Indefensible failure

There may be quite a few sources for the turmoil currently buffeting our polity, but the one that stands above all is quality of the national electoral process. The last general elections, held in June 2013, had then won appreciation both at home and abroad, not only because the voters had turned up at the polling booths daring dire threats the turnout was clearly above the normal. Among factors that generated so much acclaim for the event the most outstanding was the unbounded faith the masses had in the then Chief Election Commissioner former Justice Fakhruddin G Ebrahim's tested sense of impartiality - though it is a different matter that he resigned soon after - the cause for it being more about jurisdiction of his office than his personal integrity. For the last many months search is on to find a suitable permanent substitution, while making a go by having judges of the Supreme Court as temporary fillers. Not that filling up the post of Chief Election Commissioner is a difficult legal hassle; there is a clearly-laid down constitutional process and if followed earnestly Fakhru Bhai's successor would have been there in just a fortnight or so. In fact, unbelievably, the issue is about the availability of suitable candidates or any legal and constitutional intricacy. The issue, perceptibly, is the unspoken yet unmistakable mindset on the part of the two constitutional consultees, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Leader of Opposition Syed Khursheed Shah, that the stuff called Chief Election Commissioner can be casted the shape one liked. But no more of it; challenging the unending dithering on the part of the 'consultees' the Supreme Court has ordered the government to appoint a Chief Election Commissioner by December 1, 2014, as the officiating Chief Election Commissioner Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali will vacate that office and return to the court.
On the face of it, this appears to be the final call leaving the 'consultees' with no option but to agree on a set of three names for appointment of CEC to the 12-member Parliamentary Committee for 'hearing and confirmation' of any one of three proposed. And, should the 'consultees' fail once again they may not only attract application of Contempt of Court Ordinance, but also held guilty of violating the constitution. The office of Chief Election Commissioner cannot be left unfilled; the Article 213 makes it obligatory on the part of prime minister and leader of opposition, and none else, to ensure that top office of Election Commission of Pakistan is not unoccupied beyond a reasonable time. That an 'outsider' in this case, PTI chief Imran Khan, should derail the process is not something that could enjoy constitutional propriety. He had no legal, constitutional - not even an ethical position given his party's resignations from the National Assembly - to make an unsavoury comment about one of the proposed names - former Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani. But for the too much emphasis on so-called parliamentary unanimity and consensus, which has crept into the constitution courtesy the 18th Constitutional Amendment framers' misplaced understanding of the thing democracy we would have former Justice Fakhruddin's successor in just no time. In parliamentary democracy the elected majority in the parliament forms the government, and as its right to rule is exclusive so is its accountability. Yes, if possible the relevant law, which in the present situation means constitutional amendment, should be amended to induct election chiefs from other professions, as is the case in India. But can anybody guarantee that Imran Khan or someone else will not raise his finger against the nominee from there? It is not the consensus over his/her appointment but the oath taken by the holder of a constitutional office, which influences his/her decisions. If in India bureaucrats made good chief election commissioners a similar experience could also happen to people of Pakistan. But the problem before us is not the narrowness of the field to reap from for appointment of Chief Election Commissioner; the problem is with the political mind with all its contorted thinking. Is there another place in the world where four deadlines issued by the country's highest court were defied, by excuses as flimsy as being made by the government's principal lawyer to justify the failure of the constitutional consultees - and, diabolically, so when together they jointly withstand the unremitting attack on the quality of elections, which brought them to power?