- Little time remaining
A number of events have taken place before the election of the Senate Chairman that require the political parties’ attention. To start with, out of the three major parties that enjoy considerable presence in the Senate two have strongly protested against horse trading. The PPP has been jointly accused by them of indulging in horse trading at their expense. The PPP got two seats from KP assembly where it has only seven MPAs while 16 votes were required to win a single Senate seat. Farhatullah Babar claims that his party secured the seats by negotiating with the parties in KP. Was the PTI chapter in KP also consulted? And what about PPP candidate Shahzad Khan who managed to get 32 votes from Punjab where PPP has only eight seats? Did the party negotiate with the PML-N to get these votes? The feat could not have been performed without an element of horse trading.
The PTI too would do well not to pretend to be holier-than-thou on the issue of horse trading. Using the same tactics the party managed to win a Senate seat from Punjab Assembly despite its having only 30 members in the assembly while at least 46 are needed to secure a Senate seat.
What has happened to the PTI in KP assembly is partly the outcome of the false notion, common among the PTI supporters, that once an honest leader is in command, none in the party can commit corruption. Imran Khan laments now that while he knows who has bribed his MPAs he does not know which of them have actually betrayed the party. Instead of calling upon the SC to investigate the matter, the affected parties should set their houses in order.
Equally important for the parties is to prepare themselves to go to the general elections with an efficient election machinery. It won’t help accusing others of indulging in malpractices by utilising flaws in the system while one has done pretty little over the last five years to make institutional arrangements to close the loopholes.