A welcome decision

Qadri should learn from his mistakes

So it has been settled then. The Election Commission of Pakistan will not be dissolved and the attempt to have it so by a maverick cleric has been foiled by the Supreme Court. Though there is no guarantee that it would be a smooth democratic transition, our fledgling democracy lives to see another day. The freedom to differ in opinion is what distinguishes democracy from authoritarianism, but this freedom is not unfettered; it comes with certain responsibilities, particularly the one that forbids letting discords fester so much as can put the system at the risk of being eaten inside out.

Dr Tahirul Qadri, who led a long march to the federal capital almost a month ago, filed a petition in the SC asking for a reconstitution of the ECP at both federal and provincial levels. Ostensibly his agenda seemed to be vox populi; however, his ulterior motives put a question mark as to where his allegiance lied. The SC has, however, rejected his petition saying that he has no locus standi in the matter. A commendable decision by the court which has already taken a strong stance on dual nationality. Now that the superior judiciary, the very same he was calling on to overthrow the incumbent government and thus help his cause four weeks ago, has left him high and dry, he should better look inside and ask what any of his tantrums has actually achieved so far, other than disrupting political, commercial, financial and educational activities in the country. Though protests are his democratic right, if he is any wiser he would to drop the idea of any more protests, long marches or sit-ins, just to save the country from trouble.

The decision to reject the petition on the basis that a person with dual nationality can have no locus standi, instead of any technicality or political expediency, stands on legal qualifications. A person who takes oath of loyalty to another country is not the best person to decide what the people of his original country are in need of. Skewed approach to make inroads in the well established political spectrum works to no one’s benefit. The SC decision does strengthen democratic norms but it also makes one wonder what the court was really thinking when it took suo motu notice of the so-called Memogate scandal brought to public by a foreign national named Mansoor Ijaz. It is these type of inconsistencies in SC’s functioning that make its intentions suspicious and decisions doubtful. Such decisions should be based on the needs of dynamically changing political environment and they particularly should not appear as an attempt at fighting ghosts from its past. federal governments. It is up to the federal government now to tread the waters carefully and install a democratic setup before the elections.