The Tehrik Minhaj-ul-Quran held their 'save the state not politics rally' at Minar-e-Pakistan last week. Tahir-ul-Qadri demanded, "If the next election is held without electoral reforms, it will be unconstitutional and people will not accept the results".
The ECP role is limited to monitoring posters, hoardings, banners, wall-chalking, and therefore excludes other campaign tactics and means of distributing election propaganda, including, but not limited to radio and electronic media. This correspondent carried out a survey of several non-governmental organisations and asked them what they thought were critical shortcomings of the code of conduct and election laws. The following were their major concerns:
(i) The ECP has no policy which provides political parties equal access and opportunity to purchase advertising on state and private media.
(ii) Consistent with all stakeholder desires for an inclusive and peaceful election, the ECP has no intention to review the manifestos of contesting parties to ensure that the entities themselves are not founded on the basis of sectarianism or that they promote sectarianism or discriminate against women.
(iii) The issue of the transportation of voters requires creative problem-solving in the absence of legislative reform. Nevertheless, in the absence of legislative reform, the ECP should detail its plan to ensure that tens of millions of voters are not disenfranchised due to a lack of transportation options. Additionally, this disenfranchisement would disproportionately impact women, rural and poor voters, and others in areas with security challenges.
(iv) The ECP's position and planned response to those parties, candidates, and supporters that intentionally seek to prohibit women from becoming candidates or exercising their right to vote is yet to clear in the code of conduct and other electoral laws.
(v) The issue of election expenses is not clear. It is not practical to require all expenses to be entered with GST registered firms. GST firms are largely absent outside of major urban areas and virtually non-existent in KP, Balochistan, and FATA.
(vi) The ECP has not finalised its plan to provide adequate security to parties, candidates, supporters and voters on election day, particularly in KP, FATA, Balochistan, and urban areas with sensitive polling stations.
(vii) The ECP has yet to make public their plan to ensure that security, intelligence, and military agencies are prohibited from conducting political activities of any kind and from supporting or opposing any candidate.
(viii) The use of places of worship for campaign purposes should be banned as provided under the Representation of the People Act 1976. The ECP has yet to chalk out plan for this.
(ix) It is in the political parties' interests to ensure that their supporters are aware of proper procedures for marking and casting votes in secrecy. However, primary responsibility for voter education lies principally with the ECP and not with the political parties as suggested. The ECP should implement its voter education campaign, and ensure that the campaign reaches remote areas in regional languages, particularly targeting marginalized communities such as women and in areas where illiteracy is prevalent.