ECP is now functional

It is heartening to note that the two sides of parliamentary political divide have agreed to the appointments of ex-federal secretary Sikandar Sultan Raja as Chief Election Commissioner and Nisar Durrani and Shah Mohammad as the ECP members. For quite some time the Election Commission of Pakistan was dysfunctional mainly because of the fact that the Government and Opposition in parliament could not consensually agree on appointments of Chief Election Commissioner and two members of the commission. So forbidding was the tenacity on both sides to have their own nominees that the matter landed in the court for a couple of times where the petitioners and respondents were told that parliament is the only forum to make these appointments. While the then CEC Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza had retired on December 5 the other two slots of members were vacant since January 2019. This painful deadlock came to an end only after a dozen interactions of the concerned parliamentary committee. "We should aim to work in this manner in the future as well," says Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen Mizari, who headed the 12-member parliamentary committee tasked to make the ECP appointments. That done the committee now owes an explanation to people as to why the two sides wanted to have their own men on the election commission. Is it that they believe the ECP members are pliable as proxies? That was never the case; the elections in Pakistan by and large were always free and fair. But the political parties never wholeheartedly accepted their transparency and fairness. Both sides are now therefore required to give an undertaking that they they shall always be accepting the outcome of elections in the greater interest of democracy and its future.

For the first time in Pakistan, a bureaucrat has been chosen as Chief Election Commissioner, a development in line with the reality that conducting elections is mainly an administrative exercise. In India, the election commission usually comprises retired IAS and IRS officers. Despite the massive size of electorate and differing polling timelines the outcomes of electoral exercises in India are largely accepted. It was probably the Indian example that triggered the move for the 22nd Constitutional Amendment in Pakistan, which has removed the condition that only retired judges would be appointed as ECP members, and also took away powers of Chief Justice of Pakistan with regard to acting as Chief Election Commissioner. It has changed the eligibility criterion as it envisages that a retired judge of High Court or a senior retired bureaucrat or a technocrat should be considered for the ECP appointments. But that being happily done a functional election commission must now change its working culture or outlook. Strangely, the ECP took as many as 18 months to suspend the membership of MPs who had not submitted their statements of assets and liabilities. The ECP is also required to come clean on the circumstances that had frozen broadcast of polling results from some constituencies during the 2018 general election. Another issue that deserves to be settled for good is the law and order situation at polling stations. A plausible answer to oft-repeated question whether or not troops be posted inside or outside polling booths should be discovered at the earliest. But the issue the opposition is much keen about is the case of foreign funding of parties, particularly of ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf. Giving timely verdicts on complaints that come before the commission would certainly help it restore its somewhat tarnished image.