To the politicians’ discomfort, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), in the guidelines issued for the candidates, has stuck to some of its tough conditions strongly resented by former lawmakers in the now-dissolved Lower and Upper houses.
The ECP, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Justice (r) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, seems to have even ignored the National Assembly’s legislation on March 12 which had annulled a “mischief” law requiring the candidates to submit their nomination papers in person to the returning officers. The lawmakers in the National and provincial assemblies had strongly reacted when the ECP had served them a letter asking them to do so.
Friday saw the commission placing on its website a “Nomination Form Booklet” to provide the candidates with the essentially required information for contesting the election.
However, the guidelines in the 23-page-long booklet are going to fall heavily on the candidates as these not only require them to file their nomination papers in person, but also produce “attested” photocopies of their educational credentials to the returning officers.
Just four days before the completion of the government’s five-year tenure on March 12, the lawmakers in the National Assembly passed the out-of-turn Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2013 to strike off what the legislators dubbed “a Musharraf-era legislative mischief” of making it mandatory for the contestants to appear in person before the returning officer to submit their nomination forms.
PML-N legislator Zahid Hamid, who had moved the bill, said the disputed law was enacted to bar his party chief Nawaz Sharif and PPP’s slain chairwoman Benazir Bhutto then in exile, from contesting elections.
Law Minister Farooq H Naik, however, did not talk of Nawaz while speaking on the general principles of the bill, saying the law was aimed at Benazir only as the PML-N chief was in exile as a consequence of a covert deal with Musharraf.
The ECP guidelines also want the election hopefuls, over 70 percent of who have reportedly been evading taxes, to attach their national tax number (NTN) with the nomination form for the facility of the ECP’s scrutinisers.
“You must attach attested photocopies of your educational qualification certificates… National Tax Number, if any, with nomination paper,” read the guidelines, adding that the returning officers might get the candidates’ documents verified from the concerned department/authority, “if he so desires”.
Asked if the ECP had dared not succumb to the immense political pressure and had stood by its reform agenda, an ECP official at the Sindh election commissioner’s office said, “You are right in saying that the ECP has not succumbed to the pressure.”
He was quick to add that the guidelines issued on Friday were outdated as they had not been updated in accordance with the latest developments.
“There is no coordination between various stakeholders,” he said, adding that they were told that the guidelines were printed earlier by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
“When we pinpointed this issue, the directors in Islamabad office said they would look into it, but they have not been able to do that yet as there is a lot of unwanted activity in our offices,” the official said.
Commenting on the erroneous guidelines, the official said there was no point of seeking candidates’ educational documents as the earlier condition of the candidates being graduates had been abolished.
He said the ECP would issue a clarification within the next couple of days to rectify the mistakes in the booklet in question.
“I am confident that this booklet will be of immense help for prospective candidates in acquainting themselves with ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ of the election process and facilitate them in contesting the election in an organised manner,” Justice (r) Ebrahim said.
While optimists among the crises-hit 180 million Pakistanis are pinning their hopes on the ECP and its chief for conducting transparent election on May 11, such negligence puts to question the seriousness, if not the ability, of the commission to come up to the expectations of the nation.