DURING the elections in 2013, my younger brother had to carry out election duties during which he had been held hostage for two days without even food and water. During the recent elections, my other younger brother was assigned the election duties, and, naturally, we were all concerned. Luckily, things did not go to such extremes as was the case a decade earlier, but the experience was far from being pleasant.

He had to report for training on Feb 1 at 10pm. After waiting for around two hours, he was informed that he needed to come the next morning (Feb 2). He went to the training venue, where he found chaos. No one knew what to do and who to approach.

Finally, the training started, which lasted for four straight hours. The rest of the training was completed the following day (Feb 3). They were called for additional training on Feb 4, when, after waiting for hours, they were told to come the next day. On Feb 5, when they went to the venue, they faced the same situation. Further, on Feb 6, they were called at around 8pm, and had to wait for 2-3 hours after which they were made to sit in vans and taken to the relevant polling stations where they were kept till 4am.

The same night (Feb 7), they were called to get the ballot boxes, ballot papers and other stationery items. They were kept there till 3am (Feb 8) when they had to report to the polling station on the election day just three hours later. Once there, they had to be on duty till the counting came to an end on Feb 9.

During the whole period, especially on the polling day till the counting of votes, they were not served any food or water.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should take notice of such an utterly inhumane treatment of the polling staff. It must devise a policy whereby people called for election duties are treated with respect, and provided a professionally comfortable environment. They should be treated at least like human beings.

Mohammad Fayyaz Kirmani
Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2024