The shame and sham of NA-125

Their impressively sophisticated ‘so what?’ logic

One man weeps and another man smiles. No, I’m not talking about Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. Apparently the boxing ring isn’t the only place where one can receive a thrashing, as Khawaja Saad Rafique would know. Declared loser by unanimous decision, the fifty-something railway minister may now need to brush up his resume, if he ever really had one that is. An election tribunal’s findings have unseated this gent who had dutifully secured 123,094 votes for his party (PML-N) in the 2013 general elections. I’m sure if Manny Pacquiao follows Pakistani politics – a scenario about as likely as Pam Geller attending Friday prayers – he would have identified a kindred broken spirit in Khawaja Sahib.

Initially, when it was announced that voting irregularities have been identified in NA-125, requiring a re-election, some people from the N-league insisted that this cannot be the case. But when the election tribunal’s findings came one after the other in all their undeniable glory – from thumbprint and CNIC discrepancies to multiple vote casting by one person, to even more incriminating niceties like unsealed bags without counterfoil and inflated with stuffing – it had become clear that the truth could no longer be masked. And with that the N-league geniuses, in perfect accord with their well-established intellectual savviness, shifted from complete denialism to their impressively sophisticated ‘so what?’ logic. First to deliver this masterly stroke of supreme logic was the great man himself, the logician extraordinaire, rationalist par excellence, Khawaja Saad Rafique. So what if some polling bags were compromised? Surely, voiding the 2013 elections in the said constituency based on trivia — such as compromised polling stations! — is poor precedent for future elections, was Khawaja’s consummate defence. This untenable line of reasoning must have given everyone a pause, but pause it remained, because he was cast aside rather swiftly and new elections in NA-125 will be held.

PTI’s Hamid Khan, the man who filed the petition to probe NA-125, must be a happy man. Victory is sweet, especially when it comes not just against an entrenched foe but the system that entrenches him

PTI’s Hamid Khan, the man who filed the petition to probe NA-125, must be a happy man. Victory is sweet, especially when it comes not just against an entrenched foe but the system that entrenches him. And the party chairman, Imran Khan, stands vindicated. After carrying out a dharna that spanned 126 days — a rough affair which on occasion even involved confrontations with the police – while throughout demanding re-elections due to suspected electoral rigging in 2013 general elections, Khan asked for a judicial commission to probe the matter and specifically asked for four constituencies to be investigated. As always, he was shunned and dismissed by the army of cynics that’s always on the march in our beloved Pakistan. Some saw in Khan a tantrum throwing sourpuss; someone denied of his tsunami predictions, and forced now into taking to the streets and crying foul at everyone. Others pointed to intentions more sinister, for instance, insisting that Khan was desperate to down Sharif and take the throne, happy best online casino to retard and disrupt the functioning of the state with a special kind of reckless abandon one only encounters in the most ambitious of ego-maniacs. But regardless of what people said, or say today, Khan has done with hard, rigorous action what many could only address in the comfort of their words: he has paved the way for electoral reforms in Pakistan, or so one hopes.

The NA-125 development is an extraordinary event in Pakistan’s history. The fact that a sitting government’s legitimacy has taken such a hit, not by the force of crass accusations and bizarre abstractions by a bunch of disgruntled opposition blowhards, but rather by the incontestable findings of a tribunal pertaining to one of the most important constituencies in the country, is a development both sobering and encouraging. And what happens from here on i.e., whether Khan’s prediction (although for all his many qualities, crystal gazing is just not his forte) of 2015 general elections comes true or not, one thing is for sure: torn polling bags cut with sharp objects with missing Forms XIV will never happen again. But never say never, especially in Pakistan where never is never.

Khan has also raised another issue: NADRA delaying forensic evidence for another suspected constituency – NA-122. That the state is allegedly using coercive tactics in disrupting evidence collection measures casts further suspicion on the incumbent

Of course, PML-N is desperately trying to wiggle out of this one. Khawaja Rafique has conveniently absolved himself, pointing his finger at the returning officers that, well, are the responsible party. And Khawaja has a point. But in any instance of theft or deceit, suspicion always lands on the greatest beneficiary of the said act. So yes, returning officers will certainly be viewed as accomplices in the crime, but it will be the organisers of the crime who shall be sought and hopefully punished. And in this the judicial commission will play an integral role. Not merely an arbitration council, the commission can setup special investigative teams to dredge out more evidence and run more probes if and when required.

Khan has also raised another issue: NADRA delaying forensic evidence for another suspected constituency – NA-122. That the state is allegedly using coercive tactics in disrupting evidence collection measures casts further suspicion on the incumbent.

One suspects that underneath the apparent bravado, some N-leaguers are now feverishly looking for something to stop their teeth from chattering.