The much-hyped general elections 2018 are finally over. In its wake, it has left the data necessary for the critical assessment of the exercise. Talking of the positives, the topmost is they were held at all because many an analyst and media pundit propagated about its postponement if not an outright cancellation. It is, thus, appreciable the country went along with the continuation of the post-Musharraf election cycle. In a culturally diverse and politically divided society such as ours, it becomes pertinent that elections be held on a regular basis since they provide voters with the opportunity to not only register their political will but also to educate them about election procedures and processes. Moreover, regular elections will allow the electorate to get familiar with the issues of the day at the local, provincial and national level.
When election campaigns were at their height, social media played a crucial role by highlighting pressing issues such as lack of educational and health facilities in most of the constituencies. This pushed many voters to actually participate in the elections. Even I left Islamabad to cast my vote in NA-87 Hafizabad, considering the elections an opportunity to express my (dis)agreement with a candidate or political party. However fraudulent these elections might have been, they are still a pillar of democracy. Without elections, it is impossible to talk of democratisation. The latter is entirely linked with and dependent on elections.
When election campaigns were at their height, social media played a crucial role by highlighting pressing issues such as lack of educational and health facilities in most of the constituencies. This pushed many voters to actually participate in the elections
My conviction is if elections are held regularly, they will gradually become fairer because of social media and the overall emphasis on accountability of contestants. If the latter could gather courage to ask hard but relevant and legitimate questions to landed-politicians in South Punjab, the educated urban electorate of the country ought to be seen as having sophisticated tools such as command over English and access to modern information on the internet to give tough time to the candidates in their constituencies.
Nevertheless, as a developing country and transitional society, Pakistan still lags behind the developed world in terms of education, health, housing, economic stability and governance. Not to mention the flawed nature of our democracy.
In addition, discouraging presence of political agents of specific parties at certain polling stations and allowing entry to voters and supporters who were affiliated with other parties point out defects in the conduct and accountability of the election process and personnel. The latter, in many reported and observed cases, were poorly trained. If I may cite my personal experience of voting at a rural polling station in NA-87, the polling officer stressed that I should go out and bring the parchi (a piece of paper carrying my name and serial number). When I told him that I know my serial details because I had sent a text message to #8300, a service provided by the Election Commission Pakistan (ECP), he referred me to the Assistant Presiding Officers (APO).These people turned out to be both arrogant and ignorant of the ECP rules and regulations. One of the two said, “don’t teach us the rules”. I then mentioned my knowledge ability of the related ECP rules and refused to go out, get the parchi and then stayed in the line for another seventy five minutes.
In a culturally diverse and politically divided society such as ours, it becomes pertinent that elections be held on a regular basis since they provide voters with the opportunity to not only register their political will but also to educate them about election procedures and processes. Moreover, regular elections will allow the electorate to get familiar with the issues of the day
Upon this, the stationed army and policemen intervened, and somehow my argument was accepted. However, what happened next was equally embarrassing. When the APO saw my CNIC (which carries initial code of Islamabad), he said in an insulting manner, “which country is this identity card from”? I felt humiliated to be treated as a non-citizen. To this, I vociferously urged the APO to see and read my CNIC details. “It is my Pakistani national identity card duly issued by the Government of Pakistan. The initial digits reflect where the CNIC was first issued. You must have this common sense information before dubbing it as an alien [identity] document.” Anyway, after another twenty minutes, I was able to cast my vote.
Besides the poor training and dismissive attitudes of the reported and observed polling staff, the election conduct suffered from delayed announcement of results too. If the ECP could not test the RTS, the manual system would have been preferred in the first place. In addition, rights to recounting should have been accepted across the board.
Last but not least, in the future, the ECP must make extra efforts to train its staff’s to have proper etiquette and proper know how about election rules and regulations. The parchi system must end because it makes on-the-spot rigging easier. In a nutshell, Pakistan cannot realise true liberal democracy without regular elections, therefore they ought to be held regularly and fairly.
The writer is Head, Department of Social Sciences, Iqra University, Islamabad. He is a DAAD, FDDI and Fulbright Fellow. He tweets @ejazbhatty
Published in Daily Times, August 9th 2018.