Friday
March 29, 2024
21 C
Lahore
EditorialCurtailing the wings of Vawda

Curtailing the wings of Vawda

The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has suffered a blow with the disqualification of former federal minister and Senator Faisal Vawda for his dual citizenship. According to the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP’s) decision, Vawda did not submit the certificate of renunciation of his US citizenship to the ECP. The judgment questions the PTI leader’s honesty, saying that while submitting the nomination papers, Vawda did submit a renunciation of US citizenship, which did not meet the criteria, thus his misrepresentation falls under the category of Article 62-F of the Affidavit Constitution. Ironically, Vawda did know the tricks he had played with the ECP and continued to be a member of the National Assembly (MNA) and an important minister as well for three years in the Imran Khan government. When he exhausted all sorts of adjournments from the ECP and later the Islamabad High Court, he resigned from the National Assembly seat and became a senator so as to avoid what was the writing on the wall. The ECP has written a hard-hitting judgment ordering him to return all the financial benefits, traveling allowances, housing expenses, and other benefits he has been receiving as an MNA.

The disqualification petitions were filed two years ago on January 21, 2020, by opposition candidates Abdul Qadir Mandokhel, Mian Faisal, and Asif Mehmood. According to the Constitution of Pakistan, being a citizen of Pakistan is a prerequisite for any public representative, while any person with dual citizenship is not eligible to run for the Senate or the National Assembly. In the Vawda case, the PTI had the foremost responsibility to protect constitutional requirements at the time of issuing the party ticket first for the general elections and later on to the Senate. It shows the party lacked a proper verification mechanism or Vawda was preferred for his being a favourite guy of the party chairman. His disqualification will not only weaken the government, but also give the opposition a chance to talk about the standard of integrity of the PTI leadership. Vawda’s resignation during the hearing of the case and contesting the Senate election is a rare example of forgery. The ECP has disqualified Faisal Vawda for life, which is also very punitive and hard, and the court must take a lenient review of the terms.

Previous article
Next article

Subscribe Today

GET EXCLUSIVE FULL ACCESS TO PREMIUM CONTENT

SUPPORT NONPROFIT JOURNALISM

EXPERT ANALYSIS OF AND EMERGING TRENDS IN CHILD WELFARE AND JUVENILE JUSTICE

TOPICAL VIDEO WEBINARS

Get unlimited access to our EXCLUSIVE Content and our archive of subscriber stories.

Top News

More articles