Authority vs track record

Beginning with the 1977 elections, no election was transparent, is a reality that all ECPs (and Pakistan’s allies in the West) ignore. The outcome is progressive loss of faith of the vast majority of Pakistanis in democracy; they no longer trust democracy to deliver responsible and accountable governments. The ongoing ‘sit-ins’ prove that. Events countrywide yesterday were another dark chapter in this tragedy.

By ignoring this continuing tragedy, all ECPs failed in their solemn obligation to hold transparent elections and protect the sanctity of democracy. The fact that instead of promptly investigating the allegations of poll rigging, establishing their reality, and accepting ECP’s failures and resigning thereafter, ECP members’ holding on to their offices made things worse.

Can this record justify the ECP’s claim to unquestioned authority that it insists on having? As long as two-thirds of Pakistan’s electorate (living in small towns and villages) and low-level bureaucrats remain in the clutches of the landlords, Nawabs, and Sardars, the ECP cannot assure transparent polls, which calls for accepting institutional help to save its image, not rejecting it.

By refusing to do what the SC requires it to do, the ECP conveys the impression that it has a mandate that supersedes the mandate of the SC. Unfortunately, the former Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim proved that by resigning under protest over ‘judicial interference’ in the changes announced by the ECP in the schedule for the presidential election.

That the 2013 elections were rigged is denied only by the ECP and the PML-N government. What does it imply? What does leaving the ECP without a permanent Chief Commissioner imply after Justice (r) Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim vacated this post? Didn’t this critical neglect help frustrate those who sought credible investigations into allegations of poll rigging?

On December 2, during the hearing of a petition filed by Pakistan Workers Party over non-implementation of electoral reforms, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar of the Supreme Court (SC) had stated clearly that implementing the court’s decision concerning electoral reforms was an urgent need and warned those responsible for delaying this process of being prosecuted for contempt of court.

The Counsel for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) responded by saying that the SC cannot order enactment of legislation for electoral reforms because mandating enactment of such legislation isn’t within the domain of the SC – one more example of how, using the constitution as the shield, democrats oppose reforms that can rationalise the role of the parliament.

Justice Nisar responded very appropriately saying “The country was founded on democracy and democracy is based on transparent elections. It is a fact that democracy will survive no more if elections are not held in a transparent manner. Legislating is not the domain of the court, but the court can give proposals to the government in connection with legislation.”

The ECP had over 20 months to credibly settle hundreds of complaints about rigging of the 2013 elections. Did the ECP do that? What does government’s half-hearted inclination to constitution of a judicial commission (to investigate these allegations) imply? Does it confirm the ECP’s self-proclaimed competence and integrity or the opposite thereof? Couldn’t this fate be avoided?

Do the ECP members realise the gravity of the damage rigged polls cause to the image of Pakistan? Isn’t it a fact that only subsequent to their being elected did the ECP discover the huge number of elected MPs who either possessed fake university degrees or were members of the non-taxpaying or tax-evading fraternities? Is the ECP’s candidate scrutiny process truly flawless?

The democrats can go on blaming military regimes for all that’s wrong with Pakistan but the fact is that military regimes grabbed power only after democratic regimes made a mess of everything. Had the prerequisites for contesting elections been competence and clean track record, and the electoral process transparent, the good governance could have prevented military take-overs.

Allowing those ineligible on account of education and conduct (ie accused in criminal cases, non-taxpayers, tax-evaders, dual nationality holders, etc) to contest elections, is a glaring failure of the ECP. Poll rigging is the offshoot of this failure because poll rigging is committed by those who should have been disqualified at the outset on these essential yardsticks.

Each time the present PML-N government is confronted with evidence of rigging in the 2013 polls, it passes the blame on to the ECP and the ECP response is that the polls were clean and transparent. Doesn’t this smell of a joint strategy to force the electorate to accept being governed by a government that has doubtful mandate? Isn’t this mess damaging the ECP’s image?

Nor are the PML-N and PPP – great defenders of democracy – worried about their image. They were initially unwilling to initiate a process of reforming the electoral laws, and after agreeing thereto under pressure (which implies accepting that the 2013 elections were flawed) they did all that they could to forestall a judicial inquest into vote rigging claimed by all other political parties.

The bigger tragedy is that this lot shows no signs of being politically smart. Had that not been so, it would have accepted PTI’s demand for investigating rigging in just four National Assembly constituencies to end this controversy; this lot’s refusal to do so, strengthened the view that there was a massive poll rigging, which such an investigation could expose.

Is this how the self-proclaimed defenders of democracy propose to revive peoples’ faith in democracy? Isn’t their conduct strengthening the demand for packing up of democracy that the conduct of these self-proclaimed democracy-lovers eventually led to in 1958, 1970, 1977, and 1999? Sadly, this lot didn’t learn any lessons from its past flawed conduct.

Justice Nisar was wholly right in saying that democracy can’t survive unless elections are held in a visibly transparent manner. There is no other way of ensuring this except, firstly, by cleansing the electoral laws of their flaws, secondly, by legislating laws that ensure unhindered exercise of authority by the ECP, and finally, holding the ECP responsible for its conduct.

After 20 months’ delay, ECP finally has a permanent chief but for that the credit goes to the SC because its threat of legal action led to this key post being filled. Quite appropriately, while adjourning the hearing of the case until the second week of January 2015 the SC sought replies from the ECP and the federation over not implementing its decision concerning electoral reforms.

This period also gives the new ECP chief time to discover where the ECP stands, but given ECP’s present set-up, how will he go about confronting the credibility challenges tarnishing the ECP, remains a question mark.