Daily Times

Now that an ECP (Election Commission of Pakistan) investigation has blown the lid off deliberate and planned rigging/manipulation and blatant misuse of state machinery on the part of members of the ruling party in the February by-poll in Daska, it remains to be seen which arm of the government will spring into action to make things right; if at all that can be done. Opposition parties are calling on the chief justice of the Supreme Court to take suo moto notice of what is after all a very clear “violation of the constitution” by office bearers of PTI as well as the Punjab government as detailed in the damning report.

It’s strange, though not quite unexpected, that nobody expects the PTI government to do much about this matter. The only squeak that has come out of its spokespersons so far tried to blame this incident on the opposition as well, saying that such things happened only because the opposition rejected PTI proposed electoral reforms, even though it was PTI itself that was caught with its hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. That, needless to say, strips such spokespersons of whatever little credibility they had left because such explanations are irresponsible to the point of sounding ridiculous.

Surely, this report calls for the most serious investigation into what really happened that fateful February night in Daska and who was behind it all. It’s a great irony already that PTI members stand accused of allegedly violating the constitution, breaking the law, and making a joke out of democratic institutions and practices because of the noise they made about respecting such things before the party came to power. And even if the government tries to downplay the ECP’s investigation and subsequent report, some competent authority must still take it up and set a precedent. That this has happened just when the ruling party is already in an ugly fight with the Commission is not lost on anybody. These latest developments combine to swing the pendulum right back into the opposition’s favour and give their leaders a lot more to talk about during speeches that will come up in their protest rallies and planned march on Islamabad. *