THE Election Commission of Pakistan held another hearing on the political parties’ foreign funding case on Thursday, and gave yet another date for yet another hearing. This time the hearing pertained to the PML-N and PPP, but the longest running case is that of the ruling PTI that has continued for nearly six years without any conclusion in sight. The scrutiny committee appointed by the ECP to probe allegations of undisclosed foreign funding of the PTI has also been dragging its feet. It had submitted a report to the ECP which was found unsatisfactory. The committee was given six weeks to submit a more solid report. This time frame expires in another two weeks.

The laws about foreign funding for parties are fairly clear. All funding must be transparent, above board and accounted for. All parties, not just the bigger ones, must provide complete documentation of their funding to ensure that dubious and illegal money is not being invested into these parties, thereby injecting corruption into an already weak democratic edifice. In this respect, the PTI as the ruling party has a major responsibility to set an example by providing all details required by the ECP and answer all allegations made against it. The case against the PML-N and PPP also merits equal attention though the timing does raise eyebrows when it coincides conveniently with NAB’s flawed accountability process that focuses overwhelmingly on the opposition. These parties have much to answer for given the heavy amounts of money they spend on electoral activities. Mature democracies have stringent campaign funding laws aimed at ensuring that all funds spent by political parties are legal and within a limit that cannot be construed as buying overwhelming influence over the party.

It is in this context that the ECP should use its powers to make political parties accountable for all sources of funding, with special focus on money coming from foreign sources. However, the ECP’s track record so far leaves much to be desired. These important cases have been allowed to drag on endlessly giving rise to a perception that the ECP is taking a lenient view towards the issue. This must change. Six years is more than enough for the PTI case to reach a final conclusion. The last chief election commissioner had ordered daily hearings of this case; it began facing habitual delays once he left office. The ECP must now move swiftly to conclude all these cases and make decisions that force these and other political parties to open up their ledger books and account for every rupee received. If we want to strengthen democracy and reform the structure of our political parties, this is a key step in that direction. The ECP must do its job without delay.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2020