Did the ECP surrender its authority in the presidential polls?
What will be the consequences of the controversial presidential poll on the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)? Hit by controversy after controversy, genuine questions were being asked over the efficacy of the ECP and the Chief Election Commissioner Fakhuruddin G Ebrahim to handle the upcoming bye and local body elections without further controversy. The first casualty appears to be the honourable ECP CEC himself, who resigned on Wednesday. His grievance was that the terrain of the ECP was encroached by the Supreme Court (SC) in its decision to bring forward the presidential poll and his position became untenable after his attempt to set aside the SC notification was brought down by three other ECP members. On the political turf, the result was that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the second largest party in the National Assembly (NA), decided to boycott and other political parties, including the Awami National Party (ANP), the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) continued to ask questions and demand the resignation of ECP officials.
The ANP information secretary accused ECP officials of failing to perform their duties and protested against a “system which creates hurdles for parliamentarians using their right to vote.” He said the ECP had violated the code of conduct and then the SC had interfered and given a faulty judgment without listening to all parties. Only 40 out of 103 senators exercised their right to vote for the new president and this should ask serious questions over the trust in the process that elected the new president. Some of the fault must be shared by the government, whom stood to lose nothing if it held the presidential polls by August 6. The current dispute is one of those unnecessary controversies that could have been avoided had the ECP and government acted more smartly. When the ECP CEC tried to stand up to the SC, his fellow members told him “the ECP should have taken the stand during the hearing.” That the ECP CEC had failed to issue such instructions earlier merited questioning.
With the ECP CEC Fakhuruddin G Ebrahim already having resigned from his post, there is a need to take stock of what has gone wrong with the “new and reformed” ECP. The hope was that the permanent, independent institution of the ECP would help increase the credibility of elections. It appears that the CEC, despite his personal integrity, was unable to assert himself in the ECP. Is the reason for that is the formula to appoint four provincial members the problem? The complaints over the general elections are yet to have been resolved as critics have begun to complain of the ECP’s “surrender to the SC”. With the next round of bye elections and local bodies polls around the corner, it remains to be seen if the ECP – minus the current CEC – will be up to the task?
in the first place the appointment was not in well order too much burden on the eighty past shoulders of fakr sahib.the government cowardly wanted to hold early elections to which led this unfortunate episode which will now spoil the political atmosphere .mqm induction in government ranks is the most unfortunate part
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