Daily Times

The PTI has made an “honest” blunder. At least that is how it appears when seen through PMLN eyes. For one of its candidates, Nasir Cheema, from Gujranwala, has seemingly taken the notion of a picture speaking a thousand worlds a little too literally. The end result being that his electoral campaign banners feature images of the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) as well as the COAS.

It matters not that the posters were put up before the election schedule was finalised. For the underlying message could not be clearer in intent: the heads of both the judiciary and the Army have joined hands in backing a particular party. Whereas these two state institutions are apolitical in their remit.

Yet party workers follow the lead from those at the top. And Imran Khan has time and again spoken of how he will “carry the Army” with him. Though, of course, he has been keen to clarify this by stressing how he means that a civilian set-up enjoying “moral authority” will naturally be in a position to curb the outreach of those who have the “physical authority” to assert themselves. Thus he even went as far as alleging back in May of this year that the Army had a role in rigging the 2013 elections in Nawaz Sharif’s favour. All of which begs the question as to why the dharnas of the following year demanded that Nawaz alone #Go. Indeed, it was also in May that the PTI supremo spoke in gushing terms of Gen Bajwa being the first COAS to be committed to free and fair elections. Be that as it may, the upshot of all this is that Imran has unwittingly presented himself as a political player disinterested in strengthening national institutions.

It is therefore only right and just that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) has taken up the matter. But what would be equally welcome is if the PTI’s own central executive committee conducted an internal probe. In the interests of a system that must become introspective and self-correcting. For as things currently stand, what Pakistan is witnessing is a party that is warming up for its lap of honour before the battle is even won. This is premature, to say the least.  *

Published in Daily Times, July 3^rd 2018.