By confining judicial commission to inquire into ‘institutional’ or ‘organised rigging’ only, its mandate was changed.
RAWALPINDI: A silver lining had started shimmering when the government negotiating team was reported to have agreed to accept five out of the six points of the PTI. The most important issue — rigging in the elections — was resolved by appointing a three-member judicial commission to look into the allegations of rigging in the 2013 elections. However, the PML-N legal wizards introduced the term ‘institutional and organised rigging’ the very next day and asked the judicial commission to inquire into it only instead of the mutually agreed ‘general rigging’ in the elections.
The PTI stance had been that as the elections had been rigged, any government coming into being on the basis of rigged elections was not a legitimate government. But now by confining the judicial commission to inquire into ‘institutional’ or ‘organised rigging’ only, the entire mandate of the commission has been changed. If the commission were to find out whether any general rigging had taken place in the elections, it would have found plenty of evidence saying so. And by inference it could have proven that the PML-N was benefited (illegally) by rigging. That would have compelled Mian Nawaz Sharif to resign on moral grounds.
Col Riaz Jafri (Retd)
Published in The Express Tribune, September 16th, 2014.
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