Daily Times Editorial April 16, 2013

ECP’s new code of conduct The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has re-elucidated in some detail its code of conduct for the elections so as not to leave any doubts about its will to ensure peaceful, free and fair elections. Interestingly, the reiteration of the part of the code of conduct that has aroused the most interest is when the ECP lays down in clear terms that no one will be allowed to seek votes in the name of religion or sect. Of this more later, but there are other aspects of the code that underline the determination of the ECP to fulfil its task to the hilt. To take a few examples. Forced eviction of voters from polling stations, providing transport to bring voters to cast their ballots have been declared crimes. No voter can take a ballot paper out of a polling station. No political activity or polling camps will be allowed within 400 yards of any polling station. No campaign will be allowed against any person or party on the basis of religion, ethnicity, caste or gender. No speeches will be allowed arousing parochial or sectarian emotions or provoking a controversy between genders, communities or linguistic groups. Candidates are expected to uphold the people’s rights and freedoms guaranteed in the constitution. No bribing of voters, intimidation or impersonation, holding of public meetings 48 hours before the polling will be tolerated. Participants are expected to refrain from the deliberate dissemination of false and malicious information, not indulge in forgery or disinformation to defame rivals. The carrying or display of weapons in public meetings, processions, or on election day is strictly banned. Any aerial firing, crackers, explosives at public meetings, at or near polling stations is strictly banned. What this menu amounts to is the desire or ambition of the ECP to conduct what may later, if all the ECP’s wishes come to pass, be seen as one of the most sanitized elections in Pakistan’s history. Whether the code of conduct outlined by the ECP will prove acceptable in practice, and especially closer to polling day, remains to be seen. Traditionally, elections in Pakistan are rather more raucous affairs than the vision or picture the ECP has drawn. Given the plethora of weapons the country is virtually drowning in, the ban on carrying, displaying, using them is a big challenge to the law enforcing agencies as well as the ECP itself. We can only wish it luck in this perfectly desirable but perhaps utopian venture. Control in the cities may be tighter, but the vast rural areas may not be possible to police throughout the country on the day. Those areas are notorious for the grip of large landowners with the power of life and death over millions of peasants. ‘Civilised’ behaviour cannot be guaranteed if the large landowners feel their political position or expected victory threatened by ‘upstart’ commoners. This could pose a violent challenge to the ECP’s desires. Nevertheless, difficulties notwithstanding, the ECP must be lauded for setting out the ground rules for what promises to be Pakistan’s most historic election ever. To return to the issue of attempting to garner votes through religion and/or sectarian or other discriminatory means, let it be said at the outset that all the ECP has laid down is according to our constitution. That paramount law does not permit any discrimination on the basis of religion, sect, gender, caste or any other basis. All citizens are equal, with equal rights in the eyes of the supreme law. It is another matter that in real life, that ideal is increasingly practiced more in the breach. The EP has rightly blocked all such attempts to prevent any chance of an outbreak of conflict along these divisive lines. The candidates and parties have every right to canvass votes on the basis of their programme, track record and character, but not at the expense of any, and particularly vulnerable, section of the people. Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s objection to the ECP’s ‘secularism’ in not letting parties like the JUI-F exploit the emotional attachment of the people with Islam does not hold water in the light of the constitutional provisions. All parties, including the religious ones, must rise above narrow partisan considerations in the interests of a smooth, civilised, hopefully violence-free election.