On October 12 last, the ECP had issued non-bailable arrest warrants against the PTI chairman in a contempt of court case against him for repeatedly failing to appear before the ECP as well as failing to send a written apology to the ECP for his absence in the court.
The party had earlier challenged similar warrants issued by the ECP in the IHC, which the court suspended. But the Commission again issued non-bailable arrest warrants, forcing the PTI chief to appear before the Commission on October 26.
A statement issued by central secretariat of the party after the core committee meeting stated that the primary job of the ECP is to hold fair and free elections and enforce the electoral laws and election code of conduct.
The party's core committee categorically found that ECP has "failed" entirely in this regard. The core committee contended the Chief Election Commission must realize that genuine grievances of PTI are due to ECP's actions, and in some cases inactions, during pleas filed by and against the party. The lessons to have been learnt through 40 critiques pointed out by the Judicial Commission formed by the Supreme Court to dig into rigging in the 2013 general election, the PTI said, have been ignored in all subsequent by-elections where the ECP "failed" to rectify any of these 40 lapses in electoral law.
In addition, the ECP has allegedly sought to only scrutinize PTI accounts, its funding and its overseas membership despite the fact that PTI is one of the few political parties to submit details of all its accounts every year before the ECP.
The CEC "ignoring" grave violations of the election law and code on the part of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in by-elections like NA-120 and earlier in NA-122 has also led to serious issues being raised by the PTI core committee. If the PTI as a political party cannot even state its concerns then this is a direct undermining of democratic political norms.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017