Analysis: Legal questions, political realities.

PAKISTAN is the land where secrets of the political realm are the worst kept and it is also the land where the worst does come true. In a blitzkrieg of a move, the ECP announced on the night of March 22 that it was postponing the elections announced for Punjab for April 30.

Shortly after, Ramazan was also announced at 10:30pm, by which time most people were thinking they had another day before the fasting was to begin. Our moon sighting has always been a political affair, but it became more political on Tuesday night than one had realised.

The ECP decision was perhaps to be expected, considering the joint session of the parliament the day before, where the interior minister had also made a case for a possible delay in the elections.

Barrister Asad Rahim Khan, calls both the reasoning of the ECP and the government, 'scattershot', arguing that there is no consistent reasoning for the delay.

Obviously, this throws up a number of challenges, legal as well as political. Nonetheless, the first is about the Supreme Court which had bound the ECP to hold elections within 90 days (as if the Constitution wasn't enough of a bind). The PTI has already announced it will be challenging the order in the court today (Friday). And while, many assume the Court will also stand by its earlier order, the politics does not make the situation any easier.

A supreme question of law

The SC now faces a challenge which, can perhaps be compared to the 2007 one, where the apex court was faced with a government and establishment that were on the same page.

That moment ended in an emergency; this one is yet to play out. And this one page is the reason PTI may not get the quick relief it is announcing publicly.

The court is already being critiqued by those in government, so any decision it gives now will be accused of bias. Couple this with the stakeholders on the other side of the 'divide' and Salahuddin Ahmed, lawyer and the former president Sindh Court Bar Association, says only a full bench judgement may have the moral legitimacy to ensure elections.

Both he and Mr Khan agree that given the government's onslaught against the judges and the difference of opinion within the court, which became rather public when the chief justice took suo motu notice of the matter, the court does not face an easy time.

But beyond this, there is also the matter of the caretaker governments, which do not have the mandate to stay beyond 90 days. Who will now provide the legal cover here, or...