BY the time you read these lines Pakistan will have a new president in the person of Asif Ali Zardari, cementing further the status quo resulting from the disputed Feb 8 election result. Unless it can muster huge support on the streets, the opposition too will settle down to carrying out protests in parliament and long-drawn-out legal battles.

As we speak, there are allegations of widespread electoral malpractices supported by evidence that innumerable Form 45s — which are supposed to indicate the final count at each polling station, certified by polling agents of all contestants, and uploaded by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on its website — show significant, and crudely done, overwriting and alterations.

The ECP has come in for considerable flak, and with justification, for the delayed results on election day and also for missing deadlines for posting Form 45s and Form 47s, which show the consolidated results based on Form 45. But our sad experience is that once a government takes office, it takes ages to address the grievances of parties and candidates declared unsuccessful.

The example of Qasim Suri, the deputy Speaker of the last National Assembly, is very relevant because there were serious flaws in how his election result was tabulated and announced but he stayed a member of the Assembly for its entire term on a court ‘stay order’, besides being one of its guardians/ stewards for more than three years.

Making decisions based on poor counsel spelt disaster for the PTI in........

© Dawn