The ECP should instead improve its working
The recent elections were held under an independent and powerful Election Commission, the first of its kind in the country’s history. While the creation of the Commission was widely hailed, it was understood that the task it was required to fulfill was highly challenging. Many in the lower election staff recruited from government departments were beholden to political parties who had given them the jobs. The powerful bureaucrats at the provincial level were not in all cases impartial. The working of the ECP was by no means ideal as was subsequently noted by the media and civil society organisations. It was in fact the duty of the media to bring to public notice what was actually happening on the ground.
For instance the media took up the issue of the controversial questioning of the candidates by several Returning Officers (ROs) during the scrutiny of nomination papers. The questions which were sometime outright insulting, sometime bordering on the ridiculous were condemned by the HRCP also which, taking note of a lack of timely response from the ECP, was constrained to observe that “The completely arbitrary barring of candidates by the Returning Officers at this scale cannot be without instructions and encouragement to take this tack. HRCP sees a clear and systematic sabotage of the democratic process to make the will of the people completely irrelevant. This deliberate and planned abuse of the process appears to be a bid to complete Ziaul Haq’s agenda to accommodate extremism into mainstream politics and to thrust theocratic rule down people’s throat.” The criticism led the ECP, somewhat belatedly, to direct the ROs to refrain from ‘irrelevant’ quizzing of candidates. Other criticism went unnoticed. For instance, the ECP failed to effectively respond to reports that parties or candidates had entered into an agreement to keep women out of the electoral process. Again, the ECP passed an order disallowing the use of religion for political purposes. Another order prohibited politicians from indulging in personal attacks. The JUI-F chief flouted both the directives launching personal attacks with religious undertones on Imran Khan. The ECP simply chose to look the other way, setting a bad precedence. As the HRCP put it, “By tending to concentrate on its own image building, the ECP sometimes lost sight of major democratic issues.” It is claimed that NADRA informed the ECP about its lack of capacity to verify large number of thumbprints of voters but no heed was paid by the ECP. The Authority’s thumb verification system is therefore yet to be upgraded.
It would be ridiculous to claim that rigging initiated and planned by political outfits has not taken place in the elections. The ECP at times failed to rise to the occasion. What must not be forgotten however is that if the flaws witnessed in the ECP’s working during the polls are not removed they could create serious problems during the Local Bodies elections. Instead of extending threats to the media, the ECP officialdom should improve the working of the body.