Electoral Reforms in Pakistan

Raheema AzharBurhan Abdul WaheedShafique AftabAwais KhanUmer Farooq

Group members :

The preamble of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1973 states

“the State shall exercise its powers and authority through the chosen representatives of the people.”

ELECTION : An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office by voting.

Why we need elections? By constitution, country should be run by

elected persons. To choose best leaders for the country.

Background :

Election process was introduced by

UK parliament Scottish Parliament

Procedure:

Voters: Voters cast their votes to elect candidates.

Political Parties : A political party is an organisation that seeks to influence, or control government policy, usually by nominating candidates in elections.

Independent candidates: An independent candidate is a person who wishes to stand for election and is not chosen by a political party.

Returning Officers : The Returning Officer is the official who is responsible for how the election is run and declares the result.

Last elections were held on 11th may 2015, after about 66 years of independence

Highest number of people cast their votes in 2013 elections, about 55% of total voters.

Still there were allegations of rigging by many parties.

Electoral reforms we need :

ECP is responsible to conduct Elections in Pakistan.

We have 12 recommendations for Electoral reforms in Pakistan.

ELECTORAL ROLLS:

Under electoral rolls, ECP issues list of voters and their place of voting.

Voter should only be allow to cast vote in the area which is mentioned on their ID cards as Present address.

It will make the process easy as ECP would not require to verify their addresses manually.

Separate polling days:

Voting should be held in different phases throughout the country, rather then in one day.

This will allow Law enforcement agencies to provide better security environment to all voters.

It will also reduce the chances of rigging .

Nomination and Scrutiny:

Scrutiny of the candidates is very important.

Corrupt or criminals should not be allow to take part in the elections.

Scrutiny should be serious and based on facts, not like previous election in which Returning officers asks questions like.. Do you believe in Honeymoon? Do you have Girlfriend? Have you ever eaten pork?

Overseas voting:

Almost 70 million Pakistanis are living oversees. Sending important remittances back to the country.

They should have right to vote to elect the future leadership for the country.

It will also raise their interest in the political system of Pakistan. So ECP should take steps regarding that.

Formation of the ECP:

Chief election commissioner must be a non political and unbiased person.

Members of ECP should have proper training regarding the elections.

ECP should have more authority to punish the candidates who breaks the rules of election by any mean.

Electronic voting:

Many countries in the world, are using electronic voting machines nowadays.

Election commission should also use electronic voting machines which can help to reduce the rigging.

But ECP should also make sure that Electronic voting machines are not prone to hacking and other cyber attacks.

Election expenses:

ECP should take following steps to make sure that candidates don’t spend more money than the limit set by ECP :Establish monitoring cellsHold weekly meeting with candidatesConduct random inspections

Appointment of RO’s and DRO’s :

RO’s and DRO’s should not have political background in any case.

There should be no pressure on them by any person.

They should held personally liable for any kind of rigging under their supervision.

Timelines:

Election commission should clearly state the timelines for following procedures:

For filling of nomination papers.For scrutiny process of candidates.For appeals against decisions made by ECP.For decisions against appeals.For Final list of candidates.

Supplementary list on the FER:

Under the election order 2002 name of some non muslims could be addes into Supplementary list, other than joint electoral list.

This practice should be stopped because its not right to discriminate voters on religious beliefs.

It also discourage non muslim voters to cast their votes.

None Of The Above(NOTA):

In many countries this option is given to the voters.

ECP should also provide this option to the voters in Pakistan.

It will help to increase the voter turn out as voters who don’t like any candidate will also come out to exercise their vote.

One constituency per candidate:

In Pakistan, many candidates take part in elections from more than one constituency.

ECP should discourage this practice.

If person won more then one seats he has to retain only 1 seat and resign from others, so it takes lot of resources to conduct re elections.