Full of controversy
The PTI has kept its doors open for entrants from all parties, no questions asked. Some of the leaders who have embraced PTI to create ‘Naya Pakistan’ are notorious turncoats. They have brought with them time-tested tactics to promote themselves in the new party. They know how to create their own lobby in PTI, make use of money to capture a coveted party office or have ‘ghost’ party members registered to get their loyalists elected to party posts. Malpractices of the sort turned the last party elections into a farce. Some of the top party leaders were held guilty of blatant electoral fraud by the Wajihuddin Ahmad tribunal appointed by Imran Khan. The powerful lobbies got Ahmad suspended.
The new Election Commissioner, assigned the task to hold less controversial polls, is facing the same problems. Elections scheduled prior to the party foundation day on April 25 have been postponed for more ‘careful planning’ for the “first-ever mobile message-based election in the world”. The reason: the commission was receiving complaints that some people were using up to five SIMs on one national identity card to create five voters. To outmanoeuvre the old sinners, the commission had to develop a new technology which was now being tested ‘by the world-class auditors’. To doubly ensure that the leaders of the cleanest and the most honest party in the country do not succeed in defeating the new technology, there would be a test-run before the election. Who is going to win, the chess master or the computer, remains to be seen.
There is a cut throat competition over Punjab. Despite warning by PTI’s chief EC in January against forming alliances and forums, the Unity Group and Nazriati Group have all but announced their nominees for the top party slot in Punjab. The EC knows that discretion is the better part of valour. There is therefore little hope of any disciplinary action against the leaders of the two groups for violating the election code.