ISLAMABAD, Aug 7: Admiral Fasih Bokhari has called for ending confrontational politics and pursuing policies that could empower the citizens and ensure consumer rights.

He was speaking at the Centre for Technology and Policy Analysis (CENTPA), a newly established thinktank, which held a meeting on ‘Defining a Strategy for Political and Electoral Reforms in Pakistan’ at the Imperial Institute of Technology here on Tuesday.

The meeting, presided over by former naval chief Admiral Fasih Bokhari, brought together the various stakeholders in Pakistan’s democratic process including representatives of two major political parties, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), international donors like the UNDP, Driedrich Neuman Stiftung, Hans Siedel Foundation and NDI.

Admiral Bokhari said the people of Pakistan had the right to access information on allocation of resources while the political parties must also announce their plans regarding financial allocations prior to the elections in October.

He said that greater transparency would not only empower the people but also limit the manipulative capacity of the vested interests.

PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal urged the two major parties to hold a joint press conference prior to the forthcoming elections, where they would present to the public a joint agenda and strategy for strengthening democracy and setting political norms.

Mr Iqbal also presented the idea of holding a conference where the parties could discuss the issues of electoral process. This suggestion was endorsed by all participants and viewed as a sign of growing political maturity amongst the political parties.

Ambassador Malik spoke on behalf of the PPP about the problems created due to military intervention.

The general tone of the discussion was where the civil society should move in the current conditions.

Contrary to the view that the military denoted those vested interests which hampered the democratic process, Ayaz Amir presented a more positive picture, suggesting that political conditions in Pakistan had evolved over the years to make it impossible for the military to curb the freedom of press, which, according to him, was an indication of the limited playing field available to the armed forces.

The discussion, however, tended to focus on suggesting concrete measure to strengthen democracy. It was felt that this could be done through training parliamentarians, strengthening the research facilities in the National Assembly and Senate and increasing communications between the civil and military sectors.

Although a number of participants mentioned the role played by the military in weakening the democratic process, a majority of them were of the view that one must try to find room within the current political conditions and that the political parties must focus on improving their own capacity to contribute towards a strong democratic process.

The participants found the suggestion extremely useful that the parties must strengthen their capability to raise funds, which would help reduce the influence of vested interests and the feudal element in the political process.

The staffers of the national assembly and senate present at the meeting spoke about the need for strengthening research capacity of the parliament. It was felt that there should be a strong research wing to provide input to the parliamentarians on various issues.

It must be mentioned that donors and NGOs like the German Hans Siedel Foundation are currently running small programmes to educate parliamentary staffers in Pakistan. However, the need to strengthen the process was identified during the meeting.

The Centre for Technology and Policy Analysis also announced establishment of a democracy forum that would hold discussions on various facets of democratization and launch an initiative for a civil-military dialogue.