Greener pastures: Former NADRA chairman seeks job in the US

Tariq Malik says threats deter SC appearance on the issue of electoral fraud.

MISSOURI, US: Following his resignation from the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) in January, former chairman Tariq Malik is currently seeking employment in the United States.

Malik, a resident of Michigan, says he received “multiple threats from close aides to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif” after he revealed incidents of electoral fraud in the May 2013 general elections. Malik says he intends to appear before the Supreme Court to expose this fraud, but adds that talk of any such appearance is ‘premature’.

Malik is a fixture on the lecture circuit now, delivering talks at various institutions regarding his experience as NADRA chairman. Today Malik says he is ‘overwhelmed’ by the invitations he has received from institutions across the world and job offers from the technology sector. “A CEO of a data warehousing company wants me to visit the governors of 52 states in the US to show them the value of innovative technologies when used to resolve issues of governance,” he says.

He currently has no plans to return to Pakistan. “I am at a loss as to what sin I have committed to deserve this treatment,” he tells The Express Tribune, regarding threats to his life. “I have serious concerns about my safety,” he adds.

“It is important to resist the state capture of independent institutions like NADRA and the Election Commission of Pakistan in order to have free, fair and transparent elections and to unearth any electoral fraud,” he says. The state of Pakistan was created by the exercise of voting rights, he adds, and it is thus important that the sanctity of the vote be preserved. “If a vote can create Pakistan, it is the only instrument that can save Pakistan,” he feels. Even though he feels that evidence of electoral fraud will not change the party equation in the parliament, it will eliminate the trust deficit between the state and the citizen and ‘ensure a historic turnout in the next elections’.

Discussing NADRA’s findings on the alleged fraud, Malik points to the example of a voter, Hadi Bux Jatoi of the village of Jawan Jatoi, who cast 310 votes in NA-202, Shikarpur at polling station No 209. “What action has been taken against Hadi Bux?” he asks, saying that a ‘witch hunt’ was instead conducted against NADRA and himself.

Furthermore, Malik says the threats did not limit themselves to investigations of electoral fraud. “I received threats when NADRA identified 41 proxy prisoners in Karachi jails, asking me why such a search was even started,” he adds. “The government recently threw NADRA’s list of 3.5 million tax evaders into the trash,” he says, “Is it not a crime that in a country of 200 million, less than 800,000 pay taxes?”

Malik adds, “If it is a sin to identify who commits electoral fraud, evades tax, employs ghost workers in the government, double dips pensions or allows convicts to flee jails, then I am a sinner.” He reiterates, “If relaxing registration procedures for minorities, making transgenders proud to have a separate identity, resisting government capture of an independent institution, eliminating forgery, combating human trafficking, plugging future electoral fraud gaps and saying no to the prostitution of power is a crime, then I am a criminal.”

Malik explains that he tendered his resignation from NADRA ‘for the sake of the institution’. Responding to queries about any deals with the government, he says, “I resigned from my position but did not resign from the issues.” He explains that when the government mounted a ‘character assassination campaign’ against him, he felt it best to remove himself from the equation, so that ‘the issue of electoral transparency, erosion of state capacity, tax evasion and the protection of Pakistanis rights are highlighted instead’.

Note: Zahid Gishkori is Staff Correspondent of The Express Tribune. He is also Alfred Friendly Fellow 2014 and currently working with The Kansas City Star in the United States.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2014.