Just about two months back, on January 20 to be precise, opposition leaders and supporters had rallied against the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) outside its main office in Islamabad over the delay in the hearing of the foreign funding case against PTI. The protest was seen by the ruling party as an attempt to malign a state institution with a constitutional role. And now, the same PTI alleges that the same state institution has failed to perform its constitutional duties over which the chief election commissioner (CEC) and all its members should collectively resign. And this time it’s the opposition that has come out in the defence of the election commission, calling the PTI’s resignation demand an attack on the state institution. This, by the way, exposes the double standards and contradictions of our politicians, and their tendency to be politically correct all the time, whatever the cost.
The PTI’s resignation demand, meanwhile, contradicts a statement given by the party chairman, Prime Minister Imran Khan, sometime in January this year, expressing full confidence in the incumbent CEC in particular reference with the foreign funding case against him that has only run by fits and starts over the last seven years. A few incidents occurring after that can easily be seen as the cause for the ill-will between the two sides. It actually started off from the Daska bye-election on February 19. The violence and rigging during the polling led to the ECP withholding the bye-election result, and ultimately announcing re-polling in the whole constituency. Then came the commission’s refusal to hold Senate elections under an open ballot — something that helped the PDM candidate win the hotly-contested seat from Islamabad and necessitating a trust vote on the part of the PM. While all this has already generated enough bad blood between the ECP and the ruling party, who knows the former may also be gearing up to fast-track the foreign funding case.
While the government has legal options available in the form of a reference to be sent to the top court for removal of the ECP chairman and members, they have decided to do what our politicians have traditionally been doing in such situations — coming up with a political narrative to confuse the masses and play the victim card.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 17th, 2021.
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