KARACHI: The government should remove disparities in the electoral system and take steps to ensure fair and adequate representation of disadvantaged and marginalised sections of society in assemblies and the Senate, demanded speakers at a press conference held on Wednesday at the Karachi Press Club.

The briefing was organised by the Sindh Labour Solidarity Committee (SLSC), a group of trade unionists, workers and civil society activists formed following a labour conference held last year.

Highlighting gaps in the electoral process, the speakers said that the major factor behind the multiple challenges the country faced today was the flawed electoral system as a huge section of society remained unrepresented in assemblies.

“The working class comprised over 60m people but they have no representation in assemblies. The government should allocate seats for them in assemblies and the Senate,” said Habibuddin Junaidi representing the All Pakistan Trade Union Organisation.

The electoral reforms committee of the parliament, he said, must focus as much of its energies on strengthening the system of representation as it was devoting to fixing issues in the voting system.

If elections were to be held fair in the true sense, they ought to be focused on producing a truly representative and sovereign parliament, he added.

Karamat Ali of Pakistan Institute of Labour, Education and Research said that the SLSC had submitted its recommendations in writing to the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms and was set to share its findings after year long deliberations.

Constituency-based representation in assemblies, he pointed out, was not enough and lessons should be learnt from global experiences to make the electoral process more inclusive.

“Representation needs to be increased to have voices from marginalised sections of society like workers, peasants, women and minorities in assemblies and the Senate,” he said, while citing the example of Nepal that has an assembly of 610 members with a 40pc representation of women.

He appreciated the recommendations prepared so far by the parliamentary committee that included the call to make the election commission autonomous with contempt of court powers and giving it financial independence.

Asad Iqbal Butt of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that 80pc of Pakistan’s population comprised low-income workers who were deprived of representation in the assemblies. Instead the assemblies, he said, were full of landlords and capitalists who made laws for their own benefit.

The speakers also supported the demand of religious minorities for direct elections for their reserved seats.

They urged the parliamentary committee to review the population-based system for allocating seats in assemblies as it was unfair given the vast differences between the federating units in terms of size, population, level of literacy and economic development and its respective share in the overall political and economic power.

It was erroneous to consider the size of population alone as the yardstick for determining the percentage of seats allocated to each federating unit, it was pointed out.

“For instance, Karachi has a huge number of migrants from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the trend of migration continues. This population shift cannot be ignored in electoral representation,” argued Mr Karamat Ali.

The speakers called upon the government to recognise the unique area-wise population ratio of Balochistan vis a vis other federation units, and introduce a special increase in the allocation of National Assembly seats for Balochistan. The province with only 4.98pc population but 45pc of Pakistan’s land mass had only 5pc (17 of 342) seats.

Members of Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, Sindh Labour Federation, PIA Skyways Union, KPT labour union, Hosiery Garment General Workers Union Sindh and Pakistan Trade Union Federation were also present.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2015

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