

The report points to failures in the provision of security and an electoral management system that ‘struggled to exert effective control at the lowest level’ — that is the level of the polling station and the management thereof. Returning Officers (ROs) tasked with scrutinising the applications of candidates pre-poll delivered inconsistent results, the scrutiny window was too narrow and the centralised scrutiny cell set up in the ECP Secretariat failed dismally. The Result Management System (RMS) failed to work as well, in part because those operating it were not properly trained for the job. Coordination between the ECP and its partners was abysmally weak at every level. Line departments, the police and the civil administration were all open to political influence. There are no surprises in the ECP report, which is a portrait of bungling incompetence everywhere. That said it does not form the basis of an invalidation of the election per se, but it does make crystal clear what needs fixing before Pakistan treads the electoral road again. It is equally clear that the ECP needs to manage its information flow a little more efficiently, as it managed to make itself look more than a little foolish on this occasion.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 25th, 2014.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ