The government and opposition seem opposed on the issue of electoral reform, with the government proposing electronic voting machines (EVMs) for constituencies at home, and i-voting (internet-voting) for overseas Pakistanis. It has legislated for his purpose, and has passed a bill through the National Assembly. So far, the Opposition had merely opposed, but now Leader of the Opposition Mian Shehbaz Sharif has proposed that overseas Pakistanis be given representation in Parliament, with five to seven seats in the National Assembly and two in the Senate, chosen the way one member of the AJK Legislative Assembly is chosen: elected by the directly elected members. He also proposed that the right of overseas Pakistanis to vote in Pakistan personally would remain unaffected, but they would, as at present, have to turn up to vote.
The PTI shows the truth of the axiom that electoral reform is only sought by those who lose elections. The PTI seemed to have lost its urge for electoral reform after the 2018 elections, which it had won. As opposed to the concern it showed after the 2013 elections, which led to the famous dharna, whose basic demand was electoral reform. A second dharna was ended only after the Supreme Court set up a commission to examine the rigging charges.
However, while it did not demand an examination of the election it won, it came up against a string of by-elections that it lost; including of seats it had held previously, notably a provincial seat in KP, and a national seat in Karachi. It is within this context that the PTI enthusiasm for electoral reform has come.
It should also be noted that the PTI had vowed reform of the Senate elections in 2018, but slept on the issue until the Senate polls earlier this year. The government seems to have been infuriated by its defeat in the Islamabad election, where the PPP had its candidate, Yusuf Reza Gilani, elected. The government found that the secrecy of the ballot prevented the adherence to strict party lines which would have given it victory.
One of the main problems with i-voting is that it is subject to hacking remotely, as well as interference at the voting sites. A group of outside experts was asked before the 2018 election to examine the possibility. The findings were discouraging: the secrecy of the poll could not be ensured. His is the same problem as has been identified with EVMs.
One of the problems that the PTI faces is the need to bring to bear the support it enjoys among overseas Pakistanis upon the electoral issues. There are two issues here. The first is that one has to be physically present in Pakistan to vote. Second, there is the issue of citizenship. Enthusiasm for the PTI may well not extend to taking time off from work, and coming home to vote. Then there is the citizenship issue. The Supreme Court has found that even dual nationals are precluded from being members of either House of Parliament. Does that extend to voting? Many Pakistanis have taken citizenship only to establish right to residence, not some sense of loyalty to the country they have migrated to. True, the Supreme Court has not taken this as any sort of excuse, but if someone wants to represent overseas Pakistanis in Parliament, would he or she have to give up a foreign citizenship obtained only through considerable difficulty?
Of course, the PTI wants overseas Pakistanis given the right to vote, but presumably not to become MNAs or Senators themselves, unless they gave up citizenship. They would then be free to contest from a general seat, where the majority of voters would probably be ordinary Pakistanis, with no foreign experience. They would be in the position of none other than the Prime Minister himself, who was very much an overseas Pakistan, who studied and played in the UK, found a wife there, and only then came back to Pakistan for politics. However, he sits for a very rural seat, the largest conurbation in it being Isakhel, with a population of less than 20,000. While many of its sons have sought employment abroad, it is hardly known as a source of labour abroad.
The truth is that the distribution of labour abroad is so wide that Mian Shehbaz’s proposal has a certain validity: that the National Assembly is the best forum to represent overseas Pakistanis. Of course, that also hides another question: whether overseas Pakistanis should be represented at all. The government itself is a little self-contradictory here, for it has proposed delimitations based on the number of registered voters, rather than population, as at present. Overseas Pakistanis are not enumerated in the population, unless present at the time of the census. However, they are registered as voters. That change might come into conflict with the constitutional provision laying population down as the touchstone for delimitations.
Once one is amending the Constitution, then an amendment increasing the membership of Parliament seems to overcome an inevitable objection. There could be some sort of trade-off, with NADRA to be allowed to prepare electoral rolls, in exchange for an increase in the number of seats. If the seven MNAs are added, the total membership of the National Assembly would reach 349, with only 272 directly elected.
If overseas Pakistanis are to be given representation, and the need for increasing the size of the National Assembly avoided, a leaf out of the Indian book may be copied. There, to ensure that 25 percent of the members of the Lok Sabha are from the Scheduled C states, certain seats are reserved. The implication is that all parties have to put up SC candidates, who will have to obtain non-SC votes to win. The standard set by the AJK Legislative Assembly, residence outside the state, may be followed, and seven constituencies reserved for overseas Pakistanis. It would be rare for one to win a second term, because being an MNA might cost resident status abroad.
One of the main problems with i-voting is that it is subject to hacking remotely, as well as interference at the voting sites. A group of outside experts was asked before the 2018 election to examine the possibility. The findings were discouraging: the secrecy of the poll could not be ensured. His is the same problem as has been identified with EVMs.
There was the 2018 debacle of the RTS, the internet-based Result Transfer System, which has been pointed out as a sign of the kind of rigging that allowed the present government to come to office. Do EVMs and i-voting allow the results to be manipulated?
They do, and there is one view that such manipulation will be necessary at the next election, if the PTI’s victory is to be ensured. Obviously, this view is held by those who believe that those forces which brought it to government would like to repeat the experience. For whatever flaws of governance there have been, the PTI is not the PML(N) or the PPP.
I-voting could well change the results of closely contested seats. EVMs could do the same. Of course, if the opposition was to cry foul, then the election would be rendered doubtful. The 1977 election is paradigmatic in that respect. The option then, of a military takeover, may not be so simple now, not that it was a snap of the fingers then. I-voting and EVMs might help. In 1977, people came onto the streets because the results did not mesh with what they had seen at the polling stations (and even where the PPP would have won, the margins were too large). No one wants that in 2023.
