ONCE again demonstrating that it will eventually do the right thing — after trying everything else — the PML-N has indicated it will opt for by-elections instead of challenging the unseating of three of its MNAs, by election tribunals.
Clearly, the PML-N does have the legal right to challenge the decisions of the election tribunals in the cases of Saad Rafique, Ayaz Sadiq and Siddique Baloch.
Take a look: Election tribunal orders re-election in NA-154, deseats PML-N lawmaker
A cursory reading of the decisions suggests that administrative anomalies identified in the May 2013 general election inquiry commission report have been used as the basis for determining that the individual results cannot be adequately verified, rather than there necessarily being proof of wrongdoing by the winning candidates.
Moreover, Saad Rafique and Ayaz Sadiq are high-profile leaders of the PML-N and the party leadership will be loath to see their electoral record tainted.
Yet, it is precisely for that reason that the electoral solution is preferable. In Mr Sadiq’s case in particular, the taint would stretch over to the National Assembly itself, which elected the winner of NA-122 in Lahore as speaker two years ago.
The benefit of the political/electoral solution also is that by-elections would almost certainly be of significantly better quality in terms of oversight than the general election.
As with the several by-elections held since May 2013, the ECP has proved capable of holding elections that could be considered genuinely free and fair when it has the chance to focus on just a handful of constituencies at a time.
That is admittedly a problem too — the ECP will need to beef up its resources ahead of the local government elections in Punjab and Sindh later this year — but that is separate from the legitimacy of the winners from seats that the PTI has made so controversial since 2013. There are further positive possibilities.
Perhaps Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will use the unseating of a frontline minister and the speaker of the National Assembly to finally reshuffle his cabinet, a move that has been much delayed for no good reason.
Meanwhile, the PTI will be forced to confront its own policy of endless agitation rather than focusing on the voters’ concerns. Electoral logic will likely nudge the party to participate in the by-elections rather than boycott them because of specious reasons.
Whoever wins, the PTI or the PML-N, the democratic process will surely be strengthened a smidgen by the by-elections.
Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2015
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