The prime minister’s sacking need not throw Pakistan into chaos

OF THE 25 people who have held the job of prime minister of Pakistan, not one has served a full parliamentary term. Nawaz Sharif became the latest to find himself unemployed on July 28th, when the Supreme Court dismissed him for omitting some income from the declaration of assets he was obliged to submit as a parliamentary candidate (see ). This is the third time Mr Sharif has been ejected from the post: the president booted him out in 1993, the army in 1999.The court’s decision to oust Mr Sharif was questionable, to say the least. It ruled that his incomplete declaration fell short of the constitutional requirement for MPs to be “honest and upright”. But that is an impossibly woolly standard, which could be used to ban almost anyone. Moreover, Mr Sharif’s lapse—the failure to declare a directorship which carried a small salary that he did not even draw—hardly seems egregious. The court admitted that the more serious allegation against him, that he had used his first stint in office to enrich himself, had not been tested in a proper trial, and thus could not be considered a ground for his dismissal. Instead, it referred the claim back to an anti-corruption tribunal.