The judges must speak clearly

The findings of the judicial commission probing the case of possible, systematic and large-scale rigging in the last elections can be a turning point in Pakistan’s electoral history. This event can shape the nature and direction of politics in decades to come. It is important, therefore, to remind ourselves what the findings would mean for the three most relevant actors in the equation: the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf; the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz); and the judiciary itself.
For the PTI these findings are crucial in sustaining itself as a credible political force in the country, one that can cause seismic-scale change across the land. True, what the commission will say is not a matter of life and death for the party: a political outfit that has millions of voters under its electoral command and which has established itself as a most potent alternative to long-standing parties cannot be dependent upon the few lines of a judicial inquiry.
However, the party over the last one and half year has become synonymous with the mantra of systematic rigging, thanks to its chairman Imran Khan’s view that his legitimate claim to be the country’s next prime minister was undermined through a devious and vile conspiracy. Let us not forget what the dharna was all about: it was about Imran Khan’s claim that he had finally found proof of the network of electoral fraud that was at work during and before the 2013 elections; that this network comprised (and he named all of them) Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, the then chief justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary, Punjab’s caretaker government, Punjab Election Commission members, the Jang Group and a vast number of minions in the shape of Returning Officers and bureaucracy’s stalwarts, a few members of the Military Intelligence and others. That this group had deliberately, knowingly, and unabashedly stolen the trophy from Khan’s hands and had wrongly handed it over to Sharif.
The PTI chairman had said – not once, not twice, but hundreds of times – that he had incontrovertible evidence that proves beyond any shadow of doubt the seedy affairs of 2013 and that his protest was meant to undo that grave wrong and its illegitimate product – the assemblies. For 126 days Imran Khan pleaded his case in the public as dozens of television channels spent hundreds of weekly hours beaming his ferocious attacks on the system on the basis of what he said “not hearsay but proof”.
Let us also not forget that this proof was not about ‘unproven ballots’, ‘non-readable national identity cards’, or ‘Presiding Officers and Returning Officers doing a criminally shoddy job of creating and maintaining records’ and additional ballots being ordered even if they were not used. It was about knowing the inner story of how a secret script was written by the named individuals and then brazenly implemented to perpetrate the largest electoral scam in recent memory.
It is this deep, multi-fanged conspiracy that the PTI had to prove ‘with inescapable conclusions of being a truly aggrieved party’ before the judicial commission.
For the PTI the findings of the commission have to measure up to the loudness and consistency of Imran Khan’s charges and accusations. If no conspiracy is proven, and no top criminals are identified, then this will be no less than a strategic setback. The party will then have two choices: to accept that their case has been thrown out and they now have to wait for the next elections to make a statement of popularity. The second choice will be to lock onto whatever the findings may say about irregularities, declare that a conspiracy has been proven and make another push for mid-term polls through street agitation.
Both choices are difficult. The first involves putting up with constant embarrassing attacks inside and outside parliament from the opponents and possibly also cases of defamation and libel by those Imran Khan has relentlessly accused of stealing the peoples votes. This will also mean damaged credibility. The second choice will mean creating another bubble of expectations based on self-serving and selective reading of the findings and taking to the streets again in the hope that this time the siege of Islamabad would be successful. If attempted, this will be one long leap of faith without the kind of security net that was available last year to catch the fall.
But if conspiracy is proven, the PTI will rise to heights never seen before. There will be no prizes for guessing who will be the next prime minister of this country.
For the PML-N, the judicial commission’s findings are just as critical. The party’s stance has been shaped by that of the PTI: it believes that there was no conspiracy and that the irregularities, while might have been common, are to be blamed where they belong: at the doorstep of the polling staff managing each constituency.
However, matters aren’t this simple anymore. After having agreed to the probe by a judicial commission, the ruling party has accepted the legitimacy of the conspiracy case the PTI has been pleading in public. Further, the scale of irregularities and a plethora of unanswered questions that have emerged from the probe may make the findings an uneasy reading for the party.
If the irregularities, taken together, come close to impacting the overall result (not in favour of one and against the other – just impacting) in a negative way the legitimacy of the elections would come under sharp focus. The PTI would ram home the point every day through media debates and statements that the collective will of the people was not reflected in the results of the 2013 elections and therefore a new exercise is necessary.
There is no reason to believe that short of an unequivocal statement from the commission that verifiable traces of a deliberate conspiracy have been found in the results of the polls, the PML-N would concede even an inch to the PTI on the legitimacy of the present system. However, being the incumbent, both in the centre and in Punjab, it won’t be able to shield itself from the charge of coming to power through a dubious ladder. Questions will hang over its head throughout the rest of its tenure. And if the conspiracy is proven, the party’s political goose will be cooked. It would not collapse immediately but it is hard to imagine that it would be able to withstand the PTI’s push in Punjab.
But the most supreme irony is that it is members of the judicial commission who shall be tested the most through their own findings. What they find or don’t find will shape history’s verdict on them. Traditionally, in cases that are surrounded by divisive political emotions and on whose outcomes political futures hinge, the judiciary tries to take a middle-of-the-road position. We can find on the shelves of old verdicts (both short and detailed) any number of decisions whose meanings have been left open to the imagination of the involved parties. Or whose directions have been so thick with coatings of legalese and jargon that very few can make out what has been said.
However, this creative ambiguity as a tool of penning findings and verdicts isn’t available to the members of the judicial commission. The framework in which the commission had to operate was clearly laid down. The judges have to respond to this framework. Moreover, the cardinal point is also clear to everyone: the core of the probe is about determining whether someone stole with criminal intent the people’s verdict or was the charge a mere figment of the rich imagination of one party and its leader. Any attempt at hedging, ducking, and fudging this core point in the detailed findings of the judicial commission would open the floodgates of instability as everyone would run with his favourite phrase and shout from the rooftop that he has been vindicated.
Therefore, the findings of the judicial commission have to be clear and precise. These must fix blame or absolve individuals and institutions of blame. The findings cannot be a halfway house. Every day the nation hears honourable judges lament from a high pedestal how governments never give them a clear answer on anything. How officials try to dodge them. How powerful office-bearers avoid answering their direct questions.
Now they have a unique opportunity to bring clarity to the national discourse. They need to tell us without creative ambiguity whether there was a conspiracy to rig the 2013 elections or not. And if there was then by whom and how. Anything short of such clarity will be a poorly-done job.
The writer is former executive editor of The News and a senior journalist with Geo TV.
Email: syedtalathussain@gmail.com
Twitter: @TalatHussain12