Money in politics

Calls for reforming the political financing system, including oversight, have been growing ever since the Election Commission of Pakistan’s probe findings regarding the PTI’s foreign funding case have become public. However, while many of the more prominent voices making those calls may appear to have a direct stake in the game — such as the PTI’s political rivals — the truth is that rumours have surrounded the finances of most other major political parties as well. Contrast that with political activists and others who have been calling for reforms for decades, yet have been largely ignored by the powers that be.

Clean elections and good governance should not be partisan issues. Unfortunately, failure to update election and political financing laws, or even enforce existing ones, is a collective failure of the political parties and the bureaucracy because it deprives citizens of their basic rights, while also ensuring that truly independent candidates from middle-class or poor backgrounds just can’t compete with the big guns. But maybe that is the point — securing the positions of the ruling elite while also ensuring that they stay in line.

Over the weekend, open government and election transparency advocates at the Free and Fair Election Network , or Fafen, also brought up how political parties inside and outside the parliament need to strengthen regulations to limit the ability of big spenders to virtually buy elections, warning that free-spending without consequences deprives citizens of the right to contest elections and skews results towards big spenders, regardless of whether they are backed by billionaires or smaller, individual donors.

The weaknesses in the system begin with the current iteration of the law governing elections — the Elections Act of 2017. The act is astoundingly weak in its grants of regulatory power, and can be directly blamed — along with its authors — for allowing the 2018 general election to turn into the biggest spending polling cycles in the country’s history, even when inflation is taken into account. Bye-elections and local bodies polls conducted since then have also seen unprecedented spending, effectively consolidating power among the ultra-rich, whether directly as candidates or through the political parties they bankroll. Strongly enforced spending caps can be problematic in bigger constituencies and areas with higher advertising costs, but they are still probably the easiest place to start.

Donor transparency is another area which needs to be investigated. This could be done through a public database which parties and candidates must regularly update with every political donation received and details of how funds are spent. The same would also apply to private groups and individuals financing political campaigns. Criminal penalties, as long as they are fairly applied, would be more than enough to change the face of Pakistani electioneering, certainly making it cleaner and, hopefully, a little more representative.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 11^th, 2022.

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