Already much delayed
Good of the PM to take opposition leader Khurshid Shah’s advice on the matter of the new CEC’s appointment. As rightly pointed on in Shah’s letter to Nawaz Sharif, constitutional institutions should not be run on ad hoc basis. And already there’s been much hue and cry over the matter. So the progress, especially the PM’s willingness to comply sooner rather than later, is appreciated. It is now for Shah to reach consensus within the opposition. The Fakhru bhai experience is not easily forgotten, neither is the need for taking along the extra articulate and aggressive (at least on the subject) strands of the opposition, especially the PTI.
The PTI’s fixation is important. It never accepted last year’s general election result. And though it agreed to let the system function initially, with reservations, it has adopted a very different route of late. The matter of the rigging, no doubt, created the momentum for what is now its threatened million man march on Islamabad on Independence Day. But its eagerness for ensuring free and fair elections should also be reflected in the political realm, in addition to tsunamis and processions, and it should take the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms more seriously. It has still not nominated its members for the committee even though it was established through a national assembly resolution more than two weeks ago.
The committee is tasked with ensuring just what the PTI has been asking for; ways to improve the electoral system and remove the very shortcomings that have resulted in opposition outcry. The PTI understandably endorsed the committee, now it must also make forward movement on it. Needless to say, transparency in elections is essential if the ‘democratic system’ is to survive. And there is no way more appropriate than a parliamentary committee where both government and opposition provide input to improve the system, rather than gather political forces to uproot it.
