EDITORIAL: The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has clearly not forgotten the 2018 fiasco, when its Result Transmission System (RTS) reportedly “malfunctioned” on election night, leaving the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in the dark at the most inopportune time.
Since the RTS had been specifically developed to relay election results, ECP had to resort to the old way of counting votes at the last minute.
And while it was never really explained just why the system did not deliver on the night that it was specially created for, all the confusion that stemmed from the breakdown did, quite naturally, add to the wildfire of allegations of widespread rigging as soon as the results came out.
That explains why the Authority wishes to appear ahead-of-the-curve this time, surprising everyone by inviting representatives of 150 political parties to its headquarters for an interactive session about the nature of its support to ECP as it prepares the final electoral rolls for the next general election.
First of all, though, it’s made it pretty clear that “the management of elections is not a job of NADRA as it is the mandate of the ECP”, according to its chairperson, Tariq Malik, as quoted in the press.
He also made a point to add that NADRA should not be involved in “transmission or management of the election results”. And now that this particular part, which ran into controversy last time, is taken care of, it wishes to ensure transparency about the nature, limit, and benefit of its assistance to ECP.
It’s also mentioned that successive general elections, local government elections, and by-elections have been conducted on the basis of electoral rolls prepared in 2017. Ongoing LG elections and by-polls are also being conducted on the same rolls, and now the electoral rolls to be used in the 2023 elections are being finalised. For this purpose, NADRA is providing “technical and operational” support to ECP, which it wants all parties to understand thoroughly.
Considering the atmosphere of uncertainty, anger and accusations that almost always follows elections in this country, it would be in the interest of all political parties to engage with NADRA in its upcoming interactive session and come back with answers to all their questions in these, and related, matters.
Considering the political temperature, it’s pretty clear that the 2023 election is going to be very bitter and whichever side loses is going to question its legitimacy. And since efforts to engage NADRA for support backfired in 2018, and instead amplified accusations of fraud, it’s best to rule out future uncertainty whenever and wherever possible.
This is a positive step by NADRA, one which should be understood in the right spirit, but the Authority should still do more. If it still hasn’t worked out just what caused the system to crash in the previous election, it must tie that loose end immediately and make its finding public.
And if it has already conducted an in-house investigation, it should waste no more time in telling everybody, especially political parties, what really went wrong. All these steps will go into ensuring electoral transparency; something we have struggled with for far too long.
Both ECP and NADRA are right in saying that the future lies in leveraging digital technology to improve the process of conducting elections over the whole country. But that only makes proper oversight a lot more important than before. And for everybody to play along without any doubts, and to trust the system, they must also know how it corrects its own mistakes beyond just being told that all is going to be well now.
These things should come at in the seminar planned for some time after Eid. NADRA has taken an interesting step forward, political parties should meet it halfway so everybody plays a part in respecting the sanctity of the electoral process.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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