A victim of the committee system
Soon after its formation, nine months back, the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms went into coma. This indicated that the government had little realisation that electoral reforms could assume centre stage in the political crisis that was to envelop the country in the following months. The committee worked without a defined timeframe and its meetings were irregular. There is still no word about the agenda that it has covered over the period. A perception has been developing that the PML-N, which had won the elections under the existing polling arrangements, wanted to retain them as they provided the party familiar loopholes to manipulate its victory.
With the Parliamentary Committee failing in its mission, the defects in the electoral systems are creating doubts about the legitimacy of whatever elections are taking place. The PTI’s demand for deployment of army on polling stations during the cantonment board polls and the bye-elections in NA-246 is an expression of the lack of faith in the current polling arrangements. Voices are being raised over in the National Assembly on allowing non-party LG polls in Islamabad. With the Parliamentary Committee neglecting its job, the courts have been forced to intervene to remove the anomalies in the electoral system. On Monday LHC ordered the federal government and ECP to issue orders to ROs to accept nomination papers of candidates contesting cantonment boards’ polls on party basis. The lack of activity by the Parliamentary Committee is thus forcing the Parliament to surrender some of its turf to the courts. The system would never mature if the guardians were to perform the duties assigned to elected bodies.
Unless the committee is made to move apace all elections beginning from the Local Government polls to General Elections would give birth to controversies thus posing challenges to the legitimacy of the system. A lot of suggested reforms like the introduction of voting machines need to be tested and improved before the General Elections. The government would do well to heed Khursheed Shah’s call to activate the committee.
