Justice (retd) Ebrahim, at least, had a sense of honour to submit his resignation.
LAHORE: Justice (retd) Fakhuruddin G Ebrahim alone cannot be held responsible for the alleged irregularities in the recent general elections or in the presidential elections. Although he was the chief election commissioner, he had no veto power, with all members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) having equal power over decision-making. The other members of the ECP were selected by elected parliamentarians of the outgoing provincial assemblies. The onus of responsibility, therefore, falls squarely on political parties, who formed the majority in the four federating units. Justice (retd) Ebrahim, at least, had a sense of honour to submit his resignation, which unfortunately, none of the other members of the ECP have displayed, nor those who selected them.
As for the ineligible parliamentarians, who were tax or loan defaulters, possessed a foreign nationality, or were involved in any crime, which debarred them from taking part in the elections, their lack of ethics is displayed by the fact that they still had the audacity to submit their nomination papers. The political parties, which are today raising objections about the general elections, need to honestly assess if they are capable of assuming responsibilities that the Constitution demands them to perform. There is not a single political party in Pakistan, which has not awarded a ticket to an individual who was ineligible to contest the recent polls. Democracy is a system of governance that has evolved over the last two centuries, designed to deliver good governance through a system of checks and balances, to prevent abuse or misuse of power, by those whom the people have given a mandate to rule. This mandate comes with a lot of responsibilities and requires complete submission to the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution; otherwise, in the words of John Adams, “despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratic council, an oligarchic junta, and a single emperor”.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, August 2nd, 2013.
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