AS the judicial commission inquiring into allegations of fraud and misconduct during the 2013 general election moves inexorably towards concluding its work, the detailed response submitted by the Election Commission of Pakistan is worth examining. The ECP is not only the constitutional body tasked with the holding of elections, it is also the body that lies at the heart of many of the electoral allegations made by the PTI since May 2013. As such, the ECP not only has a sophisticated insight into the minutiae of organising and conducting elections, it is also well positioned to explain many of the strident allegations against it. The ECP’s submission to the judicial commission is quite forthright: while there were fairly widespread procedural lapses by polling officials, nothing has been brought on the record as yet to suggest a systematic attempt to rig the general election, either at a provincial level or nationally. That chimes with what most independent observers have claimed since 2013: that while the general election was not truly free and fair, it produced a result that was acceptable and credible and an incremental improvement on previous general elections.

The more important point though — at least from an ECP perspective — is to suggest fixes for the procedural lapses that 2013 revealed. Here the ECP tends to deflect more blame than take charge of fixing the system. Clearly, given that presiding officers and returning officers are not full-time employees of the ECP, there are real world limitations to how much training can be imparted and to what extent authority over the POs and ROs can be exercised. Surely, that should not mean that improvement is simply not possible when it comes to the present system. Limitations aside, there is no reason why ROs, who were very experienced judicial officers, should not be able to receive and file the relevant election-related forms — scrupulous attention to detail and strictly following laid-down procedure is at the very heart of the judicial process, after all. There is also the reality that the average RO would have overseen several elections — so there is little reason for amateurish mistakes that the inquiry has revealed at various stages of the counting and collating process. What appears to be the problem is that while the ECP has the legal mandate and relatively strong powers, the commission’s officers are reluctant to take a hard line when lapses are revealed. A more assertive, rules-bound ECP would go a long way to further strengthening the electoral system.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play