THE ELECTION AMBIGUITY!

The unedifying history of Pakistan has witnessed hybrid regimes in this country. On and off democratic spells of governments, followed by protracting military regimes and here this country is, too imperious and too oblivious to pull his socks up to mitigate this country’s constitutional crisis. As a matter of fact, our precedented history has never been alleviated to be unprecedented in constitutional terms, but what we’ve done is aggravating the constitutional violations in unprecedented terms to mark the glory of our history.

The civilian government is less than a month away from completing its constitutional term and the buzzword, “elections” still seems to be vague and ambiguous. Generally, the election year in Pakistan is etched out in frenetic political auras, accentuated by tumultuous election campaigns and hustings to take place, to fob off the general public to corroborate the craft of political engineering. But election year, this time, is brimmed with capricious political happenings, i.e., the incomings of the bigwigs, to expunge the menace of the outgoings of other eminent figures. Albeit, the talk of the town should be the public canvassing, but the prevailing situation seems to be adversarial. The limelight heads to be, “when the elections will take place”, the lucid expression of which seems more predilected, “when the elections will suit the incumbent government”.

“When the rule of law is underneath the law of ruler, the stature of the constitution plumbs the depth. This is the one concurrent aspect, why dictatorships and civilian governments in Pakistan have been cut from the same cloth.”

The Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif though hints the mid of August for the culmination of his government, to ensure the constitutional provision for the caretaker setup to hold the elections in 60 to 90 days, yet his proclaim is more speculated as a political statement, bereft of any veracity, by the look of the things. The deterrent to being sanguine for having the elections on time probes the government’s own peccadillos and its yearning to block the democratic process of change for its political beneficiaries.

Moreover, it’s the quagmire in Punjab and KPK, which has casted aspersions on the government’s intuitions of holding the elections on time. The protracting turmoil that lasted in the provincial setups of Punjab and KPK after the dissolution of their assemblies was exacerbated due to the impending elections. Even upon the Supreme Court’s decision to hold the elections in Punjab, the government annulled its ruling and couldn’t comply with the decision to have elections in 90 days. Advertently, the caretaker setup which is installed for having elections on time, advertently, did nothing to stamp out the situation and delayed the elections in Punjab against the Supreme Court’s decision.

The other skeptical thing regarding the holding of elections on time is the onus of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Institutions in Pakistan have always been a subject of wider game in Pakistan’s politics, having a direct or indirect puissant in sketching of power politics. As the Prime Minister heralded the election date to be nominated by ECP, this makes the general public dubious of its objective and impartial role to announce the election date in 60 to 90 days, as per its own leeway, according to the constitution.

Nevertheless, the situation now has an impression that PMLN has got better of the Imran Khan and the PTI, which was an ominous threat to PMLN’s case in the elections before and consequently, PMLN’s penchant, now find words in their statement to have elections on time. The plausibility of delaying the elections in the provincial assemblies from PMLN was unraveled in the fact for having the elections of national and provincial assemblies simultaneously to avoid any conducive means for having controversial elections.

But, as the history reflects, the political wills of authoritarians yield the constitutional means of their own to grist to the mill. When the rule of law is underneath the law of ruler, the stature of the constitution plumbs the depth. This is the one concurrent aspect, why dictatorships and civilian governments in Pakistan have been cut from the same cloth. It’s the law of might in this country that leads to the ineptitude of these rulers to launch an exit plan to have a transparent transition of power in the form of elections and there are no eccentric patterns shown from another incumbent government to water the democratic roots of this country.

However there’s a ray of hope that the incumbent government smells the prevacation for having a delay in the elections. A duly election is a desideratum to this country’s faltering democracy. A government with the public mandate and a legitimacy of 5 years to govern would trivialize the political turbulence and hence the economic challenges. The sooner the elections, the propensity of having a dimension to put this country to train would surge.