PTI England Election report by Justice Shaiq Usmani . .
FINDINGS
Having laid out the background of the PTI Elections 2012, I am now in a position to look at the merits of the allegations of irregularities in the elections. I find that PTI Head office did not sense the storm brewing in PTI, UK in as much as it failed to detect the emergence of rival contentious groups and when it did became aware of it , very little was done to curb it and in fact favouring one group or the other was resorted to, which did further damage to the party's nascent structure in the UK. Finally when it was decided to correct the situation by removing imbalances through elections in 2009, these kept on being postponed often with little justification, which only served to exacerbate the acrimony amongst the rival groups. At long last when a cut off date for finalisation of the voting list was announced i.e 17th April, 2011, the elections ought to have been held within at the most three months thereafter to lend credibility to the elections. But again series of postponements followed and continued till January, 2012, not realising that by then nine months had elapsed since the cut off date for eligibility of the voters. During this time there is every possibility that certain members shown in the electoral list had ceased to be members. Similarly a number of new members may have joined in the aftermath of the successful October Jalsa in Lahore that brought out a great surge in the people joining the party but were disenfranchised by the cut off date for eligible voters not being advanced to keep pace with the postponement of the election date.
There is also the inevitable question of non appointment of proper Election Commission. Indeed Mr. Hamid Khan had been appointed to oversee the elections but overseeing does not amount to conducting the elections and all that goes with it. As a result the conducting of elections was unobtrusively passed on to the others who had not been expressly charged with the task of conducting of elections thereby introducing the element of lack of transparency in the conduct of elections. Besides, these individuals not being expressly charged with the task of conducting the elections dealt with the elections more as an administrative exercise than as a quasi judicial task, which the elections essentially are. Moreover the absence of a proper election commission also deprived the electorate of an appellate body to look into the complaints in the aftermath of the elections. It is for this reason that allegations from all quarters about the conduct of one Mr. Asad Mahmood, who apparently had access to Election Web, in using it to benefit his favourites in the elections, went unaddressed.
Lastly the holding of elections on Region rather than City basis in itself led to distortion of the election process and also to certain incidents of bungling or rigging manifested by cross Region voting either intentional or manipulative. During my investigations I came across many specific incidents of this nature, which resulted into diminished acceptability of the election results, even though overseen by a person beyond reproach, that is Mr. Hamid Khan.
DECISION
There is no doubt that the January 2012 PTI elections in the UK were flawed but the question arises that were these so flawed that the entire election be declared as void ? To answer this question one has to see whether the flaws went to the root of the elections or not and whether those that complain about the validity of elections are aggrieved persons in the legal sense because it is only then that their complaints can be given consideration or acted upon.
Need it be said that Elections are essentially competitive and contentious in nature and wherever there is competition, unscrupulous elements always find ways to undermine the system and try and exploit the situation to their advantage, more so amongst people of Pakistani origin than any where else. Under the circumstances before reviewing an election it has to be seen whether the incidents of rigging or manipulation were resorted to on a massive scale thereby rendering the whole process of elections a mockery or on a relatively subdued level that only tends to belittle the outcome of the process but does not influence the overall results of the election. In my view though there were incidents of rigging and manipulation in the voters list there is no evidence of these being resorted to on a massive scale that could influence the eventual result of the elections. There is no doubt that had there been a properly accredited election commission in place such incidents would have been reduced to the barest minimum.
Now I must deal with the question as to whether complaints about the validity of elections emanate from aggrieved persons. I believe that had these complaints emanated from aggrieved persons, as the term is understood in law, a strong case could have been made out for scrapping of the elections, particularly their complaint about disenfranchising of some members and unlawful enfranchisement of some others.
However, the fact remains that unfortunately the main Complainants, the RZ Group chose to boycott the elections even though they claimed to be the largest group. Boycott is the weapon of the weak and not the strong.
If RZ group felt that they were in majority they should have contested the elections, as the AS Group did, who incidentally even after their candidates having been trounced in the elections chose not to contest the election results and in fact accepted these.
The RZ group thus could have contested the elections, though with reservations, and after elections could have shown that had their reservations been addressed the result of the elections would have been different and thus could have succeeded in having the elections scrapped.
Since RZ group, the only group which seeks the scrapping of elections, chose not to participate in the elections, they cannot call the elections in to question and hence I have no hesitation in arriving at the decision that in the absence of any evidence about massive rigging that would have made the elections into a mockery and a farce,
the elections cannot be declared to be void.
I therefore, have no hesitation in holding that that the PTI, UK Elections, 2012 were validly held and the office bearers so elected are lawful office bearers.
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