Electoral System of Pakistan

Muhammad Sufyan

The electoral system of a country encompasses a range of key ingredients including how votes are cast, counted, and are translated into representation as well as on the basis of voting methods. Various types of voting and choosing the representatives have been introduced like, first-past-the-post and proportional representation, the former voting system is based on obtaining majority votes to get the representation in the legislative assembly and the latter describe about how much percentage of votes a political party get during election and on the basis of percentage that political party secure seats in the legislative assembly.

Soon after the inception of Pakistan, the political leaders inculcated the democracy into the electoral process for choosing the representatives among the people. But it has been witnessing various loopholes in this system since that time. In democracy, people express their choice for electing their representatives through their votes and then their votes are translated into representation. But there is a dilemma in the developing countries that all the political elites resort to political tactics including illicit means to manipulate the people at greater level. In Pakistan, all the elections have been denounced by the opposition parties as rigged, raising concerns about the fairness and the transparency in the elections. There are many loopholes in our electoral process which need to be overhauled for the fairness and the transparency in the elections.

The political parties which are holding power seek to make amendments in electoral process which move towards their own advantage, causing the disarray among the people and other political parties and making people compel to storm the streets for the change in the electoral process. There are two key examples of changes in the electoral process: Kenya and Mexico, in 1990 and 2000 substandard elections led to revolutionize the electoral system which led towards the overthrown of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, had held power for over 70 years in Mexico. Since then, election commission has been working within its domain to maintain fairness and transparency in general elections.

Political parties in power make specific appointments in the election commission. How fairness and transparency are expected from a commission that itself created on favouritism and partiality? Can a political party nominate members of ECP to conduct fair elections? The Representative of Peoples’ Act allows candidate to spend minimum 1.5m rupees in provincial elections and 2m in general elections which only hereditary rich candidate can afford. This predicament which once affected the more developed political system of the UK, George Orwell wrote that “The English electoral system is all but open fraud in a dozen obvious ways, it is gerrymandered in the interest of the moneyed class.”

The transparency of the election is based on the electoral laws of the country. ECP is obliged to conduct fair and transparent election without partiality and favouritism, leading towards increased confidence of the people on the ECP. It is required for ECP to oversee the fairness and transparency in elections, which will ensure impartiality, strengthen democracy in true meaning, and foster plurality and inclusiveness in political affairs which are the bedrocks of a robust democracy.

Writer is Student at Qauid e Azam University Islamabad and he can be reached at [email protected]