What happened on the Election Day?

PPP has claimed that there was no point because the ballot boxes were rigged and not the forms

What really happened on the Election Day? Were the elections stolen from you? If so who stole them from you? These are the important questions that deserve an answer.

And before I write another word, let me remind you of my position on similar charges against the 2013 elections. I would have none of it. It was my position that there was no systematic way of fixing a national election on such a grand scale. Here and there you would get instances of booth capturing or box stuffing but such incidents in a constituency of hundreds of thousands voters could hardly make a difference. And there were hundreds of constituencies. All fixed? Nah.

Then came the 2014 sit-ins which culminated into the formation of an inquiry commission. The prospects of a grand theft were dismissed. But that is not how our media received it and it has a lot to do with the structure and functioning of a large subset of Pakistani minds. We are taught to believe we are experts on everything under the sun, including economy, science, technology, medicine, and forensics, and why even the end of times. The insignificant matters of evidence, chain of causation, rational explanation and absence of a conspiracy is lost on us. I believe it was a few pundits’ hit job that led to the hysteria we witnessed on streets and television screens in 2014. Why would anyone accept a nuanced and well-researched assessment by a high-powered commission? So, the media kept signalling. And a former president, whose party had been vanquished in the said elections, had already dubbed it an RO (returning officer) election from the very start implying that the polling staff had rigged it. (Full marks for the sportsman spirit by the way). So, this signalling had left an indelible mark in people’s minds when they went for these elections. For mere mortals like me however it was enough that the inquiry commission had ruled out possibility of a grand conspiracy and noticing some loopholes in the system published a set of recommendations which was duly adopted by parliament. That truly was enough.

Before these elections many interesting claims were made. For instance, spooks were approaching PML-N’s candidates to change loyalty and run as an independent with the symbol of ‘jeep’. But did you see any evidence? I did not. Could it be that some electables had realised that the party’s narrative was not getting the kind of traction they needed and used it as an excuse to jump ship? We wouldn’t know because our media did not ask them for evidence. The few who did were not given any. No, no, wait. Honestly, think about it. Where is the evidence? All assumptions we have are based on word of mouth, unsubstantiated claims, conjecture and things circumstantial at best. Take them to a court. Any court. And they won’t pass the basic evidentiary test.

On the Election Day, I reached my allotted polling station early. It is true that the staff had stopped men from entering the premises and we had to stand in a queue, but women were allowed to enter without any resistance. Remember it was a few minutes past eight and polling had only just begun. When I was allowed to enter, I proceeded to cast my vote without much hassle. I made it a point of peering into the ballot box to see if any box stuffing like Musharraf’s referendum is taking place. The box was near empty. I voted and left for work. Voting must have continued without any break and I didn’t see any shoddy activity in any polling station in my circle of reach.

Now let us talk about the Form 45 and the Result Transmitting System (RTS) fiascos. Considerable goalposts have been shifted since. First it was claimed by the PML-N that the Form 45 carrying final result was not being handed out. Then it surfaced that the CCTV cameras were recording the episodes where ROs were handing out the results and the polling agents were refusing to take them. After that we heard that the results were written on plain paper and not the prescribed forms and that is why they were refused. Now that the Election Commission of Pakistan has decided to publish all forms on its website, the PPP of the former president has again shifted the goalpost by claiming that there was no point because the ballot boxes were rigged and not the forms. Head still not hurting? And let’s talk about the RTS. It is just an app. Even big machines break down under pressure when you need them the most and this was merely software being used at such a large scale for the first time. I am sure it was beta-tested, but this was not your average everyday stress test. It was the mother of them all. The Election Day. And the workforce involved is not very tech-savvy.

I know there is a context of NAB investigations and prolonged cases. But they too have rational explanations. Quite a few of them. And the pressure on the media? Easily explained. No institution likes to be insulted twenty-four hours a day. You know how partisan politics and debates get carried away in Pakistan. But then courts have contempt of court laws. Pemra has its own powers to defend other institutions.

Is there a better explanation available here for the election outcome? Well there is. The PML-N is in incredible pain. It has allowed its judgment to be impaired by paranoia. When only hours before elections you are constantly saying that the elections are being stolen, your voter gets demoralised and refuses to come out. Proof? Senator Mushahid Husain wrote a letter to the ECP on behalf of the PML-N asking it to extend polling time half way through the election. You do that when you know your voter is not showing up.

Then there is the issue of succession in the PML-N. In NA-120 by-election, it was painfully evident when Hamza Shehbaz and his father were missing in action. This election was reverse NA-120 by-election. Maryam Nawaz might be behind bars but her contact with her party is not broken. I wrote weeks before election that the PML-N doesn’t seem too keen to win. One faction in any case. Not my place to judge. Only that despite all of that the party got 67 seats. It doesn’t happen in a rigged election.

Similarly who doesn’t know Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Mahmood Khan Achakzai had irked the Pashtun voter by opposing Fata’s merger with K-P. Or how badly had former president Asif Zardari’s politics had alienated the voters in Lyari. Those who think Chaudhry Nisar’s opponent was picked up as a result of a grand conspiracy forget the infinite resourcefulness of the former interior minister. But still the ‘jeep’ crashed and burned on the Election Day. Those who think Imran Khan is being installed by the powers that-be ignore the tenacity of the man himself. I cannot rule out any huge conspiracy but under scrutiny, most of these theories start crumbling down like cheap thrills and mysteries in a Dan Brown novel.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 2^nd, 2018.

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