Not appropriate

FINALLY now, it is the Chief Election Commissioner, who is charged with the constitutional responsibility of ensuring that the polls in the country are held in a free and fair manner without the incumbent government exercising any influence, that has pointed a finger at the President for addressing political rallies. CEC Justice (retd) Qazi Muhammad Farooq called it “not an appropriate thing” during the course of a brief encounter with journalists at Islamabad on Saturday after he had received a delegation of the MMA. The media has on several occasions brought out the issue that the practice deviates from one of the fundamental principles of parliamentary democracy and suggested that the President was supposed to act as a neutral player and not back any political party. His presence and speeches at PML gatherings are in breach of his constitutional obligations. It is hoped that he would no longer turn a deaf ear to the opinion of an authoritative source like the CEC. MMA Deputy Secretary General Liaqat Baloch, who led the delegation, has, however, reportedly stated before the journalists that it was not enough for the CEC simply to raise objection; he should rather take action against the violation of the rules.
Surveying the country’s political landscape, one is constrained to conclude that behaviour of the present government that goes about touting its democratic credentials hardly bears out the claim. Take for instance, the suggestion that the National Assembly should be dissolved and provincial assemblies kept intact, which Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi called an “option” being considered on a private TV channel on Saturday. The idea obviously is that governments in the provinces could exercise influence when elections to the new NA take place, before the presidential election is held, to bring into being a pro-President NA. Such manoeuvrings could not be termed democratic. Under the circumstances, the best option appears to be the formation of an impartial caretaker government to supervise polls to the new national and provincial legislatures whose members chose the next President.
The CEC also explained the process of preparing the electoral list and expected a code of conduct to be evolved soon. In the meantime, MMA President Qazi Hussain Ahmad has written a letter to the CEC expressing dismay at the process and vented serious concern at the omission of 30 percent of eligible voters from the list and inclusion of ‘ghost voters’, which he believed was done by the parties in power. Unless these concerns, including the question of the President’s role in canvassing, are satisfactorily met, it would be hard to concede the contention that the process has been fair and transparent. The blame of rigging would not stick after their redress.

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/july-...ditorials1.php

Possibility of fair elections?

MANSOOR AKBAR KUNDI

I.K. Gujral, the ex-prime minister of India writes that when in 1977 the Indian National Congress after 30 years of its rule as an elected dominant political party (including two years of emergency rule) lost elections and its leader Mrs Indira Gandhi entered the Lok Sabha, took her seat on the opposition benches and addressed Morarji Desai, indeed a loose coalition Prime Minister, Mr Prime Minister ..., the whole world acknowledged that democracy is today established in India. Democracy about which Churchill said that it might have been the worst form of government but without an alternate.
The establishment of democracy in India or any other democratic country owes to fair elections, the root cause of good representation. Democracy is ultimate result of a continuous process with fair mode of elections as the major tool with plural participation. Without fair elections the countries, majority of them developed, would not have achieved the system accountable for their enhanced nation-state status and image in world politics.
In Pakistan, we are about to go for elections. But the major question for public is the possibility of a fair election under the present setup with the President in uniform which in Eric Nordlinger’s analysis (his three classifications of army involvement in politics – moderators, guardian and rule type) is playing the last one. In the first one, the army does not seize the government but exercises veto powers behind the successes. If a civilian government fails to modify itself the army can execute a displacement coup to bring a more malleable civilian government within weeks.
In the second place, the army plays the role of guardians by displacing the civilian government and assuming control of the government till a civilian government is restored. In the third one, the ruler type role, the army takes control of the government as a troubleshooter in political crises and believes in the implementation of a number of reforms in the important sectors of the political, economic and social system. This type is more ambitious and far-reaching as compared to the others.
Evidence shows that fair elections are possible and have been held under the army playing the role of guardian and moderator. Pakistan under the present government is a continuation of the previous military rules. Its major support comes from the crown party the rulers established as the major source of legitimacy such as happened in case of Pakistan Muslim League (Q). Political parties have served as a tool of legitimacy for generals to strengthen their rule. The major challenge to their rule comes from the opposition about which they are mostly concerned.
The holding of fair elections is a multi-dimensional issue and requires a number of prerequisites which many developing and underdeveloped countries with a low rate of literacy and disrupted process of representative order lack. But it is not difficult and very much possible provided the situation is addressed.
The mode of fair elections in a situation like Pakistan involves the following pattern. There should be a neutral and independent elections commission monitored by judiciary; a caretaker system where the stakeholders in elections are neither directly or indirectly in power lest they are or against the candidates; ID requirement for voters; and campaign access for political parties and candidates.
Nonetheless, the holding of fair elections is easy to achieve provided the rulers are committed to the promotion of a democratic order.
The continuity of fair elections strengthen democracies, rule of law and economic viability of nation-states. Pakistan could have achieved it right from the beginning, which unfortunately was not the case. Definitely, free and fair elections can rescue the country from the present chaos and political quagmire; sooner the better.


http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/july-2007/3/columns2.php

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

The politics of exclusion: electoral rolls fiasco

Part I

By Nafisa Shah

The condition of an identity card number for preparation of electoral rolls is against the principles of universal franchise. It is feared that this condition will lead to a direct or forced exclusion of more than thirty per cent of Pakistani voters, the majority of who are women, rural voters, young people, minorities and the poor. In my view, this system of registration has no legal basis.

The law also does not make a national identity card conditional to voter registration. And added to that no law of the land creates an obligation that every citizen shall have an identity card. The constitution of Pakistan, even in its present scattered form guarantees free and fair vote to all citizens. According to Article 51, anyone who is the citizen of Pakistan, and not of unsound mind, and is 21 years of age, and his name appears in the electoral roll is entitled to vote. After the Legal Framework Order, the voting age has been reduced to 18 years. And read with the provision of the electoral roll act (Section 6 (2) which provides that any one who is a citizen of Pakistan, is not less than 18 years of age on the first day of January of the year in which the rolls are prepared or revised, and is not declared by a competent court to be of unsound mind and is or is deemed to be a resident of an electoral area, can get himself enrolled as a voter in that electoral area.

The first mention of a national identity card requirement appears in the Electoral Rolls Rules of 1974, where it is stated that "The electoral roll for each electoral area shall be in Form-1 and the aforesaid form shall contain the number of the National Identity Card of each voter." (3/1) No mention however is made in the Electoral Rolls Act of 1974, which was passed by the parliament. This then must have entered by a bureaucratic quirk.

The election rules mention that identity numbers should be mentioned in Form 1, which is the list itself. But it does not explicitly state that a voter cannot register himself or herself in the roll, if he/she does not have an identity card. The two earlier lists, the list for local elections and the last list used in the 2002 elections, even though they were tampered and considered highly flawed did not restrict voter registration by barring registration for those without an identity card.

What or where is the legal mandate for making the availability of the national identity card compulsory for voter registration? I do not know of any democracy in the world, which puts the identity card as a pre-condition for registration as a voter.

Although identity cards are in use, in one form or another, in several countries around the world, many developed countries, do not have such a card. In a study prepared by Simon Davies, visiting Fellow in the London School of Economics, virtually no common law country has a card. Amongst these are the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, the Nordic countries and Sweden. The UK has recently passed legislation for a biometric identification that is costly and controversial, and has opened up floodgates of campaigns in the civil society raising issues of privacy of citizens, rights of freedom, and heavy costs of acquiring such identity cards. The most important argument is the intrusion and surveillance by the state of the citizen. "Whether the campaign is about rape, TV licences or filling in your tax form, there is always a we-know-where-you-live edge to the message, a sense that this government is dividing the nation into suspects and informers," writes Henry Porter in The Observer, March 13.

The economic or political development of a country also does not necessarily determine whether it has a card. Neither Mexico nor Bangladesh has an ID card. And, until this year, India had no card (even now, the card, strictly speaking, is a voter registration card rather than a national ID card). Generally speaking, however, the vast majority of developing countries have either an ID card system or a document system, often based on regional rather than national authorisation.

I do not know of any democracy that makes an identification card mandatory for voter registrations. Most voter registrations ask for names, age, but emphasise on addresses so that duplication of registrations do not occur. The committees, municipalities, or judicial officers in countries of Europe, and the Middle East etc. are authorised to register and are expected to pre-verify voter identity and age by various methods. For instance, even in respected democracies like Australia, witnessing for authorisation of voter age is accepted as evidence.

The British voter registration comprises of a form for each individual, asking for your name, age, and address from where the voter will be registered and that is all. The new democracies of the former eastern block, Lituania, Romania, or and even countries like Armenia do not mention identification cards for registration in their electoral roll qualification requirements. Even Islamic countries such as Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt, and Sudan allow all who are not convicted and have reached a certain age to register in the roll. In India, our neighbour, voter photo identity is mandatory, but that is an intrinsic part of the enrolment as a voter and is issued by a very dynamic election commission that works all year round and all the time. India has moreover, put up electoral rolls of 35 states on the internet, and has made forms available as well. Anyone can check from these 35 state records, of where they are registered.

In Pakistan, the establishment of a quota system in the 1973 constitution, made a residential identity important, but this was the mandate of regional authorities, the provinces. However, for job quotas, it is the domicile that is mandatory, and therefore an identity card is an exercise in duplication. The earlier card, which cost Rs3 and was a provincial government concern, was much easier to make and required very little information, and was ready within days.

Perhaps a larger problem than the problem of identification cards is NADRA, the National Database Registration Authority, the central registration authority which has hyped up the biometric computerised digitised identification card.



The writer is a former journalist, and former nazim of Khairpur. She is presently based at Oxford University, where she is working on her PhD thesis. Email: nafisa_shah@hotmail.com



To be concluded

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=63066

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

The politics of exclusion: electoral rolls fiasco

Part II

By Nafisa Shah

In Pakistan a centralised NADRA is authorised for national database of all its citizens. NADRA was first an institution set up under a presidential ordinance as strictly a security database. Now it is busy fingerprinting and photographing every citizen, which should not be its business. NADRA is a product of an unrepresentative rule. It was formalised in the year 2000 and had been entrusted with the collection of demographic and statistical data of Pakistani citizens -- the target, towards which it is heading with an inherent impetus. There was no debate on the making of such an institution and no study on fiscal implications of managing vast information material including biometric data of the 140 million people of this nation.

The cost, the procedures, time, the several pieces of identity taken all tend to alienate and exclude a large number of people from the identity card provision. The cost of an ID card, which is Rs75, is escalated many times when other costs such as transport, other registrations, stamps, are well over Rs300. For women the process of acquiring the ID card is not only difficult, it is humiliating. Women are sent out to get verifications of their marriage and their kinships, as if their identification could only be confirmed through male surrogates.

It is no wonder that female ratio here is far lower than the male ratio. In my political work experience, I have had women come to me for months on end, trying to get one simple ID card, costing them time and money.

Now as voter registration is reaching its conclusion, the result in the field is scary. For instance, in a district such as Khairpur at least thirty per cent of people in the urban areas, and fifty per cent of people in the rural areas do not have any identification cards! In one hamlet, the number of voters recorded by a teacher were twenty-five, out of which only three males had identity cards. In Jamali village in Khairpur, out of 1200 eligible voters only 500 had national identity cards either old or new or both. In a Shambani village, eight out of ten women did not have identity cards. And virtually in every family, a section of the members were without a card.

This deprives at least 30 per cent of people from vote directly through the technical process of the state that has no legal basis. In a country whose constitution liberally declares only the citizen of unsound mind not be allowed to vote, this is a vast chunk of people excluded even from their basic right to register. Villages in almost all union councils report that hardly thirty per cent of women have any identification, let alone NADRA cards.

NADRA figures confirm this. Their data based on 1998 census shows that only about 52 per cent people are covered in Khairpur district, with women only reporting one third of the total ID cards that are made. Even with the present speed in the making of the cards the figure will not go higher than 60 per cent.

Biometrics are a highly controversial inclusion in any identity card and passport scheme because of the value we place on them and their ability to be used to place people under surveillance. Which biometrics are used depends largely on social acceptance. In Pakistan, the citizens have been giving their fingerprinting for records and registrations for years now, and no national debate has surfaced on the curtailment of citizen's rights in maintaining such records. Fingerprints are perhaps used without debate because they are also used interchangeably with signatures, as a large section of the population still cannot sign their names. Fingerprinting is a far from perfect method of recording identification as two or more people can have the same pattern and biometric patterns changes as you age, so they must be recorded every few years.

The other flaw is that the Election Commission clearly excludes nomads from voting. The official paper released on the internet drawing out the method for voter registration states that "nomads should not be registered as voters as they cannot claim to have any one particular place as their place of residence" A large number of people in Pakistan move, and many have multiple addresses. However they can register in only one place. The nomads too, must be allowed registration of vote in a single station. If lists are computerised, information can be collated and duplicate voters tracked.

Consider what might happen if such electoral rolls are standardised. First, at least thirty per cent of the people will be left out of the voting rights. Second, looking at the previous turnouts of forty per cent, in the final count only about 30 per cent of the potential voters will vote in the forthcoming elections. Since identity cards are easier to make for urban, male and educated persons, voter registration will be biased against rural, female and illiterate persons and, in the forthcoming elections, women, minorities and youths will be virtually disenfranchised by technical design. We should expect that voters from rural Balochistan, the rural and border regions of Sindh and the mountain areas of NWFP will be disenfranchised because of their absence from the voters' lists.

(Concluded)

The writer is a former journalist and former nazim of Khairpur. She is presently based at Oxford University, where she is working on her PhD thesis. Email: nafisa_shah@hotmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=63141

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Display deadline extension

The Election Commission may have extended the draft electoral roll's display deadline by a fortnight to July 18. But it remains a big question mark if this would help the refiguring of over 20 million voters on the list who have cleanly disappeared from the draft roll. The commission says that it has made this extension in view of the flooding that has caused large-scale people's displacement rendering them in no position to go to the display centres to check their enrolment. But the general complaint is that its display centres more often then not remain closed and their staffs absent. In spite of that common complaint, there has been no improvement in their functioning and the public grouse on this account still persists even in the areas that have not been blighted by rains or flooding. Obviously, the election authority has taken no notice of this commonplace complaint. Unless it puts in remedial measures effectively, even this extension would do no good to the health of its electoral roll. Nonetheless, one reason that threatens to keep the roll marred is the public apathy. The citizens by and large are showing no particular enthusiasm to check the lists, seek corrections in it or to get themselves enrolled. Their lukewarmth may have many reasons to it. This may have to do with raging illiteracy and even lack of awareness among them. More worryingly, it may be the manifestation of popular discontent with the system, which increasingly is coming to be viewed as serving only the elites, not the commoners. Whatever it is, the citizens obviously need to be persuaded and motivated to take interest in this task. Expecting this from the Election Commission is like asking for moon. An authority that is failing in keeping its own display centres trim and tidy could be the last to hope of that it would walk an extra mile for motivating the voters to scrutinize the draft for any corrections or for persuading the new eligible voters to get enlisted. It is a typical bureaucratic setup that moves in a typical bureaucratic fashion. This kind of ground motivational drive is thus just beyond its pale. This probably is not even in the purview of the richly-foreign-funded NGOs. Their donors may have tasked them only to raise a furor, as they are presently engaged in, over the inadequacies and infirmities of the commission's draft roll by hosting seminars and worships in deluxe five-star hotels and issuing bombastic press statements and spurious surveys to the media. But the donors seem to have kept out the citizens' persuasion and motivation part from their advocacy charters. In this task, the political parties can play a very big role. And it really is quite perplexing why are they sitting so idle, except for making customary noises, when an accurate and up-to-date roll is so vital to their own interests and especially when some of them are even asserting that thrown out of the draft are their own committed voters. If they are not keeping their assertion as a reserve to decry their defeat if that happens to come about, they must exert themselves hard to bring out the people from their homes, have them examine the draft roll and point out any rectification needed, and also goad their new eligible voters to get themselves enrolled. Given our peculiar socio-cultural conditions, an extraordinary effort is needed to produce a credibly accurate and up-to-date voters list. The major effort, arguably, has to be made by the political parties to this end. It is just unrealistic and irrational to expect this from the Election Commission.


http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ed&nid=59

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

How to make fair polls possible

Thursday,July 05,2007

Elections are the essence of democracy. This is the tool to apply the ‘principle of people’s right to govern themselves’, which they do by freely electing their representatives. Any hurdle in the exercise of the people’s free choice, any use of outside power to influence such exercise of free choice, any attempt to tamper with the election results, use of state resources or power to change the loyalties of the representatives after their election, without referring back to the electorate, is denial of the people’s right to govern themselves and a negation of democracy. A process not meeting this yardstick is a façade to hoodwink all those concerned and lacking the spirit of democracy in whose name the exercise takes place.

A glance at the history of elections in Pakistan would reveal that all elections held after independence were bereft of the spirit behind the exercise, ‘people’s right to govern themselves’. The state, powerful institutions and groups controlling the state at the time used state resources available to them to impose the particular group’s choice on the people. This made elections controversial. The first ever elections after independence were held in 1951 and got the infamous name of jhurloo. From then on no election was free of rigging accusations. Only the 1970 elections are cited as free and fair, but other measures taken after and before those elections were a denial of the people’s choice.

The use of the state’s financial, administrative and coercive resources, institutions and powers for the benefit of one particular group and denying freedom to others throughout the election process has been the norm rather than an exception. It is not confined to election day, it is spread to the whole election process, from dissolution of one assembly to taking office by the next government. On election day, there might be no use of force to deny the electorate the free exercise of their vote, no use of coercive power to vote for a particular group, no occupation of polling stations by one group or the other, no stuffing of bogus votes, no unfair counting of votes polled, and yet the elections are rigged.

If we go by the history of our elections we would see that the initial shots in the rigging process are psychological and mental. Administrative, financial, coercive, judicial, electoral and other tools of rigging are applied later. The majority of people live under the oppressive rule of lower level government servants or police, revenue and irrigation departments and those involved in what is called court-kutchery matters. The people want to be with those who can secure them from the mischief of these departments and this need is exploited to the utmost. An impression is created though different measures that this party or group of parties will not be given power come what may. That particular party and its leadership is castigated by state-run media, judiciary and police, and ‘anti-corruption’ departments are used to persecute leaders of that party or group of parties to convey to people that that political group was under the state’s assault and it was better for them to keep away from the same.

In recent years this method was blatantly used against the PPP and its allied parties in 1988, 1990, 1997, and both the PPP and the PML-N in 2002. The Supreme Court’s intervention in 1993 saved the PML-N from psychological rigging and the agreement before the second dissolution of the Assemblies worked well.

Lt-General (retired) Hamid Gul, then chief of ISI, has more then once testified how Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) was established in 1988 and how the same was promoted during the elections. The testimony of General Aslam Beg, who was Chief of the Army Staff in 1990, regarding payment of Rs 160 million from state resources to different anti-PPP politicians, is still in the Supreme Court. The way in which the PML-Q was established and promoted with the help of different institutions and servants of the state is quite well known.

In the next step, the state’s administrative, financial and coercive methods are used to wean away candidates from the under attack parties and they are persuaded to join the favoured party or alliance. The candidates of the targeted parties are forced or persuaded through both carrot and stick to join the officially supported alliance, run as an independent candidate, or just leave the electoral process.

The state’s financial resources are used to support one particular group and to castigate another. Just before the elections, fictitious groups and individuals crop up and run very expensive advertisement campaigns against the castigated parties and in support of those in the good books of the incumbent controllers of the state. Generally such advertisement campaigns cross all limits of decency and morality. Just before the 1988 elections, leaflets with objectionable photographs of the Bhutto ladies were dropped from aeroplanes. Hundreds of millions of rupees are spent on such media campaigns without questions about the identity of those running the same and source of funds.

The state’s financial resources are also used to carry out development projects on the recommendations of the officially supported candidates. Most of these funds go into the pockets of these candidates or are used to finance the campaign and not for the announced purpose. Being on the right side of the group controlling the state at the time means that no action is taken to stop the misuse or punish them.

Under the Constitution, the Chief Election Commissioner is appointed for a secure term and can only be removed through the process given in Article 209. However, the Election Commission is dependent on government, both financially as well as administratively. The senior-most bureaucrat at the Election Commission is always from the civil service and answerable to the government through the Establishment Division. As the Election Commission does not have its own staff, it has to depend on employees of various government departments for the election process.

Prosecution of Opposition parties’ workers and supporters is another tactic quite often used to harass them. This process continues till the elections day when Opposition polling agents are often not allowed to facilitate their voters. At the same time supporters of officially backed parties are given complete freedom, especially in far-flung rural areas, to capture polling stations and do whatever they like.

Accusations about changing the election results, wrong counting of votes and such other happenings are often made after elections. However, the strange thing is that in most of the cases where the beneficiaries belong to the ruling alliance, the process of litigation continues without a decision till the end of the tenure of the assembly.

Last but not least, the power of the president and the governors to summon the Houses to elect the new government are utilised to benefit the officially supported parties. The period so obtained is used to buy the loyalties of members elected on opposition parties’ tickets. In 2002, the National Assembly’s session was delayed till the time when the state was able to wean away a group of PPP MNAs to its side and thus achieve a slight majority in the House. Though meetings of the Punjab and NWFP Assemblies, where the PML-Q and the MMA majority was very clear, were called within a week of the National Assembly meeting, the Sindh and Balochistan Assemblies, where the ruling alliance lacked enough support, were delayed till the objective of electing PML-Q candidates as Chief Ministers was made possible through cohabiting with some strange bedfellows or propping up some ‘patriots’ in the PPP.

There are calls all around to make the next elections free, fair and transparent. For the same to take effect, the issues discussed above will have to be addressed. The Prime Minister has already invited the opposition for talks on preparation of a code of ethics for elections. However, the exercise will not be of any use if it is confined to such trivial matters as banners’ size and leaflets used during elections, or language used against opponents, and assurances against methods of rigging are not provided.

http://www.thepost.com.pk/OpinionNew...05771&catid=11

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Welcome move on electoral rolls

The decision by the Election Commission to do away with the condition that voters must have a computerized national identity card (CNIC) before they could vote is a welcome development. The EC has acted after the Supreme Court, acting on a petition filed by a political party, directed it to ensure that all voters eligible to exercise their right of franchise were included in the electoral rolls. This directive came after it was revealed in the press that there was a discrepancy of as many as 20 million voters in the new electoral rolls compared with those used in the 2002 election. This significant difference was the result of the Election Commission requiring that all voters must have a CNIC. However, the Supreme Court rightly pointed out that the Constitution did not mention the use of a CNIC, or NIC for that matter, as an explicit requirement for voters. Rather, any kind of picture ID issued by the government, such as a driver's licence or even a passport, or the older NIC may be used for identification purposes. Clearly, the idea behind all this is to make it easier for voters to cast their vote at the time of election, without of course compromising on the authenticity of the vote itself. This means that the document that is to be used as proof of identification should have the person's age on it -- given that the right of franchise only becomes available upon reaching the age of 18.

One question that comes out of this whole matter is: why couldn't the Election Commission have done this on its own, without being taken to court by a political party? Surely, the primary objective of an election commission anywhere is to facilitate maximum voter participation and this is done by making the process of enrolment easier and less bureaucratic. It has to be said that the Election Commission's earlier basis for revising the electoral rolls, which was based on the possession of a CNIC being a prerequisite, was not in the spirit of the Constitution. Surely, the commission should have realized that a difference of some 20 million voters (even a million would be considerable) was going to rightly anger most political parties and had the potential to create a controversy (which it did). In addition to scrapping the CNIC condition, the EC has also announced that it will launch a nationwide campaign where staff will be sent to voters' homes to ensure their inclusion in the electoral rolls. This is good as well, but again one cannot understand why the commission had to wait for the Supreme Court to order it to do this. Had it decided to undertake such a scheme on its own, it could have had more time for it -- and would have earned the goodwill of most political parties as well as many in the electorate.

It needs to be reiterated that apart from ensuring that electoral rolls are up to date and include -- as far as is possible -- the names of all eligible voters, the EC also has many other responsibilities, especially those related to the conduct of elections and in preventing corrupt practices from marring a vote. However, Pakistan's electoral history suggests that election commissions have perhaps not been as effective -- usually because of interference from the executive or other power centres – in ensuring reasonably free and fair elections. It is hoped that this time around, the commission will be allowed by the powers that be to play its due role in enabling a free and fair election. If that happens then we may well see some of the many candidates who, come every election, openly flout electoral laws being hauled up and disqualified. Any such action, if taken, should be seen as being across the board and not targeting candidates from a political party in particular or the political opposition in general. Only then will the much-talked about level playing field for all parties materialise.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=66788

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Identify yourself!

Gut reaction

Lubna Jerar Naqvi

Believe it or not, there is so much more to the upcoming elections in Pakistan than our politicians let on. It is not only about whether our commando should take off his uniform before embarking on the presidential path.

The essence of an election, not particularly in Pakistan, should be democracy and political parties should be more involved in the issue to plan how they will sow the seeds of democracy in the political soil of 60-year-old Pakistan, as this has never taken root in the country since its inception. And it doesn't matter whether the Quaid envisioned a democratic set up for the new country, who maybe the only leader whose doctrine, written or spoken, has been so blatantly ignored from day one. And now as we see it, things are the same and will remain the same even after these elections, whether General Musharraf doffs his uniform and dons civvies. Why? Well basically because our most democratic of democratic political parties' most enlightened and moderate leader, Benazir Bhutto relishes the comfort of the post of prime minister and gets into a deal with the military 'dictator' she has always spoken against. The 'deal' was sealed at a meeting (which didn't happen since no one has confirmed it; although the president kind of did to the MQM while in Karachi) in Abu Dhabi.

But as usual we will leave the intellectual mulling to the piranhas of the intelligentsia and focus on the mundane -- the people of Pakistan. Yes, even despite their miniscule and completely redundant position in the whole set up, national as well as political they have to be commented on mainly because they have a part to play in the elections. Unfortunately, their part is extremely important but only during elections, as at this time their existence becomes apparent to those living in the political pantheon.

There is always considerable pre-election activity in Pakistan and likewise this year is no different. There are endless angry disputes between the supporters and detractors of the government about whether these elections will be rigged. Everyone naturally, as is the norm in Pakistan, has a different view on this. Those seeing themselves with brighter chances to move into power declare that the measures taken to make the elections transparent this time are fool-proof and nothing can go wrong; while the rest are saying all the pre-election efforts are already indicating that the elections will certainly be rigged.

This time around, the opposition is saying even before there was any talk that elections would be held, that they will be unfair and rigged/engineered. They claim that the results are already apparent and holding elections is mere eyewash. Of course they may have something there after the Daughter of the East made a U-turn to get into power. Rigged or not, the elections will go on, and we must leave the debating and analysis of pre- and post- election scenarios to others and instead, as voters, focus on our right and responsibility to vote. This brings us to the newly made electoral lists, which were made again to ensure that everyone's name is on it. But as many people have found out there is no guarantee that this will be the case, even though Nadra has all your credentials. According to these lists, you may simply not exist (but that shouldn't matter in a country where DNA of a suicide bomber is sent to a DNA bank that doesn't exist in the country. Miracles never cease). But in these elections it seems one needn't worry whether they have their identification cards or since the Supreme Court has stipulated that there is no need for computerised national identity cards to vote, any picture identification document issued by the government, like a driver's licence or passport, will do. This is no doubt a good move as it will now allow more and more people to vote, that is if they don't waste this election (holi)day sleeping or watching a movie as the majority do every time. And this will ensure that the people have elected in the people of their choice.

There have always been 'election problems' in every election like bogus voting and/or double enrolment and this when the voters 'used' their pictured identity cards. One can only think of the horror that is going to be unleashed during election time when out of more than 30 million voters, many will be using other documents of identification, authenticity of which would be highly suspect. But this might enhance the opportunity for many political parties to use this ambiguity to register in electoral rolls, for one is sure to be created, and probably cast bogus votes to get a robust majority hence changing the results of the elections from what they actually should have been.

Secondly, this leniency of providing other picture identification documents for registering on the electoral lists could give militants, the Taliban, Afghan refugees and maybe the mujahideen from Kabul to use this opportunity to legitimise their presence in Pakistan. This could provide a safe passage to becoming a Pakistani and then using this already globally suspect nationality to commit crime and thereby endangering the country's security and deteriorating credibility. The enlisting of these foreigners as Pakistanis could also fortify the vote bank of religious-minded groups in NWFP and Balochistan causing more harm than good to the country. If this happens, the reason of compiling new electoral lists will be defeated. That is all Pakistan needs now, especially since the US and the rest of the west are monitoring the political changes in Pakistan closely, and not just because it is election year. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is already threatening Pakistan even though he is not in the White House, there may be many in the US who harbour similar feelings for Pakistan, which is why Pakistan has to be cautious.

Then the domestic scene is not at all favourable either. The nationalist party of Balochistan will strongly express their apprehensions regarding the Supreme Court's order of allowing any identification document to be used for enlisting on the electoral lists. This could flare up the political turmoil in the already unstable Balochistan. As it is the people of Balochistan feel alienated from the rest of the country, especially Punjab. Of course the apex court has taken this decision to facilitate the voters, as it has on many occasions like the ban on kite flying and wedding meals, but the chances of this facilitating of miscreants of all shades should also be taken into consideration. And in the long term affecting the credibility of the Election Commission of Pakistan, unless of course some middle way is found whereby the chances of foul play can be kept at a minimum; asking for complete transparency would be a naïve expectation for anyone. Hardly anything in Pakistan, from the people to the government, is completely corruption-free and this is not one of the best-kept national secrets. Maybe the apex court could instruct a method to be used to enrol a majority of voters without causing issues of non-voters getting an opportunity to vote and thereby further blemishing the transparency of Pakistani elections.



The writer is a staff member. Email: lubnajnaqvi@yahoo.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=67858

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.