Just over a week before the February 8 polls, PTI chief Imran Khan was hit with a double whammy, being sentenced to 14 years in jail in the cipher case, and 10 years in the Toshakhana case. Though the sentences will run concurrently, and while time already served after arrest will be counted, there is so little time before the polls that he can be counted out of the current poll, even if the appeals promised by his lawyers are filed and accepted, first by the Islamabad High Court, and then by the Supreme Court. Any reversal of these decisions will have to await the election results.
However, that is probably not all that will have to wait. PIA privatisation seems to have gone on hold, as has FBR reform. While PIA seems stuck after the Financial Adviser made its report, FBR reform came unstuck at a late stage, after the caretaker Cabinet had approved the division of the CBR into three, with separate boards for Internal Revenue, Customs and Policy. The Election Commission of Pakistan, on an appeal by a CBR official, wrote to the caretaker Cabinet telling it was going beyond its purview. It would seem self-evident that a decision which would affect tax collection for years, and perhaps decades, to come, should be made by an elected government rather than caretakers. This attempted over-reach may have also helped the ECP itself define the limits a caretaker government could go to. The recent missile exchange with Iran was an illustration of why a government is needed when elections are to be held. At the same time, the objections to the outgoing government holding office for elections are based on fears of rigging, and the fear that election results will not be accepted.
This then raises the question of whether the coming elections will yield results that will be accepted. With the PTI’s candidate for PM out of the equation for the next 13 years (about eight years prison time, and five years more after release), the acceptability of the results is problematic. The PTI has already indicated it will not accept the results, plainly seeing that Mr Khan’s disqualification, and the ECP’s refusal to accept its election symbol, mean that the results are going in a particular direction. It might seem that the elections are not going to yield what they were supposed to; political stability, even though that is necessary as a basis for tackling the very real problems the country faces, especially on the economic front.
