This commission is tragically obscure
In a game of chess, it sometimes pays to lose a piece if it’ll cost the opponent a bigger one few moves later. And it’s some game of chess, this whole PML-N and PTI business.
We know he’s been pouting and sulking in a corner since PML-N came into power. He staged a massive dharna that spanned great lengths across space and time, demanding Sharif to step down from his designated throne – to which the PM returns every few decades with a consistency with which night follows day. He even has a history of unpopular alliances, ranging from eccentric to insane, from expat Canadian Sufi clerics to full-blown messiah types complete with flowy beards and skull-caps; the whole nine yards. So disgruntled was he, that last year when things didn’t quite pan out, he had his party members resign from the assemblies. All this over one issue: election fraud. Khan believes the 2013 elections were rigged. And nothing short of re-election and the PM’s resignation would suffice, or so he claimed until a few days ago before the recent settlement between the two parties wherein both Khan and Sharif finally decided to scratch each other’s backs because their mutual itch had somewhat achieved unbearable levels. What ensued was an agreement that a judicial commission be established, tasked to probe the matter of alleged voter fraud in suspect constituencies.
The commission will apparently comprise a three member bench run by sitting Supreme Court judges. Some question the legality of such a commission. They invoke article 225 of our bleeding constitution, ‘No election to a House or a Provincial Assembly shall be called in question except by an election petition presented to such tribunal and in such manner as may be determined by Act of Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament).’
Will Sharif dissolve the assemblies, setup a caretaker government, and hold re-elections? Or would the re-elections only apply to seats/constituencies where voter fraud has been firmly established by the commission’s findings?
A commission is no tribunal. And if said commission is set up by way of ordinance, per latest agreement, then will the Supreme Court accept that ordinance over the clearly stipulated constitutional directive demanding a petition to a tribunal through parliamentary action? How can sitting judges of the judiciary nbso online casino reviews even preside over a commission that in its very conception is a violation of the very writ and law the judiciary vows to protect? And what about the political ramifications? Is the judiciary even supposed to wade into political swamp-lands? Khan, after all, accused the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry of complicity in the whole rigging affair. Would the sitting judges pass a verdict against one of their own and bring bad name to an institution of which they occupy the highest echelons? And if their verdict lands in favour of Mr Chaudhry, will that not raise questions over the credibility of this grand inquisition?
More questions will follow. How long will it take to form such a commission? More importantly, who will form the commission? Judges can’t be forced to partake in such proceedings. And how long will the verdict take to come? Apparently Khan wants an outcome within 45 days of the inquiry. This of course, as with most things involving Khan, looks ridiculously ambitious. And what happens upon such a verdict? If Khan’s suspicions are proven right, will that completely delegitimise the government?
Will Sharif dissolve the assemblies, setup a caretaker government, and hold re-elections? Or would the re-elections only apply to seats/constituencies where voter fraud has been firmly established by the commission’s findings? And in case of the former, why would legitimately elected members of the assemblies agree to such an arrangement? In fact, who gives two parties the right to unilaterally take legal/constitutional matters in their own hands like this? And wouldn’t this commission set a dangerous precedent for future parties to invoke something of this nature to undermine the opposition?
It should be obvious by now that this commission, in all its purported objectives and ‘terms of references’, is tragically obscure. And perhaps that was its intended aim, and also why it was ultimately accepted by Sharif; a man who thrives in deliberate obscurity. Because for Sharif, in the worst scenario, the findings of the commission will reveal what many have known all along, that some percentage of seats were fraudulently secured. By the time, however, such findings do come around, if at all, it’ll already be too late and all eyes will be on 2018 elections. And considering the number of people at risk of being potentially implicated in this racquet of ‘planned rigging’, including members of judiciary, the election commission, the pre-Nawaz care-taker government, it looks unlikely that something very radical will issue forth from this exercise.
Khan is already feeling the pinch with members of his party divided over the intra-party elections issue; that in spite of the findings of an independent tribunal that reveal foul play by various elected members, the party has not taken any action against them
All this has really done is put more pressure on Khan. With his demands for an independent inquiry finally coming to life, his party members are being asked to go back to the assemblies and do what all elected parliamentarians are supposed to do: deliver on their campaign promises. Agitation and civil unrest can only go so long and so far, beyond which they become disruptive and inimical to democracy. Khan must learn to appreciate that line.
But more than pragmatics, it’s the principles that many believe Khan has lost touch with. This agreement with PML-N is widely being viewed as a compromise for the favours both parties did each other in the recently held Senate elections, wherein allegedly, in the KPK region, PTI voted for PML-N and PML-N in other categories voted for PTI. Some are even saying that this agreement was more the military establishment’s initiative to maintain momentum on the Zarb-e-Azb operation. Splinters within and between two major parties, one on the centre-right and the other a few notches further to the right, can create enough ruptures for the enemy-administered poison to seep in.
Khan is already feeling the pinch with members of his party divided over the intra-party elections issue; that in spite of the findings of an independent tribunal that reveal foul play by various elected members, the party has not taken any action against them, claiming that such an action would create a functional vacuum that would render the party defunct.
In theory, though, there is in spite of its manifest obscurity and many weaknesses, something positive about this judicial commission. That for once in our history, something has emerged from within the democratic framework that attacks this chronic ailment of voter-fraud that has long plagued our electoral system. And that perhaps this will lead to greater electoral reform, without which any instance of democracy is at best a laughable caricature of the real thing.
