SC on Senate polls
The much-anticipated Supreme Court (SC) ruling on the upcoming Senate polls was delivered on March 1, 2021, just two days before the scheduled polling. In sum, the apex court has delivered its opinion through a short order (detailed judgement to follow) whereby by a majority of 4-1 (Justice Yahya Afridi dissenting in rejecting the presidential reference as it did not pertain to a point of law), it has declared that the Senate elections are indeed held “under the Constitution” and therefore by a secret ballot. However, given the concerns expressed of late (particularly by the ruling party) regarding the malign influence of corruption in the Senate elections, the SC has reminded the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) of its responsibility to ensure these elections are held honestly, justly, fairly and in accordance with the law, with corrupt practices being guarded against, on which the SC had issued successive judgements, the most exhaustive being Workers Party Pakistan through Akhtar Hussain, 2012. In this regard, the SC’s short order makes reference to its judgement in Niaz Ahmed vs Azizuddin, 1967, whereby secrecy of the ballot had not to be implemented in an ideal or absolute sense but tempered by practical considerations necessitated by the processes of election. This reference has engendered a new controversy, with the government pouncing on it as a ‘directive’ to the ECP to use whatever technology or other means can ensure the traceability and identification of votes cast, and the opposition and bar councils seeing the short order entire as having placed the ball in the ECP’s court through a general declaration regarding the issue of secrecy without any directive to the ECP to make ballots traceable or identifiable. Despite the government side approaching the ECP to press it in this regard, there remains a healthy dose of scepticism whether the change in the method of balloting can satisfactorily be carried out literally in the few hours remaining for the election. Second, as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz has stated, considerable doubts continue to linger regarding technology in the light of the Result Transmission System (RTS) debacle during the 2018 controversial general elections. Last but by no means least, in the zeal to eliminate corruption in the Senate elections through traceability and identification of votes, could we end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater regarding parliamentarians’ right to vote according to their conscience? These are indeed weighty considerations, and deserving perhaps of a calmer and more considered examination rather than rushing pell-mell into new and perhaps unanticipated problems.
Even if the ECP pulls the rabbit of a traceable and identifiable vote through technology out of its hat, will that in and by itself rid us of the curse of corruption in the Senate elections? If we go by the shenanigans in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan on the eve of these elections, the jury is out. Punjab has, thanks to the manipulative skills of the Chaudhries, arrived at a traditional ‘muk muka’(compromise) with the opposition that gives every party in the Punjab Assembly the exact number of seats in the Senate according to their party strength. Can this by any stretch be described as an ‘honestly, justly, fairly and in accordance with the law’ election as the SC enjoins in its short order? Can the definition of ‘corruption’ then be stretched by this example to non-monetary mutual ‘benefits’? In Sindh, where the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) is in the opposition, dissenting voices are being heard from its MPAs regarding the buying and selling of votes and the central leadership’s turning a deaf ear to their MPAs’ pleas. In Balochistan, the Deputy Speaker National Assembly, Qasim Suri, has taken on the role of negotiator with the opposition, offering them four Senate seats in return for allowing the ruling alliance’s candidates unchallenged election. It is another matter that the opposition is holding out for six seats. But the really important question is whether it is appropriate for the National Assembly Deputy Speaker to be openly lobbying for the ruling coalition? And what of the role of the Governors, particularly in Punjab and Sindh, who are at the heart of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s sudden interest in meeting his party’s parliamentarians on the eve of the vote? If the definition of ‘corruption’ is to be limited to monetary benefits in exchange for parliamentarians’ votes, what chance does the aim of a clean politics have? In this controversy initiated and fuelled by the government, even the office of President has been ‘sullied’ (with some help, it must be admitted, of the incumbent himself) because of ill thought through moves such as presidential ordinances and references, all of which have fallen through after the SC decision. A corruption-free and credible electoral system is the need of the hour across the board, not just for the Senate, but the government’s misplaced and failed efforts as well as ‘ignoring’ our corrupt political culture hardly provide any efficacious answers.
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