close
Thursday March 28, 2024

Pakistan bars criticism of institutions, India doesn’t

By Ahmad Noorani
June 16, 2018

ISLAMABAD: The Code of Conduct for general elections 2018 issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is almost a copy of the model code of conduct issued by Election Commission of India in 2014 except two basic differences and Indian code being more elaborative.

Both ‘codes of conduct’ talk about strictly following constitution, election laws and rules and guidelines, taking proper permission before any public rallies and processions and following procedure and observe decorum during election proceedings on the polling day. Both ‘codes of conduct’ strictly bar propagating or levelling unverified allegations or criticising personal lives of candidates.

Any violation of code conduct will be considered as illegal or corrupt practice. Under point 61 of the ECP’s code of conduct, any violation of code of conduct shall entail punitive action i.e. declaring an election void for corrupt/illegal practices.

The 2nd point of ECP’s code of conduct, comprising total 62 points, bars political parties and candidates from making any opinion which defames or brings into ridicule the judiciary or the armed forces. However, there is no mention of any bar on justified criticism on institutions in model code of conduct of India from which the Pakistani code of conduct is copied. Fair criticism is not prohibited in any part of the democratic world rather criticism on judgment of the judiciary is welcomed.

Second basic and interesting difference between these two ‘codes of conduct’ is that Indian model code of conduct strictly bars distribution of liquor during campaign or on the polling day while the Pakistani code of conduct bans forwarding any kind of favour to voters during campaign or the election process.

ECP’s code of conduct has a very important Point-27 which strictly bans printing of pictures of government officials on any publicity or election material. Point-27 reads, “27- In no case the picture of government official shall be printed on any publicity material by any political party/candidate/election agent.” However, a political party has been continuously using pictures of heads of some institutions who are government servants and which is a blatant violation of ECP’s code of conduct. ECP has yet to move against this shameful violation.

Point 2 of the 2014 model code of conduct issued by Election Commission of India reads; “Criticism of other political parties, when made, shall be confined to their policies and programmes, past record and work. Parties and candidates shall refrain from criticism of all aspects of private life, not connected with the public activities of the leaders or workers of other parties. Criticism of other parties or their workers based on unverified allegations or distortion shall be avoided.”

Whereas the point 46 of 2018 code of conduct issued by the ECP reads, “46- Criticism of other political parties and opponent candidates shall be confined to their policies and programmes, past record and work. Parties and candidates shall refrain from criticism of any aspect of private life, not connected with the public activities of the leaders or workers of other parties. Criticism based on unverified allegations and distortion of facts shall be avoided.” Whereas the point 47 of ECP’ code of conduct reads, “47- The political parties, contesting candidates, election agents and their supporters shall refrain from deliberate dissemination of false and malicious information and shall not indulge in forgeries and disinformation to defame other political parties/leaders. The use of abusive language against the leaders and candidates shall be avoided at all costs.”

Similarly point 5 of 2014 model code of conduct reads, “The right of every individual for peaceful and undisturbed home-life shall be respected, however much the political parties or candidates may resent his political opinions or activities. Organising demonstrations or picketing before the houses of individuals by way of protesting against their opinions or activates shall not be resorted to under any circumstances.” Whereas the point-48 of 2018 ECP’s code of conduct reads, “48- The right of every individual for peaceful and undisturbed private life shall be respected, irrespective of any resentment that a political party or a candidate may have against such individual for his political opinion or activities. Organising demonstrations or picketing before the house of such individual with a view to protesting against his political opinion or activities shall be prohibited under all circumstances.”

Similarly, almost 80 percent of points in ECP’s 2018 code of conduct are taken from 2014 model code of conduct issued by Election Commission of India.

The point-15 of ECP’ code of conduct strictly prohibits political parties from exerting undue pressures on media. Point-15 reads, “15- The political parties, candidates and election agents shall firmly restrain their workers from exerting undue pressure against the print and electronic media, including newspapers’ offices and printing presses, or resorting to violence of any kind against the media.”

Point-6 of the ECP’s code of conduct reads, “6- The political parties shall endeavour to provide equal opportunity to its qualified members both men and women to participate in electoral process and, while making the selection of candidates on general seats in an assembly, the party shall ensure at least five percent representation of women candidates as required under Section 206 of the Act.” The party ticket awarded so far or expected to be awarded by leading political parties show that this five percent condition to award ticket to women to contest general seats will be violated by all. How ECP will act against a violation is a question that will be answered in days to come.

Point-61 of the ECP’s code of conduct reads, “61- Article 218(3) of the Constitution empowers the ECP to guard against the corrupt practices i.e. bribery, personation, undue influence, capturing of polling station or polling booth, tampering with papers and making or publishing a false statement or declaration, exceeding the limit of election expenses etc. The violation of code of conduct shall entail punitive action i.e. declaring an election void for corrupt/illegal practices.”