The media has created a lot of confusion in election process with regard to scrutiny of the candidates, information about the principles of scrutiny and guidelines for all returning officers as to which criteria are to be applied and how this seems to be partly a result of inability of the members of the Election Commission of Pakistan including its Chairman as well as the Returning officers but partly it is also a conscious effort to create this confusion deliberately so as to help controversial candidates to muddle through the scrutiny process.

This suggestion is also supported by the extremely short scrutiny period of only seven days for over ten thousand applications all together where details about tax payment, loan defaulting, previous cheating regarding the educational certificate, double citizenship and knowledge of Islamic injunctions for each and every single candidate. During the discussions about the upcoming elections the question of article 62 and 63 have been raised - parts of the constitution that have been neglected completely during previous elections including the last one of 2008 in which ECP accepted unverified degrees from the candidates, which turned out to be fabricated in most of the cases. Will the author of a graduate assembly please explain how and why these articles 62 & 63 remained unnoticed from these graduate parliamentarians? Or this gimmick was designed to win their loyalties only?
Only this can explain how liars and cheater with regard to their educational qualification, their tax payment and financial affairs such as bank loan liabilities and wealth declaration could make it into the parliament and into the government despite of article 62 and 63. By raising the issue of 62 and 63 for the first time and that also just shortly before the coming election this is creating a new confusion about how to apply this condition and ‘secular’ writers are concerned that the demand for concurrence with the Pakistan ideology and Islamic injunctions might bring us a parliament of mullahs.

But this fear seems to be overrated because all experiences show that mullahs or members of the religious parties are not more complying with 62 and 63 than ‘ordinary’ candidates, they are among the cheaters regarding their educational certificates, and they have been even wanting in regards to their knowledge of their belief. Those authors even have voiced the demand that these injunctions regarding the Islamic qualifications should have been removed by the parliament but according to insiders it came under discussion but the PPP led committee did not touch it fearing reaction from religious segment of society, what a logic this was?

The logic was that PPP was rating their stay in power higher then their secular commitment given the ground realties of Pakistan. Pakistani people are disgusted with the current state model called democracy which has been found depriving the demos (the people) of their rights for security of life and property and a decent living. When every one is debating the pros and cons of article 62 & 63 we are witness to how the 18th, 19th and 20th amendment was passed unanimously due to vested interest that is fully reflecting now and a day will come when the faces of these leaders will stand exposed. Gilgit Baltistan province was created through a resolution of parliament with any representation in parliament or even right to vote in general elections, so what is the great debate going on legal and illegal bearings of parliament, amendments and resolutions. A Study published a couple of days ago has revealed that more than half of the young Pakistanis do believe that democracy has not been good for their country while 38 percent of the young people are even in favor of implementing a form of the Sharia.

And these are the young Pakistanis. Elder people who were not included into the survey may be equally or even more conservative. Even if you consider that the young have never lived under Sharia and might have a blurred idea about what that would be like - they do live under ‘democracy’ and they are sure they don’t want it. On the contrary, they seem to believe that only Islam or an Islamic state can give justice to all and God fearing people coming into power might change the things and bring prosperity in the country free from every kind of exploitation.

Nothing short of the experience of an Islamic state might make them think different. So demanding the abolition of Islamic injunctions in the constitution is quite against the ground realties in our country and demanding not to implement these injunctions even when they are part of the constitution is demanding to violate the first law of the country, not a good contribution to an anyway weak understanding of law-abidance of our population.

Here I would like to mention about the character of our ex-parliamentarians, when Ziaul Haq was given the go-ahead to declare himself leader of Muslim Ummah his desire to insert the 8th amendment in the constitution was strongly resisted by the opposition under the leadership of Malik Mohammad Qasim and Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, they tried to explain the consequences of this amendment and asked not to vote for it, and a week before the passage of 8th amendment Malik Qasim invited members of the National Assembly on a dinner arranged in the honour of foreign diplomats at his residence on 6th Road, Rawalpindi, where more then 80 MNA’s graced the occasion, but next week the parliament voted in favour of amendment, later when the government of Prime Minister Junejo was dismissed under the same article by President, those MNA’s used to say we didn’t think this was such a dangerous legal amendment.

This is very much reflected even today and will remain the same in future unless we inculcate fear of God in our hearts and minds and stop lying to ourselves and others and give every citizen his right to live with dignity and honour only then we can claim to be true believers and then no verification or projection of faith and belief will come in question that is a personal matter between in individual and His Creator.

As a matter of fact these are serious questions and they have to be addressed with coolness. But this can not happen in a hurry and it has to imply a public discussion or even a genuine referendum, besides the political will to implement whatever the outcome of such a discussion will be. Let’s hope that we will reach this point sometime, even if not with this election.


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