IN most matters involving the PTI, there seem to be, to quote Cicero, “more laws, less justice”. With another stroke of the pen, the cricket bat has been snatched away again from the party’s hands, which may leave its candidates with no choice but to contest the upcoming elections as independents.

The fresh setback is expected to be challenged soon by the PTI, this time reportedly before the Supreme Court. With most observers in agreement that the ECP has overstepped limits with its overzealous scrutiny of PTI’s intra-party polls, the party hopes its appeal will be upheld once the fairness of the electoral watchdog’s decision is examined from all angles.

On its part, the ECP has been trying to spin its decision to deprive the PTI of the bat as a ‘routine penalty’. However, given everything else that is being done to put the PTI at a disadvantage, it merely smacks of another ploy to deprive the party of a fair chance at the polls.

Where the ECP once seemed to be merely failing to ensure a level playing field for all contestants, it has now started seeming complicit in efforts to make the upcoming general elections as unfair as possible.

A decision that denies a major political party the use of its most easily recognisable identifier on the ballot paper just weeks before a general election is to take place is indefensible when one considers the fact that intra-party elections conducted by major political parties have never been scrutinised with such gusto in the past.

In general, internal elections in political parties — barring a few — are a routine farce and unlikely to hold up to the same scrutiny the PTI was subjected to. Therefore, though the ECP’s decision has been upheld by the Peshawar High Court due to procedural defects in its earlier granted relief in the matter to the PTI, it is necessary that the matter is taken up and settled decisively and fairly, in a relevant court of law, at the earliest, and by an empowered bench.

Meanwhile, the ECP needs to introspect and ask itself why so many issues related to the upcoming general elections continue to arise and eventually keep landing before the already overburdened judiciary. Its entire purpose is to prevent such controversies from arising. Why, then, is it failing?

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2024