Violence and democracy, and the interference of the establishment in democracy, cannot co-exist.
KARACHI: The article “Vote counting made easy” (published in The Express Tribune on April 22) by respected journalist M Ziauddin correctly mentions election rigging against the PPP in successive general elections. He has, however, overlooked the elections of 2013, when the Taliban did not allow the PPP and two other parties to run their election campaigns. As a result, we see a right-wing government at the centre. Such arrangements never last for long. In 1990, in 1997 and again in the present scenario, such right-wing coalitions break from within, whatever be their ideological closeness. The present violent crisis of the right-wing is a crisis from within. The PPP is doing its level best to ensure that the system survives.
Violence and democracy, and the interference of the establishment in democracy, cannot co-exist. The nation has to decide on these basic issues. Modern technology must be intruded. Our government must not only make NADRA a state-of-the-art facility, but also allocate funds for installing electronic voting machines. The Election Commission of Pakistan took a public decision to install them. Respected Ziauddin sahib is well aware of what happened next.
Taj Haider
General Secretary
Pakistan Peoples Party Sindh
Published in The Express Tribune, April 24th, 2015.
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