Relentless and merciless bombings and cold-blooded assassinations by the Taliban, directed against the leaders and members of the three major parties — the Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) — have shred the writ of the state into pieces, literally into very tiny pieces on the bombing grounds. And if these atrocities continue every day at the prevailing rate till the day of the elections, then there is a real danger the elections would be reduced to a gory farce, a sick joke practised on the helpless, captive people of Pakistan. In times like these, people naturally look to our national ‘saviours’ for help, both the old saviours clad in khaki and the new saviours clad in black. As Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry himself declared in Islamabad lately, “In recent years, the judiciary has successfully emerged as a saviour…” The Supreme Court (SC) judges have been unusually active during the last couple of years, issuing judicial notices and contempt orders left and right to the shivering babus and puny politicians on anything and everything they saw fit. Suo motu: where are they? Court summons: where are they? Isn’t the horrendous massacre of about 50,000 of our citizens, men and women, civilians and soldiers, by the Taliban not enough to warrant such notices or indulgence by the judiciary? Isn’t this massive loss of human life in our country of greater public importance than the price of a samosa or the transfer of a section officer, for which the judges have issued such notices at the blink of an eye? Our saviour judiciary has been shouting pearls of wisdom such as “Nobody is above the law” or “Everyone has to respect the Constitution.” Really? May one humbly ask the Chief Justice if these lofty admonitions are also applicable to the armed, brutal Taliban? Are the Taliban above the law and the constitution? If not, what actions have the judiciary taken against them? On the other hand, it seems our bold and independent judiciary would go to any length to avoid invoking the ire of the Taliban/jihadi murderers. We all know how the courts have released and set free most of the terrorists accused of execrable crimes to continue their macabre carnage on one flimsy ground after another. As far as our other longstanding, traditional saviours, the army, is concerned, they live in a cabalistic world of their own, issuing arcane and enigmatic speeches once in a while that makes the people practice the ancient art of reading tea leaves in attempts to figure out the true meaning or message embedded in their statements. People have practically given up trying to remind the army of its constitutional duty to defend the country from the internal enemy: the Taliban/jihadists. However, the army’s sights are focused somewhere else, sometimes towards the blue skies where streaking new missiles designed for distant enemies can be seen. While the army awaits that elusive nationwide consensus to magically appear on the horizon, the Taliban are having a field day, blowing up citizens everywhere, and merrily outflanking it from Peshawar to Karachi. It is now being reported that the army has decided to deploy about 50,000 troops on the polling day in order to ensure that the elections are free and fair. But free and fair elections are not a product of a single day, rather it is a culmination of a long period of free and fair electioneering. Free and unfettered campaigning or electioneering by the political parties and candidates is the very essence of democratic elections. And if about half the political parties and their candidates are effectively prevented because of targeted threats, attacks and bombings from moving safely, conducting political meetings and getting their message across to the people, while the other half of the political parties and their candidates are able to do so in complete freedom and security, then by no stretch of the imagination could the elections be deemed free and fair. For political candidates to be able to campaign on an equal basis with other politicians is the core requirement of fairness. Additionally, a large part of voters would be thus deprived through the Taliban’s violence of their basic right to an informed choice and to elect their leaders unhindered and freely, rendering the elections meaningless and hollow. Imran Khan made a shockingly false statement, shocking even by Pakistan’s political standards, that the Taliban had no hand in murdering Benazir Bhutto. Next he will say that they are not responsible for all the suicide bombings and attacks that have killed tens of thousands of our civilians. He is scaling these new heights of appeasement; either he is so desperate to get votes or out of fear and behind the scenes coercion by the Taliban forces. Same goes for those supine, fundamentalist political parties who got a free pass from the Taliban. Their silence and their acquiescence on the Taliban’s atrocities and bloody attacks on the other parties will come to haunt them especially after the elections, when the Taliban will come to collect their pound of flesh from them. There can be no doubt that if murderous attacks, lethal threats and ensuing mayhem by Taliban/jihadists are not immediately stopped right away, then the elections would amount to a farce, a gross violation of Pakistan’s election laws and its constitution, and in complete disregard of the guidelines set by international laws such as the Declaration on Criteria for Free and Fair Elections adopted by the Inter Parliamentary Council in 1994. In that event, the nation might as well be prepared to face a fiery maelstrom of such intensity that will obliterate any vestiges of national stability, existential viability and hope. The writer is an American-based corporate attorney, author and independent analyst