The ballot roulette
An electoral roulette is around the corner. It seems the fragile political set-up is once again gearing for bye-polls. This time around there isn’t any enthusiasm and the pattern of legal process too is weird. It pertains to nine seats that fell vacant in the National Assembly, and that too at the prerogative of accepting selective resignations from the en-bloc stand-downs submitted by PTI in April. The coalition government, apparently, has a political ploy behind it as it wants to buck up its wafer-thin strength on the floor of the house by bagging a few more, and sustain the order till the parliamentary tenure next year. But the PTI is swift to counter the move, as its demand pertains to general elections and not bye-polls.
The surprise decision from former Prime Minister Imran Khan to contest all the nine seats himself has literally torpedoed the Machiavellian move of the government. That means a clean sweep on all the seats will once again lead to resignations, thus putting the ballgame to square-one. It is not surprising to believe in the PTI strategy, as it sits at the zenith of its popularity, and its narrative for a new elected order is gaining momentum.
To further compound the mosaic, PTI has also knocked on the doors of the court of law, praying for suspension of bye-polls. It pleads that the move on part of the Speaker and the Election Commission is devoid of logic, and is with malafide intention. The arguments are sellable. PTI, with the drop of a hat, as it was voted out on the floor of the National Assembly on April 9th midnight, had resigned en-mass. The legislators’ even do not subscribe to appeals from the Speaker for a personal audience on resignations’ clarifications, and stood their ground. This has put them on a high-moral ground in an attempt to buoy the party’s line of action and thus go in for general elections, as and when called for.
The experiment to hold bye-polls on nine seats will be an exercise in jeopardy, and lead to more political polarisation as well as creeping instability. The economic chips are already down and a sense of civic unrest is in the air. It is incumbent upon political forces to call it a day and rework a conciliation for resourcing to ballot collectively.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 8th, 2022.
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