-member bench of Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday, putting the veteran politician’s career in jeopardy.
The ruling was announced after Asif failed to declare his employment, work visa and monthly salary with a UAE company; his nondisclosure of a foreign bank account and incorrectly stating his occupation while filing his nomination papers with the Election Commission of Pakistan for the 2013 general elections.
Asif was not available for comment immediately but rejected the charge that he had concealed anything and pledged to challenge the court ruling in a quick statement to a local television network.
“We declare that … (Khawaja Mohammed Asif) was not qualified to contest the General Election of 2013 from NA-110 as he did not fulfill the conditions described under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution, read with section 99(1)(f) of the Act of 1976,” stated the 35-page order sheet, a copy of which was obtained by Arab News.
The petition seeking Asif’s disqualification was filed by opposition leader Usman Dar of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, who campaigned against and lost to Asif in the last general elections. Dar pleaded in his petition to the court that Asif had hidden his income from the UAE and covertly renewed his iqama (UAE work visa) while serving as Pakistan’s foreign minister.
Sharafat Ali, former Law Ministry adviser and legal expert, told Arab News the “disqualification is for life” under Article 62(1)(f).
“No one can meet this criteria mentioned in this constitutional provision, and the concept of democracy gets defaced. The article is impractical under the given circumstances. It is created for ideal conditions that are only found in a utopian environment,” Ali said.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and PTI leader Jahangir Tareen were both disqualified under the same article by the country’s top court last year.
The legal expert said that the article was amended many times, mainly during military rules. “If you read the Article (62’s) sub section D and E, that would render everyone disqualified under Islamic injunctions,” he explained, adding the same legal and constitutional criteria should also be applied to the judiciary and the armed forces of Pakistan.
The judgment, however, stated that the matter should have first been taken to Parliament.
“It would have been appropriate if the political party (PTI) to which the petitioner belongs had raised the issue at hand in the Parliament before invoking the jurisdiction of this court,” it said.
The judges noted their discomfort with the decision to disqualify an elected representative of people. It was a tough verdict against “a seasoned and accomplished politician” but more so “because the dreams and aspirations of 34,125 registered voters have suffered a setback,” the judgment concluded.
Maryam Nawaz, Sharif’s heir-apparent, has called the decision “a fixed match,” a term used in cricket when the game’s outcome is preset by certain stakeholders.
The verdict is another blow to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), amid signs that it is undergoing an internal crisis.
Qamar Cheema, a political analyst, told Arab News that PML-N “has a strong base in Punjab and will emerge as either a strong opposition or will maintain a thin majority which will let it to be relevant after the 2018 general elections.”
He also maintained that the disqualifications would strengthen the PML-N narrative on the sanctity of the vote. “Instead of people questioning the PML-N over its five-year performance, it’s now PML-N that’s asking the people why its leaders have been forced out,” he said.
Cheema added that the party had entered into an aggressive campaigning mode to win the hearts and minds of the people, showcasing its “political martyrs” who were elected by the masses but removed without public consent.
Pakistan’s foreign minister ineligible to hold public office, court says
Pakistan’s foreign minister ineligible to hold public office, court says
- Khawaja Asif disqualified for life over nondisclosure of foreign income and employment
- Asif earned monthly salary of 50,000 dirhams ($14,000) while serving as foreign minister of Pakistan
Japan prepares to restart world’s biggest nuclear plant, 15 years after Fukushima
- apan has restarted 14 of the 33 that remain operable, as it tries to wean itself off imported fossil fuels
NIIGATA: Japan took the final step to allow the world’s largest nuclear power plant to resume operations with a regional vote on Monday, a watershed moment in the country’s return to nuclear energy nearly 15 years after the Fukushima disaster. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, located about 220 km (136 miles) northwest of Tokyo, was among 54 reactors shut after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Since then, Japan has restarted 14 of the 33 that remain operable, as it tries to wean itself off imported fossil fuels. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa will be the first operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which ran the doomed Fukushima plant. On Monday, Niigata prefecture’s assembly passed a vote of confidence on Niigata Governor Hideyo Hanazumi, who backed the restart last month, effectively allowing for the plant to begin operations again.
“This is a milestone, but this is not the end,” Hanazumi told reporters after the vote. “There is no end in terms of ensuring the safety of Niigata residents.”
While lawmakers voted in support of Hanazumi, the assembly session, the last for the year, exposed the community’s divisions over the restart, despite new jobs and potentially lower electricity bills.
“This is nothing other than a political settlement that does not take into account the will of the Niigata residents,” an assembly member opposed to the restart told fellow lawmakers as the vote was about to begin.
Outside, around 300 protesters stood in the cold holding banners reading ‘No Nukes’, ‘We oppose the restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’ and ‘Support Fukushima’. “I am truly angry from the bottom of my heart,” Kenichiro Ishiyama, a 77-year-old protester from Niigata city, told Reuters after the vote. “If something was to happen at the plant, we would be the ones to suffer the consequences.”
TEPCO is considering reactivating the first of seven reactors at the plant on January 20, public broadcaster NHK reported.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s total capacity is 8.2 GW, enough to power a few million homes. The pending restart would bring one 1.36 GW unit online next year and start another one with the same capacity around 2030.
“We remain firmly committed to never repeating such an accident and ensuring Niigata residents never experience anything similar,” said TEPCO spokesperson Masakatsu Takata. Takata declined to comment on timing. TEPCO shares closed up 2 percent in afternoon trade in Tokyo, higher than the wider Nikkei index, which was up 1.8 percent.
RELUCTANT RESIDENTS WARY OF RESTART
TEPCO earlier this year pledged to inject 100 billion yen ($641 million) into the prefecture over the next 10 years as it sought to win the support of Niigata residents.
But a survey published by the prefecture in October found 60 percent of residents did not think conditions for the restart had been met. Nearly 70 percent were worried about TEPCO operating the plant.
Ayako Oga, 52, settled in Niigata after fleeing the area around the Fukushima plant in 2011 with 160,000 other evacuees. Her old home was inside the 20 km irradiated exclusion zone.
The farmer and anti-nuclear activist has joined the Niigata protests.
“We know firsthand the risk of a nuclear accident and cannot dismiss it,” said Oga, adding that she still struggles with post-traumatic stress-like symptoms from what happened at Fukushima.
Even Niigata Governor Hanazumi hopes that Japan will eventually be able to reduce its reliance on nuclear power. “I want to see an era where we don’t have to rely on energy sources that cause anxiety,” he said last month.
STRENGTHENING ENERGY SECURITY
The Monday vote was seen as the final hurdle before TEPCO restarts the first reactor, which alone could boost electricity supply to the Tokyo area by 2 percent, Japan’s trade ministry has estimated. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who took office two months ago, has backed nuclear restarts to strengthen energy security and to counter the cost of imported fossil fuels, which account for 60 percent to 70 percent of Japan’s electricity generation.
Japan spent 10.7 trillion yen ($68 billion) last year on imported liquefied natural gas and coal, a tenth of its total import costs.
Despite its shrinking population, Japan expects energy demand to rise over the coming decade due to a boom in power-hungry AI data centers. To meet those needs, and its decarbonization commitments, it has set a target of doubling the share of nuclear power in its electricity mix to 20 percent by 2040.
Joshua Ngu, vice chairman for Asia Pacific at consultancy Wood Mackenzie, said public acceptance of the restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa would represent “a critical milestone” toward reaching those goals. In July, Kansai Electric Power, Japan’s top nuclear power operator, said it would begin conducting surveys for a reactor in western Japan, the first new unit since the Fukushima disaster.
But for Oga, who was in the crowd outside the assembly on Monday chanting ‘Never forget Fukushima’s lessons!’, the nuclear revival is a terrifying reminder of the potential risks. “At the time (2011), I never thought that TEPCO would operate a nuclear power plant again,” she said.
“As a victim of the Fukushima nuclear accident, I wish that no one, whether in Japan or anywhere in the world, ever again suffers the damage of a nuclear accident.”
