KARACHI: As a citizen, one is deeply concerned about the obvious inaccuracies in the electoral process. I have sent many letters and emails to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) offices highlighting these shortcomings. However, there has never been a response or a move to make the desired changes. It is clear that unless the ECP begins to make major corrections in its processes, we are very likely to end up with a fake and fraudulent election just like the one staged by the ECP in 2008. Some of the concerns that have surfaced so far are:
1) Inaccuracies in voter lists in terms of wrong names, wrong polling addresses, names not included and names included even for those who have expired.
2) The ECP’s failure to provide a simple and practical method to correct the errors.
3) Unwillingness to correct the causes of the past mistakes, which led to 37 million fake votes, fake degree holders and dual nationality holders cheating the system.
4) The ECP has no mechanism in place to control those polling stations that are located in a political party’s or wadera’s stronghold, where people of another party/tribe cannot even enter, leave aside cast a vote.
5) The ECP has dragged its feet on the electronic voting machine and intends to continue with the vulnerable ‘parchi’ stuffing system.
6) There are some two to three million people, whose permanent addresses are erroneously listed as their voting address. This essentially amounts to disenfranchisement by design. The ECP fails to understand that all it needs to do is use the already verified NADRA CNIC holders list (along with its current addresses) as the default voters list instead of preparing a new and erroneous one.
The ECP would do well to invite and meet a cross-section of citizens in small groups of six to 10 individuals in every major city of Pakistan. These discussions should be focused on problems and their possible solutions. The ECP provincial members, commissioners and other senior officials should attend these meetings, which should preferably be held in the ECP offices instead of five-star hotels.
Naeem Sadiq
Published in The Express Tribune, November 6th, 2012.
