Move on

The report of the Judicial Commission on the 2013 elections has left two entities under pressure: the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The PTI and its chairman Imran Khan have been left in a particularly embarrassing position after they spent over two years claiming that the 2013 general elections were systematically rigged by the PML-N and other actors. The PTI chairman’s response to the report came on Saturday. Imran Khan said that he accepted the decision of the inquiry commission, but continued to raise questions arguing that the judges had left the matter ‘unfinished.’ So the PTI chief’s ego again appeared to get the better of him. He also demanded that members of the ECP must resign. While the demand itself may have its own merit, the fundamental fact of the whole affair is that the PTI has been unable to prove the merit of its own case of systematic rigging. Khan said that ECP officials had no moral ground to stay in their offices anymore, but can the same not be said of the PTI leadership for leading a four-month protest which at one time attempted to storm parliament and could have led to much greater bloodshed than was witnessed? This was done without any real proof and with much abuse hurled at institutions and individuals. The detailed verdict by the commission is written out in decisive language and makes clear points about the failure of the PTI and other complainants to prove any of the charges made. Khan pursues a strange line of argument – that the Judicial Commission should have gone ‘far enough’ to create a special team to conduct investigations against returning officers. The Commission had been given all the powers of a civil and criminal court to call any witness, document or material, form one or more investigative committees comprising any agency and conduct its inquiry tho roughly. But the question remains if the so-called evidence – or the almost total lack of it – shown by the PTI was strong enough to warrant any such steps. The accounts that have emerged from media sources and from PTI leaders as well tell a different story. Imran Khan seems to hold that the task of proving the rigging was actually the Judicial Commission’s.
The PML-N has been swift to retort that Imran has once again failed to live up to his word by not abiding by the JC decision in spirit, even though he has said there will be no street protests and the focus will be on governance in the KP. The PML-N can, however, learn from the events of the last year and show a bit of humility instead of loud arrogance. We do need a lot of improvement in the system of balloting and it cannot be denied that most political parties, and people at large, have low confidence in the ECP. The ECP has taken the position that the inquiry commission has vindicated it. The commission report, though it emphatically rejects the meaningless talk of an electoral conspiracy, does not exactly paint a rosy picture of the ECP performance during the elections. The ECP talk of a complaint-free 2018 election may be far-fetched, but the promise of reform is certainly a positive one. But the doubt if anyone will reform the ECP persists, even after now a host of shortcomings in the ECP have been pointed out by the Judicial Commission. It is not very encouraging that the ECP has now asked for a delay in the local bodies elections in Sindh and Punjab citing the floods. This again raises questions over its ability to perform. The ECP then is trying to bask in glory that does not belong to it. It should instead try and live up to its responsibilities. Imran Khan should now stop suffering from sour grapes and become a mature politician capable of learning from mistakes. He should now focus on running affairs in the KP and the issue of the 2013 elections should finally be put to rest.