- PTI’s reluctance creates the wrong optics
The Election Commission of Pakistan’s dismissal of multiple PTI petitions for secrecy about its foreign donations to be guarded by the committee investigating them once again raises questions about why the party is so reluctant to have details of those donations exposed. The case being considered has not been filed by a rival political party, but by a founding member of the PTI, now estranged, who belongs to the very category of people who make donations, an overseas Pakistani.
There is no harm in principle, in a political party accepting donations. Indeed, participation in the democratic process by making a donation to a party is one of the easiest methods of getting involved in the process. Pakistani parties do not encourage donations, because that means that influence might shift from the party grandees to the ordinary member. However, there is the problem that this might merely become a conduit for influence-peddling. One check on this has been full disclosure of all details of donations. Parties are not allowed to maintain secrecy about donations, foreign or domestic, because it as to be seen who is buying influence. Often enough, parties receive donations not because of ideological affinity, but because the donor wishes to influence the policies of the government which his money is likely to pay for its election campaign. The sugar lobby, the agricultural lobby, the business lobby, the industrial lobby, are among those which are powerful in Pakistan. However, it is the foreign lobby which is most insidious. Also, the use of foreign donations, especially through the non-banking ‘hawala’ channels the PTI is supposed to have used, to launder money, can only be imagined.
The PTI’s reluctance is strange in a party which campaigned with a very strong anti-corruption plank in its election platform. By making public the details of its own donations, it would have put pressure on other parties, less deeply committed against corruption, to go public themselves. The vigour with which it has conducted the legal battle against disclosure has made it probable that it is perceived, except perhaps by diehard supporters, as a party with something to hide. These are not the optics the PTI wants about itself, especially if they are not true. It should come clean before if it is forced to.