ECP report says 114 parties (of the 200 registered parties) had not held intra-party elections in years. PHOTO: FILE
This is particularly dismal given that it is an ECP requirement which was made public as recently as December 28 last year. The press release on this matter also stated that failure to submit certificates of intra-party polls and statement of accounts would result in parties not being allowed to contest the polls. Given that the government is due to complete its tenure on March 16, and elections expected in the spring, how any of the 114 parties plan to manage this feat is anyone’s guess.
Some of the parties which failed to hold intra-party elections include the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the Awami National Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional. This is shameful.
The ruling party, the PPP, is meant to hold elections every two years but its last one was in 2006. Its chairpersonship was passed on from Benazir Bhutto to her husband and son according to her will which was revealed after her assassination in 2007 and never contested. The PTI has had delays in holding its party polls; it held them in 2002 and is meant to hold them every four years. The MQM, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the PML-N held their intra-party elections in June 2012, so clearly it is not an issue of logistics that plagues other parties from getting their acts together. The ECP may not be able to bar 114 parties from participating in the forthcoming elections but it can certainly take punitive action against them for violating its orders so as to prevent such lax attitudes in the future. Political parties must practise what they preach if they want to be taken seriously by the very constituents whose votes they so eagerly covet as elections roll around.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2013.
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