IT is a dangerous game that the PPP is playing. In a bid to keep the pressure on the PML-N and perhaps raise its own political profile — such are the times that the party has inflicted on itself — the PPP has drawn up a shambolic reference against the following: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif; Finance Minister Ishaq Dar; Mohammad Safdar, MNA and husband of Maryam Nawaz; and Hamza Shahbaz, MNA and son of the Punjab chief minister.

The substance of the allegations is politically unproblematic. The PPP has claimed that, in the wake of the revelations in the Panama Papers and the explanations offered by the PML-N and the prime minister himself, Nawaz Sharif and his family members in parliament have mis-declared their assets to the Election Commission in their mandatory filings.

But it is the recourse to religiously inspired clauses in the disqualification criteria set out in Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution — introduced through an amendment by the dictator Ziaul Haq three decades ago and which no parliament since has been able to revise — that is worrying and problematic.

Politically and legislatively, the reference to “honest and ameen” in Article 62(f) is a slippery slope that over the decades has inflicted a great deal of harm on democratic politics.

The phrase is often invoked as a catch-all measure to trap political opponents and attack them in at least the court of public opinion.

The PPP is surely aware of the history and sensitivity of the charge that has now been laid against the PML-N leadership.

To invoke the spirit of a dictator who so persecuted the PPP in this manner and at this stage is doubly shameful: with the ECP effectively non-functional and the government and the opposition still needing to work together to elect the four members of the commission, the reference filed against the Sharif family members is purely for public consumption.

It appears that the PPP leadership has all but given up on reorganising and reinvigorating its grass-roots politics in Punjab and is falling back on lazy opportunism to try and hold back the PML-N.

To the extent that political parties need to engage in robust competition and that the PML-N has genuine and serious questions to answer about the wealth of the ruling family, the PPP is both entitled to and right in asking relevant questions. Surely, though, that should not involve the path the party has opted to take.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2016