Daily Times

There is no denying the deepening perception about the growing darkness around. Yet, there is also no denying the need for cultivation of desire for people to get across a desolate landscape pockmarked with the ravaging lust of a few.

The story of Pakistan is replete with an unending sequence of murderous assaults in the garb of catchy slogans and rosy promises, unleashed by both the military dictators and civilian despots hiding behind the smokescreen of democracy. Underneath it all, the indelible marks of the conquering marauders have never been hidden, as also the icons of their savagery wearing the face of public welfare.

Entrapped in the midst of this parched wilderness, life has dragged on for the impoverished and maltreated millions. Oblivious to the stretched wings and the hungry gaze of the guileful actors, they have continued to take faltering steps along the thorny path, dreaming of being free of the burden of the greed and plunder of the beneficiary elite.

It is less a case of this or that government, or this or that leader. It is more about the intent of all those who have ruled this country through decades. They, one and all, have never stretched their sights beyond the myopic domain of their respective oligarchy’s deeply entrenched interests. From one to the next, it has been a story of demonic destruction heaped upon a hapless people who have struggled not to let the ray of hope die within them, thus lingering to survive another day.

The choice is between making the election process credible and acceptable by going by the LHC injunction and making it controversial through non-provision of mandatory information which may lead to the institution of innumerable petitions challenging the suitability of a host of individuals. I am amazed at the SC denying the right to information to the people, which can lead to rendering the election process controversial and without merit, even facilitating the passage of criminals and convicts to the legislatures

In spite of the rampaging darkness and the apparent lack of faith that has enveloped the ones who believed in a tomorrow as potentially different from their today, Faiz Sahib never let this dream be extinguished by the few who are always on cue to pounce on their doomed prey:

“Dark is the night, but

Resonating through its gloom

Is the stream of blood that bears my voice,

And underneath its shade shimmers

The streak of light from your eyes.”

We have just been through five years of unadulterated garbage heaped upon an unsuspecting people. The dreams of the marginalised have been buried under mounds of concrete wearing the contours of highways and motorways while their children have continued to rummage through heaps of litter looking for morsels to sate their hunger, and their elders worrying about the means to get a decent burial.

The ones who should be at schools nurturing their dreams have been waylaid by the germs of radicalisation and those who were deemed as the messiahs have staged sit-ins holding the government and the people hostage in the deepening tentacles of obscurantism, regression and degeneration.

The state, having weakened through acts of patronage, omission and commission, is no longer, and nowhere to be seen. Instead, what one notices are faces masquerading as benefactors of the people, fomenting ever-new methods and mechanisms for continued indulgence in unbridled loot. Along the course, the due processes of law are rendered dubious and the hollering of a motley crowd gathered to feast on plates of food — something that is becoming rare in the everyday life of a poor family in the country — is projected as the will of the people that everyone should bow before in total and unquestioned subservience, including the apparatus of the judiciary.

But, then, the judiciary has its own mechanisms for faltering. Having been bitten by the interpretation of articles 62 and 63, the parliamentarians moved, ever so cunningly, ever so treacherously to eliminate the mandatory requirement for provision of information in the nomination form of an intending legislator pertaining to his/her conduct and character, including information about tax evasion, loan default, citizenship of another country, criminal record and assets and liabilities of self and dependants.

When this fraudulent manipulation was petitioned, the Lahore High Court (LHC) opined that the impugned form did not provide for mandatory information and declarations as required by the constitution and the law. Holding it void, the judge wrote: “The right to vote and to be elected cannot be exercised without the right to receive information. In the electoral process where those who seek to be elected do not impart necessary information to the electoral, or where the voters go to the poll without receiving necessary information, it cannot be called a democratically held free and fair election. The voter has the right to know basic information about the candidate along with relevant information to establish the credibility and honesty of a candidate”. Hats off to the brave judge!

But, when the Election Commission (EC) went to the Supreme Court (SC) challenging the LHC injunction, it alarmingly suspended the order of the lower court and asked the EC to proceed forthwith in holding the elections on time. If knowing the character of the prospective candidates for the assemblies is not the right of the people to facilitate their choice, as is evidenced by the SC order, then it should bring the curtain down on its other pretentious evocations for upholding justice and fair play in the country which it does not tire of preaching in its everyday sermons. There is nothing more important than people’s right to know.

Did the LHC act within its domain in upholding the right of a citizen as per the constitutional injunctions, or is the SC justified in trashing it on the plea that it might result in a delay in the next elections? On the face of it, the SC order is a cruel expediency exercised in the face of a murmuring campaign accusing certain quarters to be allegedly trying to postpone the elections.

I have been told on authority that the reprinting of the nomination forms will not take more than a couple of days. That will not necessarily result in any postponement of elections. But, if the nomination forms are not restored to the original format, the result of the elections may be challenged on all those counts which have been eliminated in their revised version.

The choice is between making the election process credible and acceptable by going by the LHC injunction and making it controversial through non-provision of mandatory information which may lead to institution of innumerable petitions challenging the suitability of a host of individuals. I am amazed at the SC denying the right to information to the people in a short-sighted injunction which can lead to rendering the election process controversial and without merit, even facilitating the passage of criminals and convicts to the legislatures.

There is no extraordinary threat emanating from any quarter to the holding of elections. Threat, if any at all, resides in the imagination of politicians who are in a habit of weaving conspiracies owing to their misrule and corruption. Going through the steps of holding farce elections would only facilitate the battalions of criminals and paid bootleggers to return to the assemblies to do the bidding of the mafias. That should not be. Let the election process be quintessentially credible, even if it were delayed by a few days.

Long and dark has been the night. Let the dawn come bathed in its full glory of light and hope.

The writer is a political and security strategist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute — an Islamabad-based think tank. Email: raoofhasan@hotmail.com. Twitter: @RaoofHasan

Published in Daily Times, June 5^th 2018.