ISLAMABAD:
Our election laws have always been somewhat perplexing where a so-called politician can hold a seat or a few thousand voters after registering his party with the Election Commission of Pakistan. Such a party seems to have no ideology or purpose except that it wants to extract personal gains by leveraging their solo seats.
And then there are those that have enough votes to spoil it for others. Such individuals enter the election campaign only to gain maximum benefits from those whose vote they might split. These candidates usually withdraw from the election at the eleventh hour after getting a personal favour or some money.
And the parties that do manage a handful of seats in the National Assembly blackmail a major party trying to form a government for maximum gains in terms of ministries and discretionary funds. They keep the government hostage all the time.
It is about time that laws are amended to stop such self-serving spoilers from contesting the elections just to either split the votes or keep the government hostage against their few seats. Many countries such as Canada have kept a minimum criterion on the number of seats or national vote bank required in order to gain the status of a political party. It is the need of the hour that we amend our laws to stop the blackmail of larger political parties at the hands of single-member parties.
Raja Shafaatullah
Published in The Express Tribune, July 20th, 2020.
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