Pakistan's ranking for the 2008 Democracy index report, published by the Economist in 2008, is 109 out of the 167 countries included in the study. The study considered five categories while calculating the results: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of the government, political participation and political culture.
The responsibility now rests on the current parliament to ensure that a trend of nurturing democracy through state institutions is laid out through effective laws passed in the National Assembly. One of the first steps towards such an endeavour is that the parliament should make the production of the Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) compulsory for registering as a voter and also for casting votes in future elections.
The institution behind the registration of Pakistani citizens has been the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) since its establishment in the year 2000. To date, Nadra has registered 85% of the adult population with the aim of completing the registration of adult citizens by August next year, under a directive from the President of Pakistan.
While the government realises the importance of having the entire adult population registered, it is high time that this registration be put to use for strengthening the democratic character of our nation. Development of the voter lists, for the last general elections, was commissioned under the Election of Pakistan in April 2006, through a directive of the Supreme Court.
The Electoral Rolls Act, 1974, under subsection eleven (11), mentions that 'an electoral roll must be revised and corrected annually'. However, it states further that the previous version maybe used in case no new lists are prepared. The reason behind the Supreme Court's ruling was the fact that Nadra had registered fewer citizens than its current registration count, which stands at 74 million Pakistani citizens.
Even after the Election Commission spent one billion Rupees in order to register the eligible voters, there were many reports of bogus entries, duplicates, discrepancies in the total number of voters and that these voter-lists lack photographic identification. In such a scenario, it makes all the more sense to channel the process of voter registration through Nadra's registration database.
The voter list, compiled by the Election Commission of Pakistan, for the 2008 elections was marred with missing entries. The Election Commission's efforts to cater to the reservations of the political parties about missing entries failed and the Pakistan Peoples Party filed a petition in the Supreme Court, prior to the 2008 elections, against the voter's lists compiled by the Election Commission.
The Election Commission registered some 55 million voters in the provisional lists, 20 million less than the number of voters in the 2002 elections. The electoral list should have been more than the 2002 list of 72 million, since millions had crossed the eligibility age of 18 years since then. As a result, the Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission to rework the electoral list resulting in the total voter count reaching approximately 81 million.
Though the Election Commission claimed that the new list was more comprehensive than before, but international observers like the pre-election delegation of the National Democratic Institute to Pakistan reviewed a sample of 3,664 entries and found that 26 percent were not found at the listed address. The report published afterwards declared that more than 10 million entries could not be verified and highlighted the under-representation of women on the voter-list.
It is quite illogical to not use the Nadra database as the primary source for voter registration, as this database will now remain the most updated record of all Pakistani citizens. The credibility of the work done by Nadra is assured through the international strategic partnerships and projects acquired by the authority since its inception, which include the Sudanese Civil Registration Project, the Kenyan Passport Issuing System and Bangladesh's High Security Driver's License system.
Two factors that had previously hindered the efforts of Nadra to register every Pakistani citizen were female registration and registration of the poorest segment of society. The new administration at Nadra has taken considerable efforts to improve the situation. A major development is the wavier of photographs for women in the backward areas of NWFP and Balochistan, where women resent getting a CNIC made, conscious about having their photographs taken.
This consideration is made possible because of the quality of the CNIC, as it does not solely rely upon photographic identification only. It has other identification features such as capturing fingerprints from both hands to ensure that strict standards are followed.
Nadra is very confident about the initiation of 'women only staff' at the National Swift Registration Centres and rightly so. When the first of these centres opened in Mardan, some 3000 women turned up on the first day to have their CNICs made. Fridays have been reserved exclusively for women to have themselves registered, paving the way for more women being registered than men. The initiation of the Benazir Income Support Program has further aided the registration of women.
To make sure that the poorest segment of society is also included in the registration, Nadra has started issuing CNICs free of cost. The current administration at Nadra has issued 10 million free CNICs since Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani issued an executive order on 24th June, 2008 to register Pakistani citizens free of cost. Since last year's elections, 15 million new voters have been added, and the Election Commission of Pakistan has not yet collected this data yet.
Senior leaders from Pakistan Peoples Party, Pakistan Muslim League-N, Pakistan Muslim League (Q), Awami National Party, Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakhtun Khuwah Mili Awami Party attended a roundtable organised by the National Democratic Institute in 2009. They expressed serious concerns over the accuracy of the current voters' list and approved a recommendation for establishing a comprehensive partnership between the Election Commission and Nadra to compile voter lists.
Politicians from all parties agreed that Nadra had considerable public resources, which must be employed for the compilation of an error-free and complete voter-list for future elections. Many countries, including Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Albania, Bangladesh and Spain, use civil registries to compile voter-lists. These countries have had considerable success in making the election process transparent and their efforts have been lauded internationally.
It is now for the lawmakers of our country to ensure that such efforts are granted due credit and the resources available to Nadra should be put to better use to maintain and polish the democratic culture initiated after the 2008 elections. Democratic initiatives never come easy but almost a decade-long Nadra's efforts provide Pakistan with the golden opportunity to seize one. And while parliamentarians may have differences of opinions on numerous issues, the usage of CNIC as a primary requirement to cast a vote is one to which all political parties openly submit.
(Author is the Deputy Chairman of Nadra)
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