KARACHI: Taking cue from the Senate elections, the Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences held a webinar on ‘The state of electoral reforms in Pakistan’ with Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, founder president of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat), as the main speaker on Friday.

Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST), Dr Riaz Sheikh moderated the talk. “What are electoral reforms? Is there an understanding of electoral reforms in our politics? Is there a need for them in our electoral process? Are there any visible or invisible forces that influence our electoral process?” He asked the expert.

“Our first election, in 1951, may have been provincial in nature, but it raised many questions regarding their credibility,” said Mr Mehboob. “So Pakistan is in quest of credible elections ever since then and electoral reforms are considered a way to achieve the objective of free and fair elections,” he said.

“Electoral reforms are in popular demand of about 85 per cent of the population. Generally, they take the form of constitutional provisions and laws, though laws alone cannot guarantee credible elections,” he pointed out.

Major changes in electoral system were made in Musharraf’s and then PPP’s tenures while loopholes were also created

“For the implementation of electoral reforms, continuity of democratic order is of great importance,” he said, adding that there were some significant electoral reforms instituted in the last two decades.

“Why go far, Musharraf’s regime from 1999 to 2009 saw several changes such as reducing the voting age to 18 years, increasing seats in legislatures, increasing women’s reserved seats, making graduation a qualification to contest in elections, promulgating the political parties order of 2002, redefining of the concept of foreign funding for parties and the scope of legislators’ defection and affidavit and statement of assets and liabilities,” he said.

Then the Peoples Party government of 2008 to 2013 saw further reforms. “All members of the Election Commission of Pakistan were made full time permanently. There was a bipartisan appointment of the chief election commissioner and members. The ECP was turned into a decision-making body. There was bipartisan appointment of caretaker governments. The computerised national identity card was made a must for every voter to cast his or her vote. Other reforms included full-time dedicated election tribunals and an overseas Pakistanis’ voting ordinance,” he said.

Coming to the electoral reforms during the Pakistan Muslim League-N government of 2013 to 2017, he said that these included the 22nd Amendment of 2016 whereby the chief election commissioner and commissioners didn’t have to be judges, the election laws were consolidated into the Elections Act, 2017, which also included voting by overseas Pakistanis.

“There were two key but little-known amendments made through the Elections Act, 2017. There was a loophole created in there though which spending by other than the candidate would be exempted from the legal ceiling of election spending. Corporate funding to political parties was also allowed, although it had been prohibited earlier,” he said.

As a result of these electoral reforms, there were debates about things such as biometric verification of voters, electronic voting machines, laws to limit and regulate election spending by political parties, voting by overseas Pakistanis, the secret or open ballot for Senate elections, the spending limit on political parties, allowing dual nationals to contest elections, proportional representation or postal voting, having a presidential or parliamentary system, direct Senate elections, constitutional provisions on local governments and how to strengthen them, modes of election of women on reserved seats, etc.

Credibility of elections

Despite so many electoral reforms, it still remains to be seen why the credibility of elections is weak.

Mr Mehboob pointed out that the legal framework of the electoral system in Pakistan is robust, even better than India. “But the problem is in the implementation. Stronger forces in the country influence elections and render the Election Commission of Pakistan ineffective,” he said.

“The general elections of 1988, 1990, 2002, and 2018 are major case studies in election rigging despite a sound electoral system,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2021