ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government has proposed a number of changes to the Constitution and laws to reform the electoral process with the main suggestion of holding Senate elections through an open vote instead of the current method of secret balloting.

The proposals, placed before the federal cabinet for approval last week, were made public by federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood and Minister for Narcotics Control Azam Swati at a news conference on Wednesday.

The two ministers were members of a special parliamentary committee constituted by National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser in October 2018 on the opposition’s demand to probe charges of rigging in the elections held in July that year.

The committee, however, failed to complete its task owing to a number of reasons, forcing the opposition parties to finally announce its boycott of the committee in June last year.

The committee and a couple of sub-committees, however, continued to function and prepared recommendations to introduce electoral reforms.

39 changes to Constitution, laws suggested to reform electoral process; call for voting right for overseas Pakistanis

In reply to questions, the two ministers said the efforts would be made for evolving a broad-based consensus among all political parties on electoral reforms.

Mr Mahmood said the government had proposed some 39 amendments to election laws to make the voting process more transparent and free and fair.

The government has proposed changes to Senate elections laws at a time when Senate elections are about eight months away.

Mr Swati said they had suggested that elections to the Senate should be held through an open ballot instead of secret ballot to end horse trading and the use of money in the process.

He quoted the example of the 2018 Senate elections when a party, despite having only a few MPAs in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, managed to win two Senate seats from the province.

He recalled that after the Senate elections, Prime Minister Imran Khan had taken action against 20 MPAs of the PTI despite the fact that the party had only a thin majority in the provincial assembly.

The ministers, however, said they had not finalised the method of the open vote which, according to them, could be held through a show of hands, division method or even through submission of lists by political parties.

Mr Swati explained that like elections of the prime minister and chief ministers, which were held through the open vote, the Senate elections could also be held the same way.

The two said they had also suggested that overseas Pakistanis should be granted the right to vote in elections. They said that the government wanted to use biometric system in upcoming elections of Gilgit-Baltistan.

The government also suggested that the biometric verification of voters should be mandatory during general elections.

Under the proposed reforms, it will be mandatory for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to finalise the polling scheme and election plan four months before the date fixed for polling.

The candidates will have the right to challenge posting of any election staff and the setting up of the polling station. In order to ensure impartiality and transparency, it has been suggested that the polling staff to be deployed at a polling station will be taken from other tehsils

Strict punishment of up to three-year imprisonment has been suggested for presiding officers if they commit any illegal act, including ejection of polling agents from polling stations at the time of vote counting.

The ministers said that in previous elections, there had been complaints that polling agents of some candidates had been expelled from polling stations at the time of counting.

Mr Mahmood said they had suggested that political parties should submit names of their candidates for special women and minority seats after holding of general elections to give a chance to unsuccessful potential candidates. Moreover, the party leadership will be able to change the lists any time.

Mr Swati recalled that in the past, a member who was at number two in the PTI list of minority members in the KP Assembly had murdered the elected MPA only to become a lawmaker.

The minister said that candidates would get electronic list of voters 30 days before the polling. He said that candidates would also be able to download the voters’ lists. Similarly, he said, the ECP would be given a four-month deadline for carrying out delimitation of constituencies.

Mr Swati said that since they did not have two-thirds majority in parliament, they would be needing the support of other parties. He asked media to be vigilant and point out the parties which would oppose these amendments. He said that after the approval of the federal cabinet, they would present these reforms in the form of a constitution amendment bill in the parliament where opposition parties would get a chance to discuss and review them in committees as well as in the house.

Mr Mehmood said the government wanted to implement proposed reforms with consensus.

In reply to a question, he said that no decision had so far been taken about the use of electronic voting machines in elections.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2020