LAHORE: What to talk of countries like Pakistan where democracy is yet to bloom fully and is still in an infancy stage by most respects, political trickery and resultant accusations of electoral malpractices still continue to cast a shadow on the purity and integrity of ballot exercises held in oldest and most civilized mass democracies like the United States and the United Kingdom, besides haunting the largest democracy like India, where about 911 million people are eligible to exercise their right of franchise.
Unfortunately, the vulnerability of electoral systems has always been the prospect that the losing side will not accept the outcome. And it happens in every nook and corner of the world.
We have recently seen that happening in the United States where outgoing President Donald Trump thought he has been ‘robbed’ of victory by his triumphant successor Joe Biden.
It is no secret that the March 7, 1977 elections in Pakistan remain the most controversial of all such exercises held in the country till date, and has had the worst consequences.
Conducted to elect 200 members of the National Assembly, this ballot exercise was the second of its kind in country’s history. The result was a landslide victory for the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto-led Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which won 155 seats. Meanwhile, Bhutto’s adversaries, the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), could bag only 36 seats. The PPP’s victory meant Bhutto would continue as prime minister.
However, the PNA accused the PPP of rigging the elections, and refused to accept the result. Although allegations of rigging were denied by the PPP, the claims made by the PNA sparked unrest that resulted in mass demonstrations and violent anti-Bhutto protests which later resulted in a coup.
In India, as many continue to forget, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was convicted of election fraud on June 12, 1975. The fraud allegations pertained to her successful 1971 campaign.
Despite calls for her resignation, Indira refused to give up India’s top office and later declared emergency rule in the country when public demonstrations had threatened to topple her administration.
In the United States, the oldest mass democracy in the world by most measures, numerous presidential elections have been dubbed controversial by country’s media as candidates bagging most votes were deprived by the system of assuming the throne. But this was a flaw in the system.
As far as allegations of rigging, ballot stuffing and voter intimidation etc are concerned, this is what the “National Geographic” had contended in its November 11, 2020 report: “American politics have always been rude and rumbustious – and, on occasions, rigged. In the 1876 election, disenfranchisement sparked a constitutional crisis. There were widespread accusations of voter intimidation, fraudulent ballots, ballot box stuffing, and even Republican voters being denied boxes in which to put their votes — a move directed at Black voters, who at the time predominantly voted Republicans”.
The magazine had viewed: “During the 19th and early 20th centuries, powerful networks known as political machines typically controlled local votes, through cronyism, bribes, and an ability to get out the vote — consolidating political, social, and financial power in the hands of a few. Election fraud was so prevalent than that it spawned its own vocabulary — “floaters” were people who cast ballots for more than one party and “repeaters” were those who voted multiple times. Attempts to thwart the tactics became part of both parties’ strategy”.
History tells us that during 1910, an Ohio State judge had brought to trial and convicted 1,690 voters – 26 percent of the whole electorate – for selling their votes. In urban areas, political gangs had openly used violence to carry elections.
Although not many fingers have been raised over the integrity of the British elections, the 2008 report of the Council of Europe had revealed: “The United Kingdom delivers democratic elections despite the vulnerabilities in its electoral system. These vulnerabilities could easily affect the overall democratic nature of future elections in Great Britain”.
Similarly, a widely-cited report on British electoral system was written in 2008 by Prof Stuart Wilks-Heeg of the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Liverpool and David Shutt, a former mayor, a parliamentary candidate in every election between 1970 and 1992 and a trustee of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, which had commissioned/published this research document.
The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd, founded in 1904 by the Liberal, Quaker philanthropist, Joseph Rowntree, was set up as a company which pays tax on its income and claims to give grants for political and campaigning purposes, to promote democratic reform and constitutional change.
The report titled “Purity of elections in the UK” had stated: “Experienced election observers have raised serious concerns about how well the UK election procedures measure up to international standards. There have been at least 42 convictions for electoral fraud in the UK in the period 2000–2007. Greater use of postal voting has made the UK elections far more vulnerable to fraud and resulted in several instances of large-scale fraud. There is widespread and justifiable concern about both the comprehensiveness and the accuracy of the UK’s electoral registers – the poor state of the registers potentially compromises the integrity of the ballot”.
The research document had added: “There is a genuine risk of electoral integrity being threatened by previously robust systems of electoral administration having reached ‘breaking point’ as a result of pressures imposed in recent years. Public confidence in the electoral process in the UK was the lowest in Western Europe in 1997, and has almost certainly declined further as a result of the extension of postal voting. The benefits of postal and electronic voting have been exaggerated, particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion. There is substantial evidence to suggest that money can have a powerful impact on the outcome of general elections, particularly where targeted at marginal constituencies over sustained periods of time”.
The authors of this eyebrow-raising report related to British electoral system had further held: “Outside of ministerial circles, there is a widespread view that a fundamental overhaul of the UK electoral law, administration and policy is urgently required. Since 2000, accusations of electoral malpractice have been investigated by every police force in England, with the exception of the City of London police. Convictions for electoral fraud, which represent a small proportion of the cases reported to police forces have been brought against representatives of all three major parties as well as minor parties such as the British National Party”.
The report writers opined: “While the majority of prosecutions for electoral offences concern white males, several cases have involved proven instances of large-scale vote rigging within British-Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that practices associated with traditional forms of Pakistani ‘clan politics’ have been a common factor in a significant minority of recent prosecutions for electoral fraud. There is no evidence to date suggesting that electoral malpractice has occurred as a result of pilots of various forms of electronic voting. However, serious questions about the security of electronic voting from organised fraud remain unanswered. Meanwhile, pilots of electronic counting have revealed multiple instances of votes being counted incorrectly”.
