7/28/2019 Election Rigging That Borders on Farce, Published in 'Tehelka Magazine', Vol. 10 Issue 17, Dated 27 April 2013

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Election Rigging That Borders On FarceThe process of weeding out corrupt candidates is not as simple as it seems

AYESHA SIDDIQA

Published in Tehelka Magazine, Volume 10 Issue 17, Dated 27 April 2013

http://tehelka.com/election-rigging-that-borders-on-farce/

Comeback king? Even though former prime minister Nawaz Sharifis expected to do well,no single party is likely to sweep the election, Photo: AFP

THE LOWER court judges appointed as returning

officers (ROs) by the Election Commission ofPakistan (ECP) seem to have taken the commonman by surprise. The entire exercise to weed outcorrupt and bad politicians turned out to be acrazy circus lapped up eagerly by the media insearch of breaking news. There was a femalecandidate whose husband was quizzed about howhis quality of life is likely to suffer when shejoined politics. The nomination papers ofrenowned columnist and politician Ayaz Amir wererejected for seemingly challenging the two-nationtheory on whichPakistan was conceived. About adozen politicians were sentenced to jail for one tothree years for lying about their educational

qualifications, including the fairly popularJamshed Dasti and Malik Aamir Yar Waran fromsouth Punjab.

Many political commentators were worried that

the behaviour of the ROs indicated a general shifttowards greater religiosity of the State andsociety. These ROs hoped to reject somepoliticians to meet the criteria laid down inArticles 62 and 63 of the 1973 Constitution, whichrequire a member of Parliament and electedfunctionary of the State tobe sadiqand ameen (truthful and honest).Although many trace these Articles to the reign ofcontroversial military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, theseArticles have their origins in the secondamendment to the 1973 Constitution introduced byZulfiqar Ali Bhutto. This particular Articleemphasised that functionaries abide by certain

Islamic norms.

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Yet all of this came as a surprise because neverbefore had the ROs demanded candidates to betruthful and honest, or asked them irrelevantquestions like narrating verses from the Quran, orquestioned them about their basic knowledge ofreligion and Pakistans history. There were a lot ofstories from Sindh, the home province of the ruling

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), about candidatesnot being able to answer certain basic questions.But it is also a part of the country whereeducational standards are more dismal than inmost other segments, with the exception ofBalochistan.

Perhaps, the surprise was because there were nospecific instructions from the ECP to the ROS toask such questions. Nor did the United NationsDevelopment Programmes training module for theROs prepare them for such a line of questioning.When I spoke with a responsible source close toChief Election Commissioner Justice (retd)

Fakhruddin G Ebrahim about the chaos, the sourcereplied that the ECP was not involved in this andthe decisions would possibly get overturned. Thesource sounded confused and frustrated, and alsoassured me that the ECP had nothing to do with it.The instructions, if there were any, were providedto the ROs by the superior judiciary. The ChiefJustice, in fact, subsequently wrote a letter to theROs appreciating their stellar performance.

Some of the decisions such as the disqualificationof Amir and Dasti, which had infuriated manypeople, were eventually overturned. However,similar instances such as the fake degree cases of

Waran and former prime minister Raja PervezAshraf still hang in the balance.

Such behaviour indicates three things. First, thatthe judiciary keenly observes and responds to whatis highlighted in the media. Second, some of thekey decisions were changed to bring somelegitimacy to the screening process, which hadalmost been lost due to certain questionabledecisions. Third, this indicates another form ofpre-poll rigging in which justice is doneselectively. For instance, Warans degree is as fakeas Dastis and vice versa. Nonetheless, while thelatters was cleared by the court, the formers is

not and so he is hiding as a proclaimed offenderwho will be put in jail. Did the higher court do thisbecause Dasti is presented as representing theinterests of the common man or the middle class,or is it because Dasti distanced himself from thePPP as opposed to Waran? Sources say he may getcleared, but that fact that he had to go into hidinghas cost him campaign time.

In any case, the fake degree issue pertains to anunfair pre-condition imposed by a military dictatorthrough a presidential ordinance. Gen(retd) Parvez Musharrafhad demanded all electioncandidates to have a minimum qualification of

bachelors degree. The condition was used tomanipulate many of the subsequently elected

members as quite a few had submitted fakedegrees.

The entire exercise borders on farce and, hence,indicates an effort to further depoliticise thesociety. As I travelled around Sindh and Punjaband spoke with ordinary people, they were

sceptical of a process that, in the end, did notreally eliminate the bad and the ugly. Aneducationist from Shikarpur, Sindh, complainedthat had the process been conducted fairly, not asingle candidate [including some of the bigwigsfrom Imran Mr CleanKhans Pakistan Tehreek -e-Insaf (PTI)] would have passed the test, especiallyif it came to proving their source of income ormatching assets with the amount of tax they paid.

FURTHERMORE, THE entire process does lookridiculous when we see that while people wererejected for not reciting some verses, dictatorssuch as Musharraf were initially cleared (but later

rejected) from two seats despite havingcommitted an act of treason by dishonouring theConstitution in 1999 when he imposed the fourthmilitary rule. Many have seriously begun to suspectthat the superior courts are as influenced by SaudiArabia and the army as Nawaz Sharif, who did notraise a hue and cry after Musharrafs return fromself-exile. The theory about GHQ Rawalpindisinvolvement begins to sound more real when oneoverhears relatives of senior military spooksdeclaring in private conversations that Musharrafhad not done anything wrong in sacking theelected government then.

The armys idea, as many in India hope to believe,is not necessarily to get the retired general back inthe business of power but to create greaterconfusion about the entire electoral process. Manybelieve that Musharrafs real worth for the army isto embarrass Sharif who seems to have more of achance to form the next government. He seems tohave picked up steam against the PTI, his partyskey rival in Punjab; and is in the process of makingalignments in Sindh against the PPP. However, astrong coalition headed by the PML-N is not in thearmys interest. The relationship between Sharifand the army may be one of the issues but theother and more important concern is not to have a

strong coalition that may take the negotiations inAfghanistan after the US withdrawal in a directionthat the army does not want to follow. A strongand confident government is a possible reminderof the Geneva Accords signed by the MohammadKhan Junejo government in 1987. The agreementhad made Zia-ul-Haq and his military unhappy. TheGHQ probably does not want the mistake repeatedat the time of withdrawal of another superpowerfrom the South Asian region.

Thus far, it is generally believed that any singleparty may not sweep the polls. Despite the factthat Imran Khan seems to have raised the spectre

of right ideology, these polls are a game ofstrategy and numbers. Some patterns have alreadyemerged, like the PML-N making considerable

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gains in Punjab, but it is being challenged in northPunjab and might possibly lose some seats to thePTI in central Punjab. The PPP will maintain itsposition in Sindh but will be weakened further inPunjab. The ethnic parties like the MQM will retaintheir position in Sindh Urban while ANP could losevery badly in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The role of the

judiciary or any act of manipulation before theelection, thus, is critical in determining the futureof all parties involved in the electoral process.

Nonetheless, what is most certain about the pollsis that these may not turn out to be the kind ofchange that one hears about, especially inreference to demographic changes and youth. Ametamorphosis seems a long way away.

Siddiqa is an Islamabad-based columnist and the

author ofMilitary Inc

(Published in Tehelka Magazine, Volume 10 Issue

17, Dated 27 April 2013)