Daily Times

While the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is dispensing most of its responsibilities quite diligently, one area that remains ignored is the effective regulation of campaign finance. The ECP has set the bar at spending for national assembly contestants at Rs4 million and for provincial assembly at Rs2 million. These funds have to be spent from an account maintained in candidates’ names, whose details are to be shared with the ECP regularly. However, in the political economy of Pakistani polls, these bank accounts represent just a fraction of the money in circulation.

Several reports have appeared lately showing that the expenditure on even a modest size campaign, in accordance with the current standards, runs in billions. The spending on top of the ECP prescribed limits is attributed to supporters of candidates. This has been admitted by campaign teams of almost all major parties while responding to journalists’ questions.

Under the ECP rules, this additional spending also has to be accounted for, but there appears to be no mechanism at the disposal of the election watchdog to effectively do that at the moment. The result is that to a large extent, money determines the outcome of polls, and is set to do so on July 25 as well. This can lead to a vicious cycle where political parties may end up representing vested interests of the economic elites at the cost of middle and working classes.

The ECP needs to fix this mismatch between its rules and mechanisms at its disposal for the implementation of these rules. Suffice it to say that this will be a mammoth task, and will require concerted efforts at multiple levels. For instance, party activists and workers must build pressure on their leaderships to fix loopholes in existing laws on campaign finance. Once the legislative side has been taken care of, the ECP will then have to show its resolve and enhance the capacity and resources at the disposal of its staff to regulate the flow of money in election activity.

Pakistan’s democracy needs to move beyond this phase where money, rather than political ideologies and rational debate, determines the outcome of the most important activity in the polity. The sooner it happens, the better it will be for the health of our democracy.  *

Published in Daily Times, July 9^th 2018.