EDITORIAL: A little over six months on from the February 8 general elections, the Pakistanis would have expected that the turmoil triggered by that controversial exercise, leaving the country’s political landscape deeply fractured and uncertain, would have abated by now. However, with the election tribunals set up to resolve election-related disputes, by and large, failing to execute their constitutional duties within the legally mandated 180-day deadline, any hope of putting the controversies stemming from the polls to bed has had to be tempered.
This was put into sharp focus by the Free and Fair Election Network’s latest report into the working of our electoral system that laid bare the dysfunction that continues to afflict our democratic processes, revealing that election tribunals have only been able to dispose of a measly 25 out of a total of 377 petitions, four of them related to the National Assembly, while 21 pertained to the various provincial assemblies, a disposal rate of just seven percent.
The performance of Punjab-based tribunals has been especially dismal, as not only are six of the eight such bodies remaining inactive, the two that are functional have only been able to dispose of 0.5 percent of the total petitions filed in the province. Tribunals in Balochistan have been able to settle 17 percent of petitions, followed by Sindh with seven percent while Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa-based tribunals have adjudicated on four percent of petitions.
It should be remembered that the run-up to the February polls was marred by efforts of official quarters that ostensibly aimed to hamper the PTI’s election campaign, while polling day itself witnessed a prolonged internet outage in the country, followed by the complete failure of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to consolidate results in a timely, above-board manner, converting potential victories of numerous candidates – many of them backed by the PTI – into defeats overnight. There had been a great hue and cry regarding the ECP’s gross incompetence and ostensible bias was raised not only by the PTI, but by other parties as well, making the entire electoral exercise a highly contentious one, raising question marks on the legitimacy of the results.
The political landscape since then has been afflicted by a constant upheaval, with its most consequential outcome being the crippling impact on the economy. Instead of the general elections being a harbinger of increased political stability, which might have positively impacted investor confidence, reassured international lending institutions, and fostered greater public trust in our democratic systems, they appear to have had the opposite effect on multiple fronts. The country continues to veer from one political controversy to the next, with various sectors of the economy still suffering from a crisis of confidence and the government persistently falling short when it comes to taking the hard policy choices required to lift the nation out of its economic morass.
This has resulted in millions of Pakistanis continuing to bear the brunt of extreme economic hardship, as the prices of basic commodities and public utilities become increasingly out of reach of the average citizen. This, coupled with a lack of faith in the government’s ability to address its needs effectively, has fostered a sense of perennial hopelessness among the populace. If there was ever a need for official quarters to finally acknowledge the far-reaching consequences their gross missteps have had, it is now. One can only hope that even now the election tribunals start adjudicating on the petitions before them in a speedy and fair manner so that at least some of the blunders committed by the ECP can be rectified. However, given the confrontational path that various state institutions and political actors have been on, any swift progress on this front sadly appears elusive for now.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024