Flexibility, matureness needed to ensure peaceful transfer of power

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2024-02-21T08:49:56+05:00

LAHORE   -  The dawn of 8 Feb marked yet another election day , people filled paths, streets and roads to exercise their right to vote. The polling went off relatively peacefully in most of the constituencies and quelled the fear of widespread violence. The re­sults were more or less anticipated and no political party is in position to form the government at its own, so a hinged government is unavoidable. It may sound prudent to highlight that coalition governments were experienced as pro­digious feats in our chequered history but eventually proved to be weak, un­wieldy, prone to manipulation and ended up as fabulous monsters. PTI emerged as a largest party with 93 winning can­didates ( as independents). Despite the fact that the party in question was barred from using its electoral symbol, a cricket bat, leader behind the bars for at least 14 years , yet wadded through all the odds and not only shocked many but gave a hard hitting blow to our decades old conventional politics. The politics in our country used to revolve around political stratagem, braderies, derras, hujras and the verdicts of local kings i.e Chaudhries, maliks, sardars and infa­mous saiens. The commons were always exploited, downcasted rather downtrod­ded and the minacicus command of lo­cal stalwarts used to steer them in the direction they wished to. Imran khan, a sportsman turned philanthropist and statesman has given a new vision to electoral process. He spent the complete duration of campaign in jail, disqualified from running in, his candidates were prevented from campaigning, election symbol “ Bat” was denied aiming at creating chaotic situation. But he did not sit like a duck, in­stead has been rallying his sup­porters using tech- savvy strategy, artificial intelligence(AI) and lead them from behind the bars. This is first time any political party has used artificial intelligence in election campaign.The voters came out at their own stream and were not driven out, they opined with vigour and winked to the dictates of society. The vote counts showed PTI affiliated candidates did put up a good show and won most of the seats .The party leadership said that the true number won by PTI backed candi­dates is 154 but allegedly dozens were taken away in what is called widespread rigging or manipulation. The two other political parties and arch rivals, PML(N) and PPP are also legacy parties run by most powerful and influential ‘Sharif and Bhutto dynasties’. Who have held power during different times over generations. Despite having lot of resources at hand could not make a considerable headway. Most of seniors of both the parties have lost their seats badly, few are sub-judice and awaiting judicial determination. An indepth study and critical analysis of electoral process reveal astonishing facts to help in deducing conclusions. A new phenomenon experienced for the first time in the aftermath of general election. Following poll routs Siraj ul Haq, Amir of socio-religio party Jamat-e-Islami stepped down, Jehangir Tareen , a business tycoon and head of newly formed IPP opted to jet out of IPP. Dis­appointed and dejected Pervez Khattak announced a clean break from politics. The elections by and large were marked by accusations of rigging to defeat in­dependent candidates backed by PTI, resultantly few candidates who came from down to emerge as winners gave up seats saying “ votes were rigged in their favour”. According to an inter­esting statistical nugget from election report the number of rejected ballots was greater than the margin of victory in 24 national assembly constituencies.which not only makes the election pro­cess question able but opens the doors for legal battles between rivals in or­der to review the results. The highest number of rejected votes was observed in NA-59 (Talagang), where PML(N) candidate Sardar Ghulam Abbass se­cured 141,680 votes against his rival PTI affliate, Mohammad Ruman Ahmed who bagged 129,716 votes, interest­ingly the margin of victory is 11,964, whilst the number of rejected swelled to 25,547 ballot papers. Its imperative to show flexibility, matureness and mel­lowness to ensure peace, stability and smooth transaction. The people sitting at the helm of affairs must look inward and recondite facts that the stiff breeze that makes the sails bag out is always a short lived. Sarwar Bari, a social activ­ist and analyst opined on social media “ ROs must be punished not for rigging but for being so stupid and inept”. The wheeling , dealing and political engi­neering is going on, no one enjoys a clear majority to form the government. Who would be the next’ Head of the Govern­ment’ and what the rampageous IK has up his sleeves is still not clear.

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