The Prime Minster may have put on a stoic face and told his party to not worry about the daily hearings of the foreign funding case; but his party is displaying a strange nervousness that is quite at odds with what it has been saying.

The Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), both have welcomed the investigation and the hearing. Yet, they have been resisting, delaying and discrediting the proceedings at the same time. To borrow the party’s own line of reasoning – one it has often used on opposition leaders - if the party has nothing to hide, it shouldn’t resist investigation.

Yet it continues to do so; even going so far as to question the impartiality of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) retired Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza, a man they had absolute trust on before the daily proceedings were constituted. This is a grave allegation, against an official responsible for impartially overseeing the most polarizing events in a democracy; elections. It should have been treated with the gravity it deserved. However, the way these questions have been raised, without any proof or prelude, presents the PTI in a very negative light. When the spotlight was on them, the party seemed panicked.

Furthermore, the timing of the attacks against the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) leaves very little doubt regarding the intentions behind them.

PTI cannot discredit the ECP after standing by its integrity for so long – it is illogical and hypocritical. PTI was part of Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza’s appointment process, he was made CEC with their consensus. They had no objections regarding the CEC or the ECP’s intentions when they conducted the 2018 general elections – an election they won. They even vociferously defended the ECP when some opposition parties claimed the election had been rigged. Without the ECP signing off on the result, Imran Khan would not be in power today.

The party did not ask questions when the ECP continued to hold by-polls and local polls in the year following it coming into power. It raised no concern when the foreign funding case was being investigated by the same ECP and CEC in years leading up to this moment. Only when the case entered daily hearings, and the ECP seemed adamant to quickly deliver a verdict, has the PTI questioned the impartiality of this institution.

Following the judiciary, it seems the ECP is another governmental institution that the PTI considers legitimate only if they follow the government’s dotted line.