EDITORIAL: Should the National Assembly or a provincial assembly be dissolved the Election Commission of Pakistan shall be required to hold a general election within a period of ninety days after its dissolution. That’s mandatory under Article 224(2) of the Constitution, but the situation on the ground is daunting — the legal hitches and procedural challenges it is beset with are too forbidding. But the commission is determined to be in a position to hold elections in stipulated ninety days.
Its clarity follows a report attributed to a senior official of the commission according to which, preparations for general election would require some six months. And this concern of the commission was partly endorsed by the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen). As things stand today there is the need for fresh delimitation of constituencies, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where the number of seats has been increased under the 26th Amendment.
That would be a time-consuming errand for the involved legalities in that cannot be addressed in less than three months. The ECP had already announced the schedule for local government elections in Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh and Islamabad. In case the general elections become unavoidable the commission would be forced to drop LG polls. Equally pressing is the requirement to bring in conformity the districts’ and constituencies’ electoral rolls.
Under Section 14 of the Elections Act, the ECP has to announce an election plan four months prior to the polls, as it is now under obligation to use EVMs (electronic voting machines) and give overseas Pakistanis the right to vote. In case elections are to be held early, this law must be repealed. Then there are a host of operational and logistical challenges that too must be met and resolved. These include procurement of election material, arrangements for ballot papers and appointment and training of polling staff. The ECP is reportedly also concerned about the unavailability of ballot papers with water mark.
Can the ECP, which is presently short of two members, meet all these challenges in ninety days? But the dilemma gets all the more perplexing as the contending parties see the snap elections through their tinted lens. Before the dissolution of the lower house by the President the opposition was for early elections, but early elections don’t have to be that way. Its first goal was the removal of Imran Khan from the office of prime minister, but he dodged his ouster. No doubt the ECP is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. What we witness today on the national political platform is a replay of Byzantine power play. The challenge is that the country has only one option and that option stipulates only one imperative: Pakistan must be governed by democratically elected leaders at all costs, although that exclusive option proves to be an ever-receding mirage.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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