Top polling body still in quest of its domain

ECP has remained largely ineffectual in asserting its authority


Irfan Ghauri December 31, 2015

ISLAMABAD: 2015 was the year of local government elections for Pakistan. After much dilly-dallying, three of the provinces finally held the polls after almost a decade.

Besides Sindh, Punjab and K-P, LG elections were also held in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) for the first time since Islamabad was set up as a capital city. Similarly, cantonment areas, governed by military laws since their inception, also went for LG polls.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) organised by-elections in over a dozen constituencies of the national and provincial assemblies during the year, with NA-246 (Karachi-VIII), NA-122 (Lahore-V) and NA-154 (Lodhran-I) being much-discussed. But it remained entangled with the superior judiciary over the former’s domain.

Frustrated by frequent intervention in many matters the ECP considered its sole domain, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retd) Sardar Muhammad Raza, on a number of occasions, elicited veiled remarks and expressed his reservations.

The most contentious issue was the ECP’s revised code of conduct in which it banned all MNAs and MPAs from visiting any constituency going to the polls.

The new rule was challenged by PTI and scrapped by the judiciary. The legal battle between the ECP and its opponents continued in the higher judiciary throughout the year.

Leaders of mainstream parties flouted the provision that could not get legal cover through parliamentary legislation. Similarly, the unrealistic maximum limit of expenses for election campaigns fixed decades ago was freely violated.

It was interesting to see the ECP notifying and de-notifying the election schedules it had been issuing on court orders. At one stage it was directed by the Supreme Court to issue the schedule for the ICT’s local government polls while the draft bill for the capital’s LG system was being dragged in parliament for approval.

The electoral body later withdrew its notification after the Senate censured it for bypassing parliament. Parliament, eventually, enacted the law and the capital held its first LG polls.

Local government polls have now been held in all parts of the country, except Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. A number of issues, especially relating to financial powers of the local bodies in provinces, remain undecided.

It is likely that the LG acts passed by the Sindh and Punjab assemblies for their respective provinces would land in the courts for interpretation of constitutional provisions that guarantee ample financial powers to local representatives.

Meanwhile, for compiling election results the ECP has started employing modern technology in a pilot project with limited outreach. But it is still far from its announced step of using electronic voting machines in the 2018 general elections.

A lot is riding on the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms. It remains to be seen what the panel comes up with once it has finalised the proposed package.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1st, 2016.

COMMENTS (1)

Gramscian | 8 years ago | Reply ECP has become another white elephant like NAB i.e. a burden on tax payers' money. And its not only PTI that terms ECP incompetent. After recent local body polls, PML-N folks like Syed Zafar Ali Shah (Islamabad) & Arbab Rahim (Sindh) chided ECP for its ineffectiveness, inability to enforce laws and even rigging in connivance with winning candidates. Sadly, the new head has been more interested in getting a Prado for himself than improving ECP's performance. After a year in the job, he has nothing to show for.
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