Election debate shifts back to SC

ISLAMABAD:

A day after negotiations between the government and the PTI over the election schedule concluded, the focus on Wednesday shifted from political discourse to the Supreme Court with the main opposition party filing an application in the apex court praying that its order on holding the polls in Punjab on May 14 must be ensured.

A civil miscellaneous application (CMA) was filed in the apex court by the negotiating team of PTI comprising party vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi, senior vice president Fawad Chaudhry and Senator Ali Zafar.

In its application, the PTI requested the court to hold elections in Punjab on May 14 while submitting a report on the negotiations held between it and the government to decide the date of the elections.

The party informed the top court in its application that the government and PTI could not reach a solution within the Constitution on the Punjab Assembly election dates, “in spite of the best efforts of [the] parties”.

The former ruling party pleaded that the top court’s order for the Punjab Assembly elections to be held on May 14 should be “implemented in letter and spirit so that the Constitution is upheld and does not stand violated”.

The SC was informed that members of both the teams -- the PTI and Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)/alliance -- deliberated and held a dialogue with full sincerity over three days.

The application maintained that the stance of PTI was initially that the elections of the assemblies must be held within 90 days and that the SC already determined the constitutional timeframe for holding elections to the Punjab Assembly.

However, the PDM stated that elections for the National Assembly and all provincial assemblies should be held on the same day.

Therefore, it added that the government wanted the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa elections to be held in October this year, after the other assemblies completed their terms.

Read PTI protests against ‘skewed’ census

Subsequently, the PTI proposed that the Sindh and Balochistan assemblies be dissolved on or by May 14 and elections to all assemblies be collectively held within 60 days of the dissolution of the assemblies, that is, in the second week of July 2023.

It continued that to give a constitutional cover to the holding of the elections to the provincial assemblies of Punjab and K-P beyond the period of 90 days, the MNAs belonging to the PTI would re-join the NA.

 Afterwards, a one-time constitutional amendment validating the delay in elections beyond the period of 90 days to Punjab and K-P assemblies would be carried out by mutual consent of the political parties.

Lastly, the PTI demanded that “all the parties shall agree that the election results shall be accepted as a whole subject to individual grievances in accordance with law” and a written agreement should be submitted to the SC to ensure its implementation.

However, the PDM alliance rejected the PTI’s proposal, bringing the talks to a halt.

Shortly after, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry took to his official Twitter account and demanded that the apex court should immediately prevent the chief ministers and cabinets of Punjab and K-P from performing their duties.

“In this connection, our petition should be fixed immediately and an administrator should be appointed to run the affairs [of the two provinces] till the elections,” he wrote, adding that caretaker governments operating for more than 90 days were against the fundamental principle of the Constitution.