FOR an election to be seen as free, fair, and transparent, the role of international election observers is important, and their assessment has a bearing on a country’s democratic credentials in the eyes of the world. At a news conference in Islamabad on Friday, two such observation missions, one from the European Union and the other from the Commonwealth, contended that army troops deployed at polling stations did not interfere with the process and confined themselves to assisting the presiding officers. The observers did, however, express several concerns about the environment in which the election was held. Mentioned in the EU mission’s preliminary report presented on the occasion, among these concerns was the less than satisfactory security situation, with a number of attacks on party leaders, candidates and election officials. Further, the report notes the emergence on the country’s electoral landscape of extremist parties and individuals with a history of violence or even affiliations to terrorist outfits.

Aside from this, the observers’ assessment also mentions “a systematic effort to undermine the former ruling party” through the judiciary, which “reshaped the political environment ahead of the elections”. The EU mission chief at the press conference brought up the strictures on the media as well, which he said resulted in self-censorship. This is particularly significant, given that reports by international election observers tend to be carefully worded. Local human rights organisations and political analysts have been making similar assertions. Nevertheless, sometimes the word of global bodies carries more weight, both locally and internationally, as they are seen to be unencumbered by local biases or considerations. The questionable pre-poll developments and the muzzling of the media are now also part of the international election observers’ record. It is edifying to glance through the report issued by the Commonwealth observer mission after elections in 2013. While noting the extremely high incidence of violence in the pre-election phase, it quoted a Pakistani civil society network of election observers as saying that the violence “was not met with an effective counter-attack by state security forces, raising concerns of patronage of certain political interests”. As to media freedom five years ago, it held that “Privately owned media outlets are relatively independent from state influence…”. Although this is but a preliminary report, one could argue that while in some ways Pakistan has made progress in the democratic exercise of holding elections, it is regressing on certain important fronts.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2018