The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz faces some unfinished business at the Lahore High Court in the form of two petitions filed against certain aspects of its election campaign last week, though the polling results are likely to nullify them.
Both petitions were filed on May 9, two days before election day. The first was filed by rights activist and actor Faryal Gohar, seeking directions for the PML-N not to exhibit tigers at its election rallies, as it was endangering both the animals and the people at the campaign events.
The second was filed by PPP secretary general and former Punjab governor Sardar Latif Khosa, who sought a ban on the party and its president Mian Nawaz Sharif over a newspaper advertisement which, according to the petitioner, sought to give the impression that the PML-N had the support of the chief justice of Pakistan.
The court issued notice to the Election Commission of Pakistan’s secretary and other respondents for May 14 on Gohar’s petition, while no date was set for the hearing of Khosa’s petition.
Legal experts are of the view that these petitions, which could have hurt the PML-N’s election campaign, are now of little interest and will probably be disposed of. In case the court does go the extra mile and decides the petitions, the results are likely to be directions to the party’s counsel to simply make assurances that the PML-N will desist from ill behaviour.
Politicians use various tactics to hurt each other’s election campaigns and such petitions are sometimes just that, say the experts. With the elections done with and the campaigns a closed chapter, there is likely to be little motivation to pursue them.
Election matters
A full bench of the LHC – made up of Justice Ijazul Ahsan, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi – decided 246 petitions concerning election matters between April 10 and May 9.
The bench also referred 17 petitions to the chief justice for adjudication by single benches because they were not deemed to be urgent.
The chief justice had set up six election tribunals, each consisting of two judges. Three tribunals sat at the principal seat in Lahore, and one each at Rawalpindi, Bahawalpur and Multan. Appeals against the tribunals’ decisions were made before the full bench.
Some petitions remained pending. These included a petition by former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf, who had challenged a tribunal’s decision disqualifying him from the election contest at NA-139, Kasur.
The bench adjourned the matter on May 6 after Musharraf’s counsel confirmed that the All Pakistan Muslim League, which is led by the former army chief, was boycotting the elections. The petition was a matter of clearing the allegations against Musharraf.
The petition may, in the coming days, again attract the media spotlight. On May 9, the full bench referred a petition seeking the cancellation of the APML’s registration to the Election Commission.
On May 6, the bench directed Qari Zawar Bahadur, a Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan candidate in NA-126, to approach the Election Commission of Pakistan to redress his grievance that his election symbol had been misprinted on the ballot paper.
The ECP had allotted his party the key symbol, when the ballot papers showed it to be the dressing table. Bahadur ended up contesting the elections with the dressing table symbol.
Rana.tanver@gmail.com
Published in The Express Tribune, May 13th, 2013.