K-P Assembly: A caustic case of balloting

PESHAWAR:

Lawmakers nearly came to blows and their tongues spewed a vitriol of Ps and Qs. Accusations rained down with the same fury inside the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly building as the downpour did outside on Thursday.

Senate polls were delayed for over four hours over rigging allegations levelled by the opposition parties who claimed treasury lawmakers were taking ballot papers out of the assembly’s premises to stamp them under the chief minister’s watch. As a result, the polling process was put on hold around noon and finally resumed again at 4:15pm, after the official time was over. The time to cast ballots was resultantly extended till 8pm. The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf claimed opposition parties were throwing a spanner in the works to divert attention from their imminent loss. The opposition, on the other hand, placed the onus on the PTI, saying its lawmakers were violating rules by taking the ballot papers outside.

An opposition party’s leader said the PTI wanted to reschedule the polls by creating controversy in order to take advantage of the split within the opposition.

The anomalies were first highlighted by a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl lawmaker. This was followed by objections from the opposition’s polling agents and soon after, it was a free for all. Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Nighat Orakzai said she nearly broke her ankle after being shoved by Mehmood Jan. Showing her bruised ankle to reporters, Orakzai also lashed out at Ziaullah Afridi, who reportedly used regrettable language as the two traded barbs.

Orakzai said PTI lawmakers were taking ballot papers to the Chief Minister House, adding JI MPA Saeed Khan, PTI’s Ziaullah Afridi and Agriculture Minister Akramullah Gandapur stamped their papers outside the polling station set up in the main assembly hall.

It was a wonder the lawmakers did not end up clobbering each other as better sense prevailed among some of the cooler-headed MPAs like QWP’s Sikandar Sherpao sought to defuse tensions across the aisle.

Jumps and starts

Information Minister Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani said it was the opposition that was not allowing the voting process to continue. “Those aiming for many [Senate] seats with just five MPAs were trying to do the worst kind of horse-trading,” he said in a jibe directed towards PPP and Awami National Party. Local Government Minister Inayatullah Khan said opposition parties asked the election commission to halt polling after just eight votes had been cast.

There was an intermittent period when some strove to iron out differences through dialogue, but the opposition said Chief Minister Pervez Khattak refused to accept their demands.

Once polling resumed at 4:15pm, Ghani told The Express Tribune none of the opposition’s demands were accepted. “The polling process was part of a democratic system and has been resumed by the Election Commission of Pakistan.”

For all the opposition’s hue and cry over alleged rigging, cracks within its tightly-knit alliance were apparent for all to see. When PPP, JUI-F and ANP lawmakers laid into the PTI for using unfair means, QWP and PML-N MPAs remained conspicuous by their absence.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2015.