SEVEN rounds of negotiations between the government and the combined opposition over the terms of reference for the Panama Papers judicial commission have yielded an impasse. While another meeting is scheduled, members of both sides in the parliamentary committee appear to be pessimistic about finding common ground. According to the opposition, the government is determined to avoid any inquiry that focuses on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif alone. According to the government, the opposition has consistently backtracked on its public position and is ultimately seeking a witch-hunt against the prime minister. It is perhaps in the nature of politics for all sides to exaggerate and threaten the collapse of talks. Time and again, an alleged impasse is broken at the last minute and usually with the intervention of the party bosses themselves. With Mr Sharif still out of the country and convalescing, perhaps the government team does not have the authorisation to reach a deal immediately and the opposition is not keen on letting attention turn away from it and towards the slow grind of a judicial commission as yet.

However, there ought to be no doubt: the Panama Papers continue to hang like a dark cloud over the country’s politics. True, the government has recovered somewhat and the business of governance has been taken up to an extent, especially with the budget process, but the politics of the Panama Papers is still a clear and major distraction. While the opposition is wrong to the extent that it appears to be uninterested in any systemic change or investigation beyond the first family, the government has been wrong to suggest that the prime minister should be held to the same standard of conduct as everyone else. The Panama Papers continue to reverberate nationally precisely because the prime minister’s children have been ensnared in them — to deny that is deeply problematic and, now, politically unacceptable. Given that it is the government that must notify the formation of a judicial commission and it is the leader of the government itself under scrutiny, it is the government that must show both creativity and flexibility to break the impasse.

For the political opposition, the challenge remains to convert the public outcry over the Panama Papers into something meaningful for the overall tax and financial system in the country. If the Panama Papers have yielded prima facie illegalities, the opposition should be working on legislative proposals to close loopholes and improve financial oversight. That process can and should move alongside the judicial commission’s work. Sensible legislative action that dovetails with reasonable political discourse is a fundamental way of introducing incremental change in the democratic system. Yet, until now, the opposition has appeared more focused on the politics of the Panama Papers and inflicting damage on the government than fixing the system. Can a better kind of leadership prevail?

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2016