The decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan about the dissident PTI legislators, declining to deseat them, seems to be so good in law as to be unexceptionable. The losing side, the PTI, has already announced it will go into appeal before the high court, and eventually presumably before the Supreme Court, but it will really take some clever arguments to overcome the fact which probably led to the ECP’s decision: that the impugned legislators had not cast their votes in violation of the party line, but had abstained just as their other colleagues had done, presumably in obedience to the party’s directions under Article 63A.
The decision comes ahead of the Supreme Court’s decision on the presidential reference on Article 63A, though the lifetime disqualification demand of the PTI will probably not take place, even if the decision has not been formally announced, given the Chief Justice of Pakistan’s remarks from the bench. The decision has the effect of ensuring that there can be a Leader of the Opposition appointed from within their ranks, an office essential to the appointment of a caretaker PM and a new CEC, both essential if the PTI demands for fresh elections, and the removal of the CEC, are met. If the PTI felt that its recent campaign against the ECP would bear fruit, the ECP decision has proven it mistaken.
The PTI has two cases still pending before the ECP, the foreign funding case and the Punjab MPAs’ disqualification. While an adverse decision in the first threatens the very existence of the parity, in the second it would stymie its efforts to bring down the Punjab government. The ECP has shown that its decisions will be according to the law and Constitution, not according to the wishes of the PTI. It does the PTI no good that, on the face of it, the PTI may face disappointment in both cases.
