And there is good rationale for that. If God forbid the Qadris, Sheikh Rasheeds and Chaudhry Shujaats of this world succeed in getting the system derailed today, the country is not ready for another election under the same set of rules that were applicable on May 11, 2013. If a consensus chief election commissioner and neutral caretaker governments, both provided under the constitution, could not ensure a free and fair election, something definitely is amiss.

Fortunately, the prime minister’s call for a parliamentary committee to take up the issue of electoral reforms has not gone unheeded. So far, the political parties have agreed to nominate their members to a committee that is supposed to finish this exercise in a three month period.

We at The News on Sunday too have jumped on this opportunity and propose a set of reforms that we think can turn this into a more meaningful exercise. This is a historic opportunity, Tahir Mehdi reminds us, for the Election Commission of Pakistan "to find permanent solutions to its problems". He thinks there are enough legal spaces available and the ECP could be its own Messiah, just like T.N. Seshan turned the election commission around in India.

How far can the parliamentary committee help the ECP in assuming the role of a Messiah is anybody’s guess but it can surely lay down rules for institutions that operate outside the ECP -- like the election tribunals, for example.

We at TNS strongly feel that this Committee should do away with the constitutional amendment that provides for caretaker governments to conduct the election. Caretaker governments duplicate, quite unnecessarily, the role of the ECP. In all democratic dispensations, it is the ECP that assumes the role of the caretaker government and that is the institution that needs to be empowered.

Beyond these broad changes, we trust the parliamentary wisdom to deal with the nitty gritty of reform.