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ACCORDING to the election tribunal investigating complaints of irregularities in the counting of votes in Lahore’s NA-125 constituency, the conduct of the 2013 election there left much to be desired.
Specifically, the tribunal’s verdict on seven polling booths indicated that the bags supposed to contain ballot papers were full of trash. One part of the ruling held that: “The polling bag of each of the polling stations shows that the process of the election carried out is the result of gross mismanagement.”
Really? Should we be surprised? Putting aside the question of rigging for a moment, let us not forget that the polling staff — from the returning officer downwards — are poorly educated, barely trained, badly paid and totally unmotivated. So why should we expect high levels of efficiency?
Why should we have expectations of the ECP?
After all, we have long become accustomed to corruption and chaos in virtually every other government department. Why then this high expectation from the Election Commission of Pakistan and its electoral staff? The ECP is composed of mostly serving and retired judges, and we are all too familiar with the speed and impartiality with which justice is dispensed in Pakistan.
Returning officers are generally junior civil servants, all too conscious of the power of politicians and senior civil servants to make or break their careers. Presiding officers are even lower down the bureaucratic ladder, being drawn largely from state schools and colleges. These teachers are even less likely to resist pressure.
Over the decades, we have witnessed the steady decline in levels of efficiency and integrity in every organ of the state. From the police to revenue collection, the bureaucracy is in free fall. Politicians may pay lip service to public service, but they are mostly in it for the money and the perks. The less said about the judiciary, the better.
State corporations, despite the autonomy they enjoy, are in similar meltdown. PIA and Pakistan Steel continue to be on life support, absorbing vast amounts of public resources. Pakistan Railways, the largest federal employer after the army, is in shambles.
The military has largely managed to insulate itself from this overall decline by creating its own educational and training establishments. To a large extent, it has also maintained a meritocracy, although you wouldn’t think so, judging by the elevation of some officers who rose to the very highest level.
One thread running through this sorry tale is the virtual collapse of state education. Political interference in universities, combined with the underfunding of government schools, has led to two generations of poorly educated Pakistanis.
These young graduates then go on to teach or enter the civil service, with predictable results. Millions of children attend madressahs where they are taught little but religious knowledge and intolerance. Private schools and colleges of variable quality are keeping the system afloat, but only just.
The elites send their children to such institutions, seeking to give them an edge. Thus, they think they have no stake in the public education system. But the reality is that they cannot live in their cocoons forever, and must interact with civil servants, and use our collapsing public utilities.
Those endowed with lots of money and contacts in high places sail through life, and ensure good jobs for their children. But others have to suffer at the hands of callous politicians and bureaucrats, the people who perpetuate our unjust system.
Despite the constitutional obligation of educating them, Pakistan today is home to 9.2 million children between the ages of five and 16 who are out of school. We have a child workforce of around 10 million. So if crime and militancy are constantly increasing, we should hardly be surprised.
And even those kids who do attend state schools scarcely benefit. Poorly trained teachers often don’t turn up at all; teaching materials hardly exist; textbooks are of poor quality; and laboratories are ill-equipped.
We have drifted a long way from NA-125, and its election irregularities. But if we are to understand what lies behind them, we need to be clear about the costs of a shambolic educational system that extend across society, and touch every aspect of our lives.
Another issue influencing our conduct of elections is the lack of accountability. For years now, candidates and political parties have cried foul after losing; mostly, these have been seen as accusations made by bad losers. But even when a rare appeal is upheld, and fresh elections ordered, how many returning officers have been jailed or reprimanded for their role?
In his complaint against the result in NA-125, Hamid Khan, the PTI candidate, charged his PML-N opponent of paying the RO and presiding officers Rs20 million as a bribe. Although the tribunal did not accept the rigging charge, the allegation should not surprise us either.
Ultimately, it is not a lack of rules and laws that’s the problem, but the collapse of the system. And in this, all of us who are privileged are guilty.
Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2015
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