A day in the political playpen

With main elections now behind us, it is now clear that there needs to be a reform of electoral process to the Senate

It would be fair to say that no party or individual emerged from the election process for the Senate seats held on March 5, with anything approaching honour or esteem. It was a day when any number of teddies were thrown around the political playpen. There was sulking. There were screaming rows. There was a bruised ankle on the part of a woman politician. Fingers were pointed and there was skullduggery on all sides. In short, the politicians of Pakistan played true to form displaying shameless self-interest and a complete absence of anything resembling an ethical framework. Once the dust had settled, a reshaped Senate emerged. The ruling PML-N and the PPP now have almost equal representation with 26 and 27 seats respectively. The PTI of Imran Khan makes its Senate debut appearance with six seats, and the Balochistan National Party (Mengal) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) have returned. It is seven years since the BNP-M last held a Senate seat. Despite winning the most seats, the PML-N is still a minority in the Senate, and the contest for the posts of chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate is wide open and unlikely to be cleanly fought. The role of the smaller parties in this battle may be crucial, and there are a stable-full of horses up for trading.



Of all the controversies surrounding the Senate election, it was the presidential ordinance passed almost literally at the last minute which changed the voting procedures for all Fata candidates, and reduced the numbers of votes that may be cast from four to one, which was perhaps the most odious. If this presidential ordinance could have been passed at the last minute, then the PML-N could likewise have ramrodded the 22^nd Amendment which would have brought some transparency to the Senate election but chose not to. There was not the political will to clean up the playpen, and the 22^nd Amendment is likely to fade into the political overcast. The elections of the four Fata Senate seats did not go ahead.

Skullduggery aside, the polling process was largely smooth everywhere except in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly where matters quickly descended into a wholesale flinging around of playpen equipment which resulted in the polling process being suspended for five hours. Opposition members protested over what they saw as irregular behaviour by polling staff, and violations of the electoral protocols by members on the treasury benches. Eventually polling was completed at 11pm.

With the main elections now behind us, it is clearer than ever that there needs to be a reform of the electoral process to the Senate; as the never-strong calls by party leaders for their members to behave themselves fell on deaf ears and in the absence of any limiting mechanism it was business — and behaviour — as usual. The one organisation that could have acted as a handbrake — the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) — was revealed on the day as little more than a toothless lapdog. It seems to have made no attempt to hinder or challenge the presidential ordinance that moved the goalposts in Fata despite this clearly being within its remit and one has to wonder at the safety and veracity of the upcoming local bodies polls if left in the hands of the current ECP.

The fact that the media had to be excluded from the K-P Assembly because of the disgraceful behaviour of its members says much about their immaturity politically and at an individual level, with the analogy of Pakistan politics as an infant’s playpen being entirely appropriate. The Senate that has emerged from this flawed process may be described as ‘messier’ than its predecessor, and it is clear that for the foreseeable future, the smaller parties in the Senate are going to maximise their opportunity and leverage as the Big Beasts thrash it out. Electoral reform is long overdue.

Published in The Express Tribune, March  7^th,  2015.

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