Daily Times

Next month when the thirteenth president of Pakistan Dr Arif Alvi completes his term, he will leave behind a legacy riddled with spats, controversies and an uncanny realisation that his office was not in the best shape to bear some, if not all, of its burdens.

The latest of this has been an obvious reluctance to summon the session of the National Assembly, due to which he continues to draw flak from political parties. Amid speculations about his decision relying on the fate of the reserved seats notification for the Sunni Ittehad Council and a raging war of words, the people continue to clutch at straws as they seek clarity.

Quite expectedly, they wished for the much-awaited round of general elections, that too, after a drawn-out spell of uncertainty, hiccups and stopgap arrangements to finally help the state focus on issues that mattered to the masses. However, sensing that their troubles are far from over, an eerie pessimism threatens to overwhelm any and all hopes related to the future of democratic practices. The responsibility for not doing much to push back the country from the edge of the cliff largely lies on the election commission.

Why is it that it continues to mull over the same question over and over again, day in and day out, but cannot find the courage to cough up the constitutionally-mandated relief to a political party? Regardless of its own housekeeping issues, the fact that PTI-backed candidates have chosen SIC as their parent body should be enough to seal the deal. But two wrongs seldom make a right.

Even if the electoral watchdog is believed to violate the rules, the aggrieved parties would be better off knocking on the door of the higher judiciary. Creating yet another layer of confusion over whether the lower house should meet under his watch should, henceforth, not have been considered by President Alvi, who is bound by the constitution to act in an impartial manner irrespective of his own political opinions. *