The debate over who can or cannot contest
While one would normally oppose restrictions on who can – or cannot – contest elections, it is the sitting government that has ceded ground to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by agreeing to Tahirul Qadri’s demand to enforce the ‘vague’ Articles 62 and 63 to shortlist potential candidates.
The task of interpreting the Articles now lies firmly with the ECP – whom must follow the constitution while applying as lax an interpretation of its provisions as possible. If not, it stands to threaten the very sanctity of the election process – where people are allowed to choose whom they shall elect. If the ECP chooses otherwise, it may be deemed to be threatening the election process itself, as the recent media reports of wrangling between the Law Ministry and ECP appear to suggest.
The controversy has been brewed over the ECP’s proposed changes to the candidate nomination form. The Law Ministry has responded with a resounding no to most proposed amendments. In response, the ECP has declared it willingness to put up a fight, and defended the proposed changes as in line with its authority under Article 218(3) the Constitution and to ensure “fairness, justness and credibility of the elections and to guard against corrupt practices.” It has asked the ministry to refer the matter to President Asif Ali Zardari.
To its request that candidates provide their financial details for the last three years, the Law Ministry recommended that the ECP itself approach the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for tax data. Surely, the ECP does not have the manpower or the time to send information requests to the FBR bureaucracy and then sift through them in time to ensure timely elections. Perhaps, more justly, it has opposed the proposal seeking details of the dependents of candidates, since what their dependents do falls outside the realm of responsibility of candidates. And there is certainly sense in the ECP recommending that candidates attack a six-month criminal record, if any. The ministry, however, has also opposed this. Other ECP proposals overruled by the ministry included details of educational qualification, social work and foreign travels. No harm appears to come off these requests and the wrangling appears to be over fickle matters, while the ECP insists it needs to get the nomination forms finalized and printed by 11 March for timely elections to go ahead. If the president does not back the ECP, it will have to use the old nomination forms that would undermine its plans to strictly vet candidates for any tax evasion, loan defaults or criminal convictions.
What is to be gained by prolonging the matter is uncertain. With the ECP proposing an election day between May 6 and 9, the tussle between the ECP and Law Ministry must be settled amicably and soon.
