Voting from afar

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has informed the Supreme Court that overseas Pakistanis will indeed be able to vote in the May 11 election and that the arrangements necessary for this have been put in place by NADRA. This includes software and other mechanisms intended to allow the 4.5 million Pakistanis living abroad to cast their ballot. Most of these persons are based in the Gulf states.

This is the first time that Pakistanis based away from home will be able to vote. The impact of the ballots they cast is as yet not completely clear. Various political parties had urged the Supreme Court and the ECP to make it possible for overseas Pakistanis to participate in the electoral exercise. And although the ECP had previously expressed reservations about whether this could be done in time, the necessary measures appear to have been implemented and the Supreme Court duly informed. Under the plan worked out, staff will be sent to Pakistani missions abroad to assist with the balloting, with two centres to be set up in countries which house over 100,000 Pakistani nationals and one in those where the number is fewer.



We will need to see how smoothly this entire process goes ahead. The system worked out by NADRA is new and we must hope it functions efficiently. While Pakistanis in other countries should certainly, on principle, have the right to vote, the fact is that ballots cast in this manner have led to allegations of unfair play in many places, including the US. This is something the ECP will need to guard against and establish means to do so. The balloting from distant lands will obviously be an experimental exercise. It is hard right now to forecast how things will go or how many overseas nationals will take part in the process, although it is expected that enthusiasm will be quite high. We can only hope that there are no major setbacks in the conduct of what will be a complex procedure and that it does not add to the many controversies which have already crept up around this poll. More doubts are something we do not need at this stage.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2013.