How will ECP hold polls without institutional support?

ISLAMABAD: While President Dr Arif Alvi has announced the election date for Punjab Assembly in light of the date proposed by Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the arrangements to hold polls are nowhere in sight due to lukewarm response of the government, judiciary and army.

The ECP is in need of Rs20 billion for provincial elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and has demanded the same from the federal government which is reluctant to release the said amount. It has so far issued only Rs5 billion which are insufficient for the election purpose, an ECP source told The News.

The cost of election has escalated mainly due to the situation that arose after the premature dissolution of provincial assemblies.

Earlier, the ECP had estimated the cost of elections to the tune of Rs47 billion but the calculation was made on the assumption that general elections of all provincial assemblies and the National Assembly would be held simultaneously. The cost was revised after the dissolution of two provincial assemblies which now stands at Rs61 billion. For now, the ECP is in need of Rs20 billion but when the cash-strapped and election-shy federal government releases is a million dollar question.

For the purpose of conducting elections, the ECP doesn’t seem to trust bureaucracy at a time when it is highly politicised and assigning them election duties mean creating another controversy of rigging which will mar the entire exercise of making attempts to ensure free and fair elections, the basic constitutional duty of the ECP. This is at a time when bureaucracy has totally been reshuffled with an intention to break the local political connection of bureaucrats with the politicians.

For the purpose of involving judiciary, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) met the Chief Justice of Pakistan a few weeks back in order to use his influence on high courts for deploying district judiciary as returning officers. According to a source, the CJ said he didn’t command influence over the high courts as they are independent in their decisions nevertheless he would convey the message to the chief justices of high courts concerned.

The ECP wrote letters to the chief justices of Lahore and Peshawar high courts. To the former, the CEC also met in person repeating the same request. However, the ECP received a negative response from both high courts meaning thereby they are not ready to spare the sessions judges for this task. What the ECP will do in this situation remains unclear. Under article 220, “it shall be the duty of all executive authorities in the Federation and in the provinces to assist the Commissioner and the Election Commission in the discharge of his or their functions.” But this article doesn’t apply to the judiciary.

The deployment of military and paramilitary forces is yet another challenge. In their reports submitted to the ECP, police chiefs and Punjab and KP had categorically explained the challenges the police force are facing on security fronts and hence won’t be able to ensure smooth holding of elections in absence of any support from other forces. Punjab, for example, has a police force barely of 2 lac; rather the number is slightly less than that included in it is clerical staff. A senior police officer in Punjab while talking to The News said his force alone won’t be sufficient as it is already occupied at different places. Around 10,000 police force is deployed for the security of Chinese and around as many are engaged in operations against gangs in Katcha area whereas seven thousand personnel are on border posts located near sensitive installations. “We can’t pull them out from there,” he said. Right now, our 40,000 personnel are deployed for assistance in the digital census and there is hue and cry from the district police officers who are complaining about the shortage of the force, he said.

The maximum we can spare for the election duty will be less than one lac, he said and demanded around three lac paramilitary and military force if the elections were to be held. Pakistan Army has already regretted in writing to the defence and the interior ministry for sparing their troops for the election duty due to the ongoing operations in KP and Balochistan. Whether ECP would be able to force them to provide troops while invoking article 220 will be seen in coming weeks.