It was perhaps inevitable that the Islamabad High Court order to the Election Commission of Pakistan, that it hold the local body elections in Islamabad on December 31 as scheduled, should be disobeyed. It could be said that the order should not have been passed, because there was no way the ECP could have obeyed it, but the fact of the matter is that the ECP has disobeyed a court order and not just any court, but one that interprets the Constitution. At the same time, one cannot help seeing that the ECP is merely doing its best to obey the law, as passed by the competent authority, Parliament. Parliament did not pass any law postponing the poll. It ‘merely’ passed a law increasing the number of seats. The ECP had to then postpone the polls so as to delimit the Islamabad Capital Territory afresh.
As it was not a simple matter of carving a prescribed number of union councils into two, it meant a fresh delimitation exercise. The ECP is already under fire from the PTI, mainly because it has received adverse decisions in two cases, the prohibited funding case, and the Toshakhana reference, both leading to criminal prosecutions against its Chairman, Mr Imran Khan. While it is true that the ECP must perform its duty according to the law, it is also true that the PTI has complained loudly against the Chief Election Commissioner, Mr Sikander Sultan Raja, in the past, even though it has emerged triumphant in a spate of by-elections since Mr Khan’s ouster as Prime Minister in April. While the ECP should not come under pressure from the PTI, or any party for that matter, postponing the poll without giving an alternative date, especially when the electorate is ready to go to the polls, and when the candidates have completed their preparations, does appear too much, especially now that it has led to the current disobedience. The IHC should also keep in mind that it is developing an unwanted reputation for giving decisions in the PTI’s favour. It must not lose sight of the adage that justice must not only be done, but be seen to be done. Lurking in the background is the PDM government, which should have legislated the necessary changes in time for the ECP to have conducted both the necessary delimitation and the polls on the announced dates.
