Daily Times

If February 8 spoke volumes about the unbending will of the masses to register their choice no matter how arduous the path may be, the subsequent bouts of insurgency and violence testament to how faint this flicker of hope was.

A raging dispute in Shangla has already claimed four lives, leaving dozens injured and the entire area grappling with chaos. PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar’s call for a nationwide protest against the unwillingness of the state to share full electoral results in a manner that does not smack of rigging, therefore, should be considered an alarming development by the law enforcement authorities. While those who had only come to power with the constitutional responsibility to hold free, fair and transparent elections are only adding to their troubles by this unnecessary delay, the onus now lies on law enforcement authorities to take whatever measures are required to ensure these protests are not tainted by bloodshed.

The dynamic should not be complicated any further, which can only happen if the protestors are given the freedom to make their case. Every passing day in the harrowing bedlam is bound to pit more and more of the disgruntled against the state.

These pages can, hence, only pray for a miraculous arrival of cool-headedness. If Mr Sikandar Sultan Raja felt relieved by the sight of relatively smooth operations during polling, does the ongoing turbulence not bother him? There’s only one way forward for the people who have spoken: accept their mandate, release the results and move over.

It is high time Pakistan bids adieu to the haze surrounding a myriad of stopgap arrangements and finds its path to clarity. Until then, dubious killings and trigger-happy forces better remain shelved in the case files of our authoritarian neighbour.*