The disqualification of PTI Senator Faisal Vawda would not only cause the PTI embarrassment but cause it to lose a Senate seat, that too in a house balanced on a knife-edge. It also shows the kind of double standards which the PTI has been guilty of. Mr Vawda was disqualified for having, while contesting as an MNA in 2018, claimed to have given up his US citizenship, even though it transpires that he had done no such thing at the time he filed his nomination papers. He would have been disqualified as an MNA had he not resigned as a member, but he was then elected a Senator, apparently under the belief that having given up his US nationality, that would save him. However, as he had claimed to have given up his nationality, the ECP, on being petitioned in this regard, found that he was not sadiq and amin, and thus liable to lifetime disqualification from holding any public office.
Mr Vawda’s expressions of violent views with respect to other parties may well have endeared him to his party’s leadership, for nothing else explains his getting the Senate ticket when his membership of the National Assembly was under threat. Mr Vawda’s MNA seat was subsequently won in the by-election by the PPP. Now, the Senate seat, being voted on alone, will be won by the PPP. Mr Vawda will thus have managed to lose his party two seats, one in each House. The PTI being so strong on accountability, should have got rid of Mr Vawda as soon as the trouble emerged, and not tried to rescue him by a method that has now blown up in his (and the PTI’s) face.
Mr Vawda will probably go into appeal before the Supreme Court, so firm is his wish to be a parliamentarian. It would indeed be a pity if he was somehow to evade what seem to be clear constitutional provisions. Will this loss of face, and more importantly, of a Senate seat provoke some form of soul-searching among the leaders of the PTI? If it does not, it will not avert them from committing similar such blunders in the future.
