The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf on Friday continued to attack the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on a second consecutive day even after the ECP advised the party to stop mud-slinging and come up with evidence if it had any objection, declaring that the institution would not succumb to any pressure. Soon after the ECP submitted a report to the Senate raising serious questions about the feasibility of holding the next elections with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), a federal minister accused it of taking bribes to rig the polls and suggested that such institutions should be set on fire. Another minister accused the Commission of acting as Opposition’s mouthpiece.
A day earlier, ministers Fawad Chaudhry and Shibli Faraz had also targeted the ECP and its chief for criticism and had accused him of toeing the opposition’s line. It is fairly obvious that these are choreographed, orchestrated and synchronised attacks on the commission and they have a clear outcome in mind. This outcome may or may not have anything to do with the various ministers’ verbalised desires that the chief election commissioner should resign, but it does point towards an obvious government intent to drag the commission and its chief’s name through mud and make it controversial.
Both were served notices by the ECP. This failed however to produce a moderating effect as attempts continued to browbeat the Commission in general and the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC)in particular. Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry even prodded the Commission members to confront the CEC.The ECP report presented to the Senate Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs raised 37 objections to the introduction of EVMs in the next elections. The Committee was told that the ECP was in favour of technology but it has to be secure and tested and must not be introduced in undue haste.
This is dangerous brinkmanship which can rattle the foundations of the constitutional system that holds the national structure together. Such brinkmanship is being fuelled by incendiary rhetoric as well as inflexible demands of a unilateral nature. Nothing illustrates this approach more than the government’s hardening position on the use of electronic voting machines. It is perplexing that the PTI is insisting on using these machines in the next elections when logic and reason dictate that any electoral reform must be the result of a consensus between all those who will be participating in the elections. This is a self-evident principle for any act that involves more than two participants and entails them agreeing on the rules that would accord legitimacy to the said act.
