Postponing LB elections: Politicians-bureaucracy nexus hammers blow to judiciary

SC decision is taken as victory of the political govts which always wanted to evade the election.

KARACHI:

A new debate has started about the status of the judiciary after the Supreme Court approved the postponement of the lg election on the request of the Election Commission of Pakistan. This decision is being taken as victory of the political governments which always wanted to evade the election. 

Though the former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was a very active judge, still the judiciary has failed to get its verdicts implemented from institutions that enjoy ultra-constitutional powers in this country. Not only this, but steps taken by civil rulers and bureaucracy also proved the helplessness of judiciary.

The LG elections are a constitutional requirement but political governments have never accepted the importance and necessity of the local governments — that solve the problems of the people at their doorsteps.



Ironically both, Justice (retd) Iftikhar Chaudhry and Pervaiz Musharraf, took high interest in fulfilling this constitutional requirement but the public representatives who are elected by people not only avoided the implementation of this system but also hatched conspiracies against it.

Local body elections took place in Balochistan, thanks to the special interest taken by Justice (retd) Chaudhry. Punjab and Sindh also had to announce the polling after which the election commission was able to issue a schedule. But the election commission failed to get its authority accepted by the governments. Rather, the provincial bureaucracy kept meddling with the process by initiating debates like delimitations, electoral lists and formation of new districts — thus disputing the dates of the local body elections.

The parties would knock at the doors of the courts thus on one hand the election commission and the governments would successfully get rid of the public pressure and on the other hand would endanger the goodwill of the judiciary.

This was pointed out by an Express source who had been involved in the maneuvering efforts aimed at postponement of the elections made by the Sindh government and the election commission through raising issues like ballot papers, delimitations and other justifications.

The source also drew the attention towards the fact that ironically it was the same rational that the election commission had rejected when the Sindh government wanted the extension but the election commission refused even a single day’s postponement. But now the election commission has used the same logic to get the postponement approved by the SC. The source pointed out that the election commission’s behaviour was not understandable.

Replying to a question the MQM leader Aminul Haque said that he did not want to comment on the SC decision but he emphasised that like any other election the local body election should take place according to their stipulated schedule.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2014.