Daily Times

The terms of the National Assembly, all provincial Assemblies and the present government will reach their appointed end on March 16, 2013. A caretaker government will come into being, and it will hold new elections within a period of 90 days under the overall supervision of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC). The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) consists of a chairman, named by the federal government, and four provincial appointees. The present chairman, G Fakhruddin Ebrahim, an 86-year-old retired judge of the Supreme Court, is held in high esteem as a man of impeccable integrity. The same cannot be taken for granted with regard to the other members, even though none of them has said or done anything objectionable to date.

The great majority of the politicians and the people at large want and expect elections to be held on schedule. Yet rumours are making the rounds that the elections may be delayed or, in some versions, postponed to a time beyond the foreseeable future. In certain quarters, this is not merely an apprehension but advocacy. One school of thought, led by Dr Tahirul Qadri, contends that the CEC should scrutinise the credentials of each candidate to make sure that he is pious and righteous as required by the constitution (Article 62 and 63). Considering that the number of candidates may run into thousands, this requirement will not only be extremely tedious to meet, it will also be exceedingly time-consuming.

Dr Qadri recently dropped a couple of other impediments on the road to early elections. He said that the ECP — which is to organise and supervise the elections — should be dissolved and replaced by another. Dr Qadri concedes that Mr Ebrahim is trustworthy, but he holds that the same cannot be taken for granted with regard to the four other members of the commission who have been named by the provincial governments. He took his proposal to the Supreme Court, which has dismissed it. Imran Khan came out to support Dr Qadri’s point of view. A few other politicians went the same way. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz opposed this advocacy unreservedly.

Dr Qadri has to be aware that the ECP cannot be disbanded and replaced by a different set of members simply by an executive order. The procedure for dissolving it or that of removing any of its members is the same as that for removing a judge of the Supreme Court. A reference with supporting evidence has to be filed with the Supreme Judicial Council. The evidence in this case is not at hand. Neither G Fakhruddin Ebrahim nor any other member of the commission has said or done anything that might be open to question.

Dr Qadri’s claim that he favours democracy is at best problematic. Democracy is a system in which the people govern themselves through their chosen representatives. The enterprise of choosing them is called elections. Democracy does not become operational without them. Dr Qadri is indifferent to the holding of elections and their timing. If we take his various statements on the subject as a package, we are likely to see that he does not want elections to be held when they are due. He is willing for a caretaker government to remain in place for three or more years. Imran Khan is not in favour of postponing the elections. Yet he has made common cause with Dr Qadri and endorsed his agenda. Sceptics will say that he is being devious. His admirers, who regard him as a true and straightforward man, will be reluctant to accept this interpretation. They may prefer the explanation that Khan has spoken without giving the matter the consideration that it merits. They will say that he has been hasty in coming to a conclusion. In other words, he has been thoughtless, not necessarily devious.

We would still want to know why Dr Qadri is not supportive of early elections. He says that the prime minister at the head of the caretaker government, which is to hold the elections, should be chosen with his approval. It is hard to know what has persuaded Dr Qadri and his supporters to believe that a Canadian citizen living in Toronto is entitled to speak and act as if he were the master of this country’s destiny. That he has money enough to have engineered a long march to Islamabad is not a good enough reason.

Dr Qadri implies that a postponement of elections and a caretaker arrangement for as long as three years will be good for the country. The people at large, most of the politicians and the media do not subscribe to this view. Yet there are forces in the country that do. Who are they?

The government to be returned following the next election will be much stronger than the one we have had since 2008. It will have the support of many but it will be unwelcome in certain quarters, which would rather have one that they can dominate and direct. They include agencies such as the ISI and MI. Fair and honest elections are expected to produce an effective government. It follows that the agencies referred to above will want to postpone such elections as much as possible.

The people of Pakistan want and expect elections to be held as promised. I think that their aspiration will prevail and the design of those who want to frustrate it will fail. Elections will be held on schedule.

The writer is professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts and can be reached at anwarsyed@cox.net