Will the elections be held on time?

ISLAMABAD: Will the general elections be held on July 25th? Some Wednesday’s developments have cast serious doubts.Initially it was Balochistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bughti who on Wednesday morning called for a month long delay in general elections. Later MQM’s Faisal Sabzwari came up with a similar demand seeking election posponment. And finally PTI’s surprised backtracking from Punjab caretaker CM’s name Nasir Khosa, nominated by PTI itself, caused serious doubts about the upcoming polls.Bughti submitted a resolution in the Balochistan Assembly demanding that general elections should be held in August because a majority of population intends to go to Saudi Arabia in July to perform Hajj. He wants one-month delay ignoring the fact that the Hajj this year precisely falls in the second half of August when Bugti wants the election to be held.Within hours of this election delay demand coming from Quetta, Faisal Sabzwari of the MQM spoke to the media in Karachi and demanded that that the general elections should be delayed till the third party audit of the 2017 census and the consequent delimitation of the constituencies is done.While the voices from Quetta and Karachi sought delay in elections in an unambiguous manner, the PTI from Lahore contributed towards making the elections doubtful by its surprised decision of withdrawing the name of Nasir Khosa for the post of caretaker Chief Minister.The party claims that it has withdrawn the name- the PTI had recommended itself- over “public backlash”but others doubt and smell a rat. Although the PML-N could contest that the PTI could not withdraw once the appointment has been finalized and announced after due consultation process between the Chief Minister and the provincial Leader of the Opposition, this unexpected U-turn from the PTI has made its own role suspicious.Does the PTI want election on July 25th? This is the question which the media raised immediately after the PTI’s U-turn on Nasir Khosa. It is pertinent to mention here that Khosa was the nominee of the PTI and it is said that the Leader of the Opposition in Punjab had given Khosa’s name to the Chief Minister Punjab following Imran Khan’s clearance.On Nasir Khosa name, there has not even been any noticeable opposition whether in the mainstream media or in the social media but yet the PTI used the excuse of “public backlash”for rejecting it own nominee.A few weeks back, Imran Khan did talk of possible election delay due to complexities relating to delimitation of constituencies. Army Chief had also apprehended, a few months back, that the election may delay for a month or two for the same reasons.An Urdu columnist recently had though also quoted Chief Justice Saqib Nisar as having feared that the election might delay for a month or so if the delimitation process did not complete, the CJP later categorically said that election would be held on time and no delay of even a day would be allowed.The Islamabad High Court, which is presently hearing the petitions challenging delimitation of constituencies, has so far declared delimitations of ten districts including Jhang, Jhelum, Toba Tek Singh, Lower Dir,Ghotki, Kasur, Sheikhupura, Kharan, Haripur and Bahawalpur as void.Once all the petitions challenging the matters relating to delimitation are decided by the Islamabad High Court, these cases are expected to be taken up before the Supreme Court by the Election Commission which is otherwise all prepared to hold elections on July 25th.

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