Imran Khan should apologize (Part 1) By Muhammad Zahid

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When I finished my previous blog with the (sarcastic) words "Imran Khan should apologize", I never knew I'd have to extend upon it in near future. You can consider this blog to be a prequel and a sequel to the one before.

In the wake of the recent bombshell of a report by Judicial Commission on General elections 2013, many people have rallied around Imran Khan asking him to "apologize" to the nation on a number of things. I will try to shelve all the concerns one by one. The first one is for wasting the time of this nation on the issue of rigging. First of all, I'd like to ask each and everyone of them to AT LEAST read the conclusion of this report where it clearly says:

"The Commission is of the view that the PTI was not entirely unjustified in requesting the establishment of a body to inquire into its suspicions and allegations in the 2013 General Elections"

There are two things that you can draw from this statement which are that the Commission considers PTI's concerns as worthy enough to raise suspicion and second that PTI's demand to have a Judicial Commission apart from the regular tribunals setup by the ECP was also justified. This statement vindicates PTI's 2 years of struggle including 126-day dharna, 4 lockdowns, numerous jalsas and protests outside ECP.

Furthermore, Najam Sethi has sprung out to pounce at this opportunity too. As I explained in my previous blog (The Sethi factor), Sethi has to answer a lot of questions to this nation before he can demand an apology. He keeps harping on the "35 puncture" fiasco while his own statement in the Judicial Commission has put a serious doubt on the whole election of Punjab which contains 148 National Assembly and 296 Provincial Assembly seats. So either we can increase the amount of punctures that Mr. Sethi helped in due to his woeful incompetence or he can explain as to how he couldn't help the matter at hand.

Now coming to the report itself. People are telling Imran Khan to apologize because his allegations were rejected by the Judicial Commission. Let's look at some of the allegations that PTI raised and Judicial Commission's verdict on them individually.
Here is what the Commission says on the matter of extra ballots:

Here, the Commission agrees to the allegations by PTI regarding extra ballots and also corroborates to the specific case of ballots in Punjab being at the behest of Returning Officers. It also tells about ECP failing to provide any guidance to keep a check on extra ballots (potentially violating the constitution) which was their responsibility.

Imran Khan's allegations also included the ECP and at numerous occasions he has demanded their resignation for failing to fulfill their responsibilities in a manner deemed fair. The Judicial Commission has implicitly issued a form of charge sheet on the ECP in this report. Here is what they say:

In short, the ECP was oblivious of anything that was happening on ground whether before or during the elections and was getting zero reports as to how the affairs are being handled. If ECP was so ill informed, who was actually in charge? If the responsibility lies with ECP but there seems to be no authority, how can we say the election was conducted according to the spirit of the constitution. Quite frankly, Khan's tirade on ECP has been utterly vindicated so no fellas, ain't nobody getting any apology for that too.

Extending over the mind boggling incompetency of ECP, here are some more excerpts from this report which point towards violation of Representation of People's Act (ROPA):

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3.

The Judicial Commission has incessantly agreed upon the ECP being in shambles for the 2013 General Elections so there is no point in even asking about an apology.

There was one more untenable issue of the missing form XVs. More so after the slipshod printing of excess ballots. Form XVs would have helped in establishing how and where were these extra ballots used and would have helped in warding off Imran Khan's suspicion over the ballots being used to stuff votes for PMLN and could have in turn provided people the opportunity to get an apology from him for which they have been yearning. Alas, it was not to happen yet again. The Commission found that overall 35% of form XVs were missing:

The Commission had to rely upon the second copy lying with ROs but with the commission and the plaintiff (PTI) already considering ROs controversial in this case, it was an utter hogwash. Now surely one would think that there should be another way to get these extra ballots some semblance of not being orphan so yes there was. We could verify thumb impressions on the ballots to decimate this "bizarre" allegation of ballot stuffing. But to our utter disappointment, the whole exercise of thumb verification from the production of magnetic ink to the NADRA saying they don't even have the facility to verify magnetic ink was brutally flawed. In the words of Commission, a total failure on behalf of NADRA and ECP:

Now the question arises, where exactly are those 10 million extra ballots? It is rather very ironical that PMLN's votes increased by around 9 million from 2008 to 2013. Is that a coincidence? Definitely a tongue-in-cheek moment I couldn't resist.

After all this seemingly terrible conduct of ECP, we bring our attention on the D-DAY. 11th May 2013. ECP had one job on that day after relinquishing almost every form of control and that was to manage and consolidate the Election result. But how? How could you even possibly imagine in your wildest dreams that ECP would have that in control? The Commission tell us this:

This is almost becoming the best comic relief ever. We are laughing. We should be sad on this. But, it's hilarious. Concentrate on "failure" and "hallmark for free, fair and transparent elections". First we struggled to decipher the facetious explanations behind Form XVs and now we have the Form XIVs under serious doubt. I must say, if this was a game to perform as pathetic as possible in conducting elections, ECP has done a great job in covering almost all bases. If you're not choking on the popcorn, there is more to blow you away.

After all these culpable findings, our respected JC thought of leaving us with indelible humor to surmount all this. Like the climax of an otherwise boring thriller which brings the audience to the edge of their seats. The only difference is that the audience will actually be out of the seats, on the floor, holding onto their bellies which they think might fall off due to the fits of laughter. I hereby present the respected JC's conclusion to all this nonsense:

The Supreme Judicial Commission is trying to tell the people of Pakistan that elections conducted in an unfair manner are acceptable if the overall mandate is the same. So basically, if you're winning the elections with 20 seats, you might as well go the extra mile to win by 60 seats 'cause HEY, you were winning anyways. This single statement, has shook the very foundation of elections and instilled such ambiguity in the Article 218 (3) of the Constitution of Pakistan which says:

Honestly, justly, fairly and in accordance with the law. Four conditions. No ambiguity until yesterday. It is such an unsympathetic statement by the JC that they have not only put a question mark on these elections, but the elections to come and even the interpretation of the Constitution of Pakistan.

So I'd ask again, why was it that you asked Imran Khan to apologize? I must say I am having a very good time laughing at the people who haven't read a single word of the report yet are defiantly pompous. They have no concern whatsoever about the future of democracy hence they didn't even try to read the report (unconditional of their partisanship) so that they can demand strengthening of democracy through a robust electoral process for future. These people are much accurately defined in Urdu as "Tamashbeen".

This is the first part of my concerns regarding the JC report. In the second part, I'll be focusing upon what the Inquiry Commission and Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (yes I do think PTI made numerous mistakes during the JC proceedings) could have done to actually make this case helpful for people and served as a harbinger to a truly democratic state of Pakistan.

by webmaster@insaf.pk (tkiadmin)