The seed of democracy is elections. If they are fair, the outcome will be progress and prosperity but if they are tampered then the outcome will be instability and crisis. While analyzing the controversial electoral process of Pakistan the famous quote of Stalin makes quite relevance “It’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes.”
In Pakistan the paper ballots are still being counted manually and carried in sacks making it vulnerable to theft and tampering when electronic voting is being used in countries like India and Bangladesh. The ballots being in the custody of helpless and weak Grade 16 or 17 government officers, mostly schoolteachers reluctant to perform this heavy responsibility, raises a pertinent question about whether a schoolteacher is mentally and physically strong enough to handle the pressure.
The recent by election in NA-75 Daska was an eye-opener. The optics revealed a weak electoral system where the voters were scared by militants backed by political entities to deliberately affect the turnout, while the polling staff were caught carrying bags containing votes and then suddenly results stopped pouring in, leading to speculations about the pollls’ fairness.
The Daska episode should not be ignored and must be taken as a test case for it has mirrored the political and administrative interference hindering the electoral process that has been weakening the democracy of Pakistan. It’s high time that all political stakeholders reach a consensus on how elections must be conducted on a modern and technically advanced pattern and how to make ECP powerful and able to execute its decisions without any duress
But this time something happened that was unheard of before as the polling staff of 20 polling stations were untraceable, to which the PML(N) reacted by highlighting the issue in the media. Later, next day the Election Commission responded with a statement that it tried to communicate with the top brass of the Punjab bureaucracy but did not receive any response. This clearly showed the bureaucracy was taking dictation from the ruling party.
When pressure was built then the Punjab administration came with the infamous ‘fog’ story which was later discarded by the ECP. These circumstances raised many questions on the fairness of Daska by election, therefore pressure was built to the point where the Prime Minister offered a re-poll in the 20 suspicious polling stations. But the ECP acting fairly voided the Daska by poll and ordered a re-poll in the entire constituency. The ECP took strict action against the bureaucracy for negligence, ordered the Establishment Division to suspend Sialkot’s DC, DPO and AC.
The Punjab Chief Secretary and IGP have been summoned on March 4 for “ignoring their duties”. Such bold decisions were never taken before, it gives an impression that ECP is heading for change and improvement but still there is a long way to go. The current ECP Chairman is a retired bureaucrat and apparently understands complexities of bureaucracy, therefore is dealing with the situation better than his predecessors who were retired judges.
However, the decision of the PM to move to the Supreme Court against the ECP’s order has raised quite a few eyebrows as he claimed himself to be a champion of electoral reforms, and carried out 126 days dharna in 2014 for the sake of four constituencies and but conveniently changing the rules of game when he himself got power. Ironically, the PTI which is anxious to implement open ballot in the Senate is not ready to strengthen the ECP which is trying to develop trust of voters in the electoral system.
Now, will the Bozdar administration be neutral this time or not? Interestingly Daska re-poll would be held after the Senate elections which will majorly change the political dynamics. If Hafeez Shaikh gets defeated, then the PTI’s morale will further sink and situation will give boost to the PDM which will ultimately affect the upcoming political events especially the Daska repoll. Also the contest of Hafeez Shaikh is not just with the PDM but with the doomed fiscal policies being faced by the common man.
Usually in by-elections the constituency gets attention from political parties, media and public, therefore these rigging elements were surfaced this time but similar or different types of rigging do occur in general elections as well affecting the actual results, just like in 2018 the RTS system was used which failed to deliver as the results were held back for many days, polling staff were forced to stay outside the premises of polling stations and the counting was done in their absence. Such happenings created doubts about the transparency of elections and till date the ruling party is carrying the stigma of being called ‘selected’.
These electoral tamperings should not be ignored, rather strict measures should be taken to bar any possibility of rigging and as the entire process of election will remain disputed and this is not a positive sign for democracy. Parliament must work on improvement of the electoral process which can only be done with bold and innovative steps which other countries have also taken to upgrade their electoral process.
The electoral process of India shows that they have brought gradual changes in their election system such as implementation of E-voting. For further verification they added Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail which is an independent system attached with the Electronic Voting Machines that allows the voters to verify that their votes are cast as intended. The game changer in their electoral process was the 10th CEC T.N. Seshan who transformed the election commission in India. Today Pakistan needs an upright, no- nonsense, rulebook CEC who can take innovative steps and reduce the errors, a shadow of which can be seen in the current CEC who has used his powers firmly by not taking any pressure and making valiant decisions. If Electronic Voting Machines are used in Pakistan it will bring possible changes and reduce the rigging chances. Also will it help in cost cutting as there will be no need of using millions of ballot papers that drains a huge amount of public exchequer and there will be no need of deploying thousands of people across the country to deal with the ballot papers. Also it will provide accuracy in the result by diminishing the chances of manual miscounts.
As a test case electronic voting system needs to be introduced in local bodies elections. In today’s modern world of IT the system of carrying the public mandate in bags that can be compromised does not serve the purpose. If we talk about the USA which has a highly developed electoral system recently witnessed a public rage during the presidential elections after the speculations about rigging. The Republican voters were anguished and protested unprecedentedly in Washington. It shows that there is always a threshold point of the voters which might trigger anytime they feel their votes are being tampered.
There are a lot of improvements and changes that need to be brought in the electoral process of Pakistan to revamp the trust of voters if we are keen to protect the already fragile democracy. Every election in Pakistan becomes controversial in some way or the other which discourages the voters and especially the youth who plays a vital role in the progress of any country. Election commission should be practically independent in financial and administrative matters with zero tolerance. If an institution is fully autonomous then it won’t be under the influence of the executive or judiciary.
The Daska episode should not be ignored and must be taken as a test case for it has mirrored the political and administrative interference hindering the electoral process that has been weakening the democracy of Pakistan. It’s high time that all political stakeholders reach a consensus on how elections must be conducted on a modern and technically advanced pattern and how to make ECP powerful and able to execute its decisions without any duress.
It seems that the current ECP is demystifying the fog that made Daska election suspicious. Today, Pakistan needs an autonomous, innovative, effective and authoritative ECP with a courageous and neutral Chairman so that future elections are not compromised by fogs and faulty RTS.
