It’s very rare in Pakistan that concluding reports of judicial commissions are made public. Such commissions are meant to cool down the political temperature; commissions sessions linger on and finally the reports are shelved to eat dust for an indefinite period. But recently constituted judicial commission, to investigate allegations of systematic rigging in 2013 elections, not only completed its task within set time period, but its report has also been published. According to commission report, 2013 elections were, by and large, free and fair, no evidence of systematic rigging could be presented or proved, though irregularities and working style of Election Commission’ untrained and part-time staff might have occasionally tainted the results.
Imran Khan’s PTI has campaigned against 2013 election results for last two years; though it also formed provincial government in KPK, as an outcome of same election results! PTI campaign peaked to fame and turmoil when it organised a spectacular sit-in in Islamabad last August. During the sit-in it tried its best to instigate the federal government to make it a law and order situation, to let army to intervene and dismiss the federal government.
As sit-in’s and judicial commission are all over now, it’s time to open some books and accounts to ascertain what was going on in the background. It’s alleged that two heads of country’ prestigious intelligence agency had been helping PTI not only in running its election campaign but also during its persistent protest against the federal government. It’s alleged that corporate heads were asked to fund the protest campaign. During sit-in’s thousands of people gathered in Islamabad for more than four months, someone must have footed the bill for food, drinks, tents, beds, chairs, music and voice system, power generators, transport, sanitary system and what not.
Now questions to be asked are who was behind the sit-in’s and all this protest campaign, who paid for the expenses which ran in hundreds of millions rupees and most importantly from where did all this money came? If we intend to ignore these questions today, be ready for another cycle of protest on this or another pretext. We may need another judicial commission to cleanse this out.
MASOOD KHAN,
Saudi Arab, July 25.