The ECP amendment

The unanimous passage in the National Assembly of the 22nd Amendment to the constitution, which will likely be followed by a unanimous vote in the Senate, will finally bring some much-need reform to the Election Commission of Pakistan. As of now, the chief election commissioner and other members of the ECP have to be retired members of the judiciary. Once the amendment is ratified, retired technocrats and civil servants will also be able to occupy the posts. This change is welcome since the functions of the ECP are not purely legalistic. As the controversies over the local government elections showed, the ECP has to make decisions that require both political and technical understanding. On the issue of delimitation, for example, a legal background is not as important as an understanding of how political parties try to gerrymander safe seats for themselves. It is also beneficial that the pool of possible candidates for these posts have widened.

Members of the ECP are appointed by the government with the approval of the leader of the opposition and the process has become an arduous one, with the parties rarely agreeing on a choice. When Fakhruddin Ebrahim stepped down as chief election commissioner in 2013, it took the government and opposition parties more than a year to agree on a replacement and even required Supreme Court intervention. At such a time, the chief justice of the Supreme Court used to automatically become the acting CEC, hardly an ideal solution since heading the election commission is a full-time job. Now, the senior-most member of the ECP will temporarily take over in case of a vacancy. The second change brought about by the  amendment is that each province must have at least one ECP member. This, too, is a commonsense change which should reduce complaints about how the body is Punjab-centric. The four members of the ECP are due to end their five-year terms next month so it was important to pass the 22nd Amendment now. Of the four new members, two will serve only two-and-a-half years so that appointments to the ECP are staggered and it is ensured that the electoral body is not dominated by the picks of only one government. At this time of political tension, when the government and opposition parties are at loggerheads, it can be seen as a small sign of progress that they were able to come together to pass this amendment in the National Assembly. Now is the time to explore further common ground and introduce similar reforms rather than refighting the same political battles over and over again.