Better avoid giving IK taste of his own medicine!

ISLAMABAD: The proposal of extreme protest against election rigging as suggested by Moulana Fazlur Rehman and other smaller parties, is precisely what Imran Khan has been doing during the past five years.

The PML-N and PPP are expected to avoid this for political stability in the country and to give no chance to the anti-democratic forces to exploit the situation in any manner. However, in case Moulana Fazlur Rehman-led MMA and some other parties stick to their protest, it will help Imran Khan and the PTI understand how seriously they have been hurting the country and the system in the recent years.

Imran Khan and PTI resorted to repeated boycotts of Parliament, tendered resignations from National Assembly (which the speaker did not accept), held over 120 days sit-in in Islamabad badly hampering the working of the government, attacked parliament building and the PTV headquarter, staged lock-down of the federal capital and even got involved in hobnobbing with the anti-democratic forces to dislodge the PML-N government.

Now opposition parties with the exception of PML-N and PPP, have announced to launch a protest movement to get the 2018 election results suspended and pave the way for fresh polls. Led by Moulana Fazlur Rehman, these parties have also decided that their candidates, who have won the 2018 elections, would not take oath and boycott Parliament. They have not asked for recount of any number of constituencies but demanded new elections by suspending the 2018 election result altogether.

If the pre-election situation was totally unfair and engineered in favour of the PTI and to the disadvantage of other parties particularly the PML-N, the post vote-polling events including the collapse of Election Commission’s RTS (Result Transmission System), the non-availability of form 45 and the unheard of prolonged delay of innumerable Presiding Officers to reach to Returning Officers’ offices alogwith vote bags, have raised serious doubts about the fairness and transparency of the election results.

What makes things more doubtful is the recounting of votes in certain constituencies mostly resulting in the defeat of PTI candidates. Consequently the PTI which earlier was being shown to have bagged 119 NA seats, has now settled to 115 figure. Recounting in some constituencies was still underway at the time of the filing of this story. However, to add to the controversies surrounding the elections, the ROs in Karachi and Murree declined Shahbaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s requests respectively for recounting of votes.

There have been some protests in different parts of the country against the alleged rigging of elections, a few killings have also been reported but unlike the PTI’s post-2013 election protests against rigging, the media generally ignored them.

Presently the PTI is struggling hard to complete the number for the formation of its government at the Centre for which it is wooing independent, MQM, PML-Q and others. In Punjab the PTI although denies PML-N’s (which emerged as the largest party with 126 seats) right to form the government, it is far more tougher to attain the simple majority in Punjab than at the Centre for the formation of its government.

With the kind of divided mandate given to different political parties by the voters in these elections, the PTI governments when formed will remain weak both at the Centre and in Punjab. Although Imran Khan adopted conciliatory tone in his victory speech, his entire opposition whether the PML-N, PPP, JUI-F, ANP or others is too skeptical.

In such a scenario if the joint opposition decides to create serious troubles for PTI government in the same fashion what Tehrik-e-Insaf had been doing in the past, it would be hard for Imran Khan to run the government smoothly.

Moulana Fazlur Rehman is frustratingly trying for new election. The PPP, which even in the post-2018 election scenario has stakes in the system with increased number of MNA seats and comfortable majority in the Sindh Assembly to form its government in Sindh, has clearly distanced itself from becoming part of any extreme protest.

The PPP also wants to use the parliamentary forum and other legal means to fight its case against the rigged elections. The PML-N, which had attended the opposition's APC on Friday, had though agreed to protest against rigging, sought time to consider if the party would also boycott the assemblies by not letting its MPs to take oath. However, it is expected that like the PPP the PML-N would also avoid going to such an extreme, which may threaten the entire system. What Moulana suggests may help satisfy personal egos by giving Imran Khan the taste of his own medicine, it would not only lead to political instability but would also weaken the system to the advantage of anti-democratic forces.