Tooba Altaf
Elections form the bedrock of a democratic system. Despite its inherent issues, the electoral process provides every citizen with an equal opportunity to elect his representative. However, the efficacy of this democratic system relies much on the efficiency and transparency of the electoral system.
In Pakistan, the history of the electoral process has always been controversial and troublesome for multiple reasons.
On the one hand, as a polity, Pakistan had been unfortunate to witness spells of autocracy with intermittent democratic governments. On the other, the track record for democratic governments has not been so good. Allegations such as horse-trading, floor-crossing, the alleged involvement of the establishment, and blame games among political parties have always accompanied the democratic process.
No surprise that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan calls for electoral reforms. He believes the introduction of electronic voting, for Pakistani citizens, both home and abroad as well as having the Senate elections by show of hands, may solve many issues at hand.
Historical Evolution
Notwithstanding, the first-ever democratic transition in the history of Pakistan took place in 2008, with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) handing over the government to Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN), in 2013. However, it too was contested among the chief political parties of the country, including, much hue and cry made by the now incumbent Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI). For over a year it demanded an audit of four constituencies and then called a sit-in, only to be ended with the heinous 2016 APS attacks.
Ironically, the 2018 general elections, which brought PTI to power, also attracted accusations of fraud and manipulation. The country’s political landscape with the formation of an anti-government coalition known as PDM (Pakistan Democratic Movement), seems unstable and flimsy.
PM Imran Khan’s long-held call to introduce an electronic voting system, seeks to curb the controversy around the results of the election. It intends to put an end to the inherent flaws in the manual electoral system. Plus, the proposal of Senate elections by show of hands is to bring transparency, by putting an end to the secret balloting and thus the infamous horse-trading as well. Moreover, the representation of overseas Pakistani citizens through e-voting aims to make the electoral process more inclusive.
It is pertinent to note that the electronic voting system has its own shortcomings too. The electronic voting machines (EVMs) used in this system are vulnerable to cyber-attacks and security breaches, sometimes by the manufacturers themselves. In the past, allegations of the manipulation of EVMs also surfaced in India, resulting in the development of EVMs with a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system. No matter, e-voting still has an edge over manual balloting.
To sum it up, it is time for all the political parties of Pakistan to grab this moment for electoral reforms. The opposition’s rhetoric of coming up with its own set of proposals for electoral reforms, must not lay waste to the ones proposed by the government. Rather, both the government and the opposition must come together. Some reforms are better than none. The call of the moment is to embark on the reform process immediately, lest the nation’s clock for next electioneering starts ticking.
The author Tooba Altaf is an International Relations graduate while working as a Researcher at the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), Islamabad.
