BOTH the caretaker prime minister and the chief election commissioner were young when Pakistan was established in 1947.

Both are retired judges of the superior judiciary.

Both know the constitution and its article interpretations. Both know the soul of democracy, transparency and accountability of public representative in parliamentary democracy.

Therefore, it is imperative that only the lawmaker should be allowed to contest the elections and law-breakers should not be allowed to become people’s representatives.

All those candidates who are submitting their nomination forms should be made public so that voters, the citizens, can know they are not tax evaders, loan defaulters and dishonest. It should be the prime responsibility of political parties to ensure that those who are cheaters and turncoats should not be given the party ticket.

Unfortunately, our mainstream political parties’ leaders are not democrat themselves and are managing their parties like private limited companies. These leaders are interested only in electables, though they are known opportunists as we know as many as 70 per cent of parliamentarians did not file tax returns in the previous tenures.

Many cheated the people because they gave false information about their assets, degrees and dual nationality. Do they deserve not to be disqualified for contesting elections according to Articles 62 and 63 of the constitution? I request both the prime minister and chief election commissioner to free the nation from corrupt politicians.

S.T. HUSSAIN Lahore

Vote for a change

THIS refers to Dawn’s headline ‘PPP-led coalition makes history’ (March 16). Yes, definitely it was the day that will be remembered for a long time.

But to whom should we give credit, the people, the Pakistan Army or the politicians?

In my opinion, it was the people who have tolerated or should I say apathetically accepted high inflation.

The CNG crisis, targeted killings and many more of such issues. Most of the people, including myself, do not know about the rights/protection that we have in our constitution.

These politicians in parliament made decisions which directly or indirectly affected our rights. I am not emphasising that we should know each and every bit of the constitution, but at least some knowledge of such laws.

What have we got? We have power to vote and this time we seriously need to come out from our comfort zone to vote and this vote might bring a change that we want.

FASIH HUSAIN Karachi