Moment of reflection?

Legal eye
The much-awaited Judicial Commission report has landed like egg on the PTI’s face. An objective reading of the report leads one to the conclusion that in view of the evidence presented and the arguments made, no fair tribunal of inquiry could have reached any other conclusion. Those of us who critiqued the Chief Justice’s decision to head the commission out of fear that a roving inquiry into a deeply polarising controversy will drag the Supreme Court deep into the political thicket but still not lay the election controversy to rest owe him an apology.
Justices Nasir-ul-Mulk, Amir Hani Muslim and Ejaz Afzal Khan have done what seemed impossible a while back: they conducted proceedings of the commission fairly and patiently, hearing submissions made by adversaries at length, with no one raising any doubt about their neutrality; their questions during proceedings were aimed at better understanding respective positions of the parties and not at creating headlines; and when they spoke their minds, they did so through a detailed report that gave unequivocal and reasoned answers to questions they were asked to address.
Notwithstanding the many failures of our justice system that need urgent attention, the manner in which the JC conducted itself – stuck in the middle of a charged political theatre and under the intrusive gaze of the media – should renew the faith of cynics in the ability of our judges to be neutral arbiters of facts and the law, to conduct themselves in a manner that is beyond reproach and to disregard extraneous considerations even while ruling on divisive partisan matters.
As charitable men, JC members begin their conclusion by stating that, “PTI was not entirely unjustified in requesting the establishment of a body to inquire into its suspicions and allegations regarding the 2013 general elections.” Beyond these qualified words there is no face-saving for the PTI in the rest of the report, which demolishes each of the less fantastic accusations the PTI put to the JC. (There were other more preposterous ones that we repeated ad nauseam during the dharna but weren’t raised before the JC – ie the grand conspiracy featuring CJ Chaudhry controlling ROs as puppets and 35 punctures etc).
The JC gave more than enough rope to the PTI: the CJ agreed to head the commission as requested by the PTI (and be consumed by a thankless job in his last few months in office); the JC ordered that polling bags be opened and inspected; it ordered that extra ballots be accounted for; it ordered that Forms 14 and 15 be recovered and scrutinised; it summoned ROs from contested constituencies; it summoned caretakers and ECP officials; it sought and examined Nadra reports; it heard anyone else who has anything to say about electoral rigging and irregularities; and it repeatedly beseeched the PTI to back its allegations with evidence.
And after this elaborate painstaking exercise its three categorical conclusions are as follows: “the 2013 general elections were in large part organised and conducted fairly and in accordance with law”; “the plan or design to manipulate or influence the election has not been disclosed with any degree of specification by any of the parties to the proceedings nor is it discernable from the material placed before the commission”; and “despite some lapses by the ECP it cannot be said on the evidence before the commission that on an overall basis the elections were not a true and fair reflection of the mandate given by the electorate.”
What emerges from the report is that irregularities crept into the election process largely because the Election Commission remains a makeshift entity: the ROs were overworked and untrained; the POs didn’t know what they were doing; there was no standard formula for printing ballots; the ballots weren’t delivered on time; Forms 14 and 15 weren’t filed as they should have been; there existed no arrangements to store polling bags post election, etc. But even a roving inquiry produced no evidence that powerful wheeler-dealers huddled behind closed doors to predetermine the election outcome and then delivered on such plan.
This logical explanation of electoral rigging finds support in recent allegations of rigging during KP’s local bodies elections. What thus emerges is that the story of Election 2013 is no different from the story of an administratively broken Pakistan: scrutiny of anything involving state and public office-holders (whether it is elections or heatwaves or floods or health services or education) exposes an utter lack of capacity, capability, thinking, planning and training. If there is a grand conspiracy against Pakistan it is that our political elite is simply not interested in rebuilding the country’s moth-eaten governance framework.
So why did the PTI raise the ruckus about stealing of an election if all it had was a hunch and he-said-she-said anecdotes? There is a real-politick version and a less-charitable one. The real-politick version is that the PTI had nothing to lose. It had lost the 2013 election and by insisting that it had not so lost and seeking high-level scrutiny into its allegations it wasn’t going to lose what it didn’t have. In the process of taking on Punjab’s Goliath, it established itself as the key rival, rallied its supporters, established itself in streets and villages across Punjab and in the process became much larger and stronger than it was in 2013.
The other version raises thorny questions about the ambition and judgement of Imran Khan’s PTI and its ability to be different as a political party from other one-man-cults it chides. The problem with cults is that disciples unquestioningly accept as Gospel views of the leader they are mesmerised by, no matter how misconceived or illogical they may be. In the absence of any challenge to views and ideas and surrounded by those who must never hold up the mirror in the interest of self-preservation, nothing prevents the cult leader from mistaking rhetoric for reality or imagining wishes and desires as facts.
Why is it that the PTI’s top-tier leaders could not spot obvious holes in the party’s one-upon-a-time type stolen election fantasy? Do ends justify means for Imran Khan and the rest of the PTI leadership? In view of Pakistan chequered political history, were they unaware that midterm ouster of an elected government is not possible without khakis pulling strings from behind the curtain? Was the PTI fine with dancing to the tune of puppeteers so long as what was dangling in front was a shortcut to power? Do manifestations of brazen ambition and clouded judgement inspire confidence in IK’s claim to be Pakistan’s agent of change?
From support for Musharraf’s referendum, to unconditional support to CJ Chaudhry’s populist judicial activism, to ill-founded allegations of malice and dishonesty hurled upon CJ Chaudhry post his retirement (and others such as Najam Sethi), to preempting required political consensus to suppress the savage TTP (with the latest attempt as recent as this week), to launching the dharna to oust the PML-N government, and seeking creation of the judicial commission to vindicate his party’s position on Election 2013, is it not fair to say that IK has exhibited serious error of judgement on key political issues of his time?
None of this changes the fact that IK is a charismatic political leader who heads one of the largest mainstream political parties that has emerged as the key challenger to the incumbent PML-N. The reason a large population of the country is willing to take a punt on IK is his reputation for being personally incorruptible, and lack of attractive alternatives – and not some of his disastrous policy and tactical choices. Will IK see the JC report as an opportunity to engage in quiet introspection and consider how to shield himself and his party from his own bum choices?
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu