The Sleepwalkers

The ruling coalition reluctance to hold provincial assembly polls is likely to spark a new crisis

Islamabad: Pakistan is fast moving towards a default on its foreign loans while the specter of terror-ism has come back to haunt the country every other day. Everyone can see that except for the ruling elite which seem to have put the country at stake for their political interests.

Interestingly, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has publicly accepted that the economy is in extremely bad shape and has recently also called for national unity to combat the rising threat of terrorism, invit-ing even his political rival Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan to an all-parties conference (APC).

His government has, however, added to the prevailing chaos by attempting to delay provincial assem-bly elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and launching a crackdown against its opponents including politicians and journalists.

The PTI last month decided to dissolve the provincial assemblies in Punjab and the KP—provinces which the party ruled—in a bid to force the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led federal gov-ernment to announce early elections.

As per the Constitution, the polls supervisory authority, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), is bound to hold elections in the two provinces within 90 days. However, the federal government does not seem to be in a mood to hold the polls within the stipulated time.

Last week, the governors of both the provinces refused to announce election dates, citing the sensi-tive law and order situation in the country and referred the matter back to the ECP to decide dates in consultation with the law enforcement agencies.

Federal Minister for Law Azam Nazir Tarar also hinted at a possible delay in the provincial legislatures’ elections in the Punjab and the KP and said there are certain provisions in the Constitution which allow delay in elections in some extraordinary circumstances.

Some senior members in the ruling coalition have started saying that elections can only be held after a digital census and house count which are due to start from March. After the census and compilation of data, the ECP will require another six months period to do fresh delimitation of constituencies

The PTI has challenged the undue delay in announcement of election dates by the governors in re-spective high courts of these provinces.

PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry said by not announcing the elections date the governors of the provinces are subverting the Constitution and cases could be instituted against them under Article 6.

“Such violation of the Constitution will not augur well for the democratic order in the country and the economic situation will aggravate which is directly linked to political stability which can only come through elections,” Fawad added.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader and eminent lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan said no constitutional provision allows delaying elections. He agreed with Fawad Chaudhry that all those who put hurdles in holding elections within 90 days of dissolution of provincial legislatures will have to face trial under Article 6.

Some experts said while the government wants to delay the provincial assembly elections due to worsening law and order situation, the ECP has issued a schedule for by-elections for some 35 National Assembly seats that fell vacant after resignations of PTI lawmakers.

A senior politician, who is also a member of the federal cabinet, informed Bol News that the main par-ties in the ruling coalition do not want to go to the polls and that is the reason they are trying to delay these elections on one pretext or the other.

According to PTI Secretary General Asad Umar, the ruling coalition is afraid of the “unprecedented popularity of Imran Khan and is trying to escape the elections, fearing a complete whitewash”.

“They have accomplished the regime-change agenda by getting rid of the corruption cases they had been facing. Now seeing their certain defeat in the elections, they are creating unrest in the country to pave way for promulgation of the state of emergency in order to avoid elections,” he added.

Sources in the parliament said both the PPP and the PML-N want to delay the polls because they know that in the prevailing economic situation, where the country is facing the highest level of inflation and unemployment, they could not win elections.

They said PML-N Senior Vice-President and Chief Organizer Maryam Nawaz has just started reorganiz-ing the party at the grass-roots level and this reorganization will take at least a couple of months.

At the same time she will have unify the party as her appointment as the senior vice-president and chief organizer has not gone down well with some senior party leaders including Shahid Khaqan Abbassi and Khawaja Saad Rafique

“As the organizational matters of the party in Punjab have been overseen by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and then his son Hamza Shehbaz Sharif, Hamza and his loyalists in the party may not be happy with this shift,” said a PML-N leader on condition of anonymity.

He said Maryam will require some time to get hold of the things within the party and to install her people at key positions in the party’s hierarchy.  “So in the given circumstances the party is not pre-pared for elections on some early date and the PML-N also wants to delay the polls.”

Some political analysts said the tug of war between the political parties and their desire and efforts to hold elections as per their convenience, may add to the prevailing political uncertainty in the country.

Such uncertainty may pave the way for some forces to wrap up the entire system through some extra-constitutional move, something that the country has witnessed several times in the past.

Naeemullah Khan, an assistant professor at CUST, said the country is passing through a very critical phase where the economy has virtually collapsed while political elites are settling their political scores, completely oblivious of the gravity of the situation.

“The economy and democracy are in free-fall and those who are supposed to put the house in order are quarreling with each other,” he said.