Why the Need for Tsunami March “It doesn’t matter who votes but who counts.” Josef Stalin In his speech during the Bahawalpur jalsa on June 27, PTI Chairman Imran Khan gave a deadline of one month for the PMLN Government to respond to his four demands regarding election fraud and rigging that occurred during last year’s election: 1. The Federal Government must inform the people, which individuals were involved in the infamous “Victory Speech” plotting of Nawaz Sharif. 2. Explain why were the Returning Officers not working under the Election Commission? 3. Explain to everybody what was the role of then Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry? 4. Regarding the one who carried out those famous “35 punctures” and was subsequently rewarded with the Chairmanship of Pakistan Cricket Board-what was the role of his Caretaker Government in the electoral fraud? Thus, what was the role of the Caretaker Government in Pakistan history’s biggest ever electoral fraud? Imran Khan gave an ultimatum in Bahawalpur that night, if there is no response to these demands, there will be a Tsunami March of a million plus to Islamabad on August 14. Many among the chattering classes of this country are criticizing the decision of a long march and feel that the constitutional and legal routes should be fully exhausted or the timing is not right due to the military operations going on in North Waziristan. However, it should be noted that since the May 11 election last year, Imran Khan and PTI’s position has been consistent that we will live with this government but we will not accept the electoral rigging. In addition, we gave them over a year to address the issues of fraud and rigging without getting a serious response by the PMLN government. During this last 14 months, we exhausted all constitutional and legal processes by going to the Election Commission (ECP), ECP Tribunals, High Courts, and Supreme Court. But interestingly, every time we were successful to get a constituency approved for Nadra verification, post-poll rigging started as was the case of NA-118 where the NADRA Chief was caught stuffing ballot bags while he ordered the CCTV cameras in the room to be shut off. Similarly, in NA-154, the ballot papers have been eaten by termites or affected by mould making it difficult for verification to take place. How convenient is that. Earlier, firing of the previous NADRA chief (at 2 am in the morning) validated the suspicion that PMLN is still involved in post poll rigging. According to the constitution and law, the ECP Tribunals needed to decide petitions within 120 days; it has lingered on for over a year, why? If decisions are not being made within the constitutionally/legally stipulated time period, isn’t this a violation of the constitution? What is penalty for this violation, if there is no penalty or remedy then sorry to say the constitution isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. In my own constituency of Karachi NA 252, I went from the Election Commission to the tribunals. The tribunal judge dismissed my petition on technical grounds citing a Supreme Court verdict that stated that all parties should be made a party. I had not made Mohammad Hussain Mehnti of JI a party as they had boycotted the elections. The judge dismissed my case without even examining the evidence which included a set of 4 DVD’s where rigging was recorded even by law enforcement agencies. When I argued that Supreme Court had also allowed the judge to accept the case if the evidence was overwhelming, he remarked I should seek relief from the Supreme Court. Interesting, the same tribunal judge rejected JIO’s petition saying that they had boycotted the elections. Given the frustration involved in following the constitutional and legal path and not achieving any positive outcome, Imran Khan & PTI are faced with two options: • Live another 5 years with the same crooks and go through another rigged election under the same flawed system in 5 years time and continue to experience the same nonsense like in the past Or; • Use street power to apply pressure to get all the stakeholders to reform the electoral system. It has become obvious over this last one year that the status quo forces will never allow electoral reforms to take place as it simply doesn’t benefit them. The biggest victim of this is the country and the people, as parties who steal and rig elections also do the same in the assemblies as they feel they aren’t answerable to the people for their actions. Lord Acton aptly said: “The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.” This is exactly what we have in Pakistan today. After exhausting all options, PTI had no other option but to call a Tsunami March for August 14. Imran Khan consistently stated on the record over the last one year that he would exhaust all constitutional avenues before launching Tsunami March but to its detriment, the government appeared non-serious. Regarding electoral reforms, it is interesting to see how the PPP leadership seems to be nonchalant about it and appears to be siding with PMLN despite being a victim itself of electoral fraud and rigging in the past, especially in the 1990 elections as revealed in the Asghar Khan case. Various PPP spokespeople on television claim that they don’t want to derail democracy in Pakistan, but when they know electoral fraud has been used against them as well they should have been in forefront for electoral reforms. However it appears that PPP is also a beneficiary of this corrupt system and hypocritically chooses to remain silent. But there appears to be a split within the PPP leadership. The PPP Punjab leadership strongly believes that there was massive rigging and what Imran Khan is doing is right but the Sindh leadership which is dominant does not want to rock the boat. Shaheed Benazir Bhutto said this about elections: “All through the years of the Soviet empire, its Politburo held elections. Of course, calling something an election and actually having it be an election are different things.” Maybe the PPP could learn something from her about the importance of having credible elections. There’s a hue and cry about the fear of derailing democracy due to street action but if the government’s legitimacy is doubtful due to electoral fraud and rigging, isn’t this more of threat to democracy than a long march? Unfortunately in Pakistan, governments are mostly reactive instead of proactive. They only act when people come out on the streets, as they dont know how to constructively engage the opposition to avoid major confrontation. A good example in the recent past is the long march led by PMLN in March 2009 to restore the judiciary. If the PPP-led government would have been more engaging, a long march could have been avoided. During the 1960s in America, there were many protests and demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Mainly due to these protests forced many politicians in America to become anti-Vietnam War. Democracy is not just the existence of parliaments and elections alone, but it’s about the process, systems, institutions, checks and balances and attitude/culture which sorely needs to be developed in Pakistan. Organising free and fair elections is more important than the result itself. PTI in the National Assembly has tabled a bill on Electronic Voting Machines and electoral reforms but the Speaker has not allowed discussion. If we continue to have the same electoral process that we experienced in 2011 then it’ll force us to either boycott elections or also cheat and it’ll become a contest of who can cheat the best or basically who can cheat “fair and square.” This is the stark reality facing the country. All those longing for change through the ballot box must work for reforms of the electoral system first. “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” Abraham Lincoln Ali H Zaidi The writer is a CEC Member of PTI
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 11:14:34 +0000
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