Shameran Abed

A couple of days ago, the chief election commissioner was seen telling a scrum of reporters that the election commissioners are ‘super-humans’ and have ‘supernatural powers’. He was trying to look serious while saying it as well. Of course, he was not actually serious and thankfully so. He was being sarcastic. It was a slightly scary sight as well.
To go back a little, it all started with the High Court ordering the Election Commission to reinstate the candidatures of several candidates who had been barred, for various reasons, by the commission from running in the upcoming parliamentary polls. Having heard their appeals and dismissed those as well, the commission had then set about printing ballot papers. In the meantime, these candidates appealed the commission’s decision once again, this time to the High Court. The courts, having heard their appeals, decided that they ought to be reinstated and ordered the commission to do just that. Now, the commissioners are evidently upset that the High Court is sending them candidates to reinstate everyday and causing havoc to their ballot paper printing process.
While the chief election commissioner’s apparent frustration is understandable, his sarcasm is mistimed and misplaced. First of all, if the High Court cannot find any reason for cancellation of a person’s candidature, it has no choice but to order his or her reinstatement. Second, these processes would not have to be completed in such a frenzy, within two weeks, if the EC had paid more attention to the electoral process than political engineering over the past 23 months. If anyone is at fault here, is it not the commission for wrongly cancelling the candidatures of those they are now having to reinstate?
Therefore, if the commissioner wants to show his frustration, he should show it to himself and his colleagues for their mess-up. He should not be doing it on live television, and nor should he insinuate that the High Court is somehow at fault for any of this.