Framework problems in holding free elections

Farhatullah Babar

The prime minister in his first address pledged to undertake election reforms and ensure free and fair elections and the Chief Election Commissioner has reportedly set up a committee for electoral reforms. Around the same time, the European Union made public its report on the Feb 18 elections, according to which there are "enduring problems with the framework and conditions for elections in Pakistan." It spoke of "suspicious results, implausibly high turnouts and questionable margins of victory" in a number of constituencies. There are several "framework problems" that inhibit free and fair elections but the one that stands out above every other is the role of the intelligence agencies. "Enduring problems" and "suspicious results" will continue to haunt our elections until the intelligence agencies are restrained from playing politics. That they have been manipulating elections and denying the people their mandate is now common knowledge. On Feb 24 The News published a report under the caption "The man who rigged '02 polls admits it all, blames Musharraf." It was based on a talk of the newspaper's correspondent with a former major general and number two in the ISI, who revealed how the agency had manipulated the 2002 general elections by using the NAB and other instruments. Although the former officer issued a clarification the next day, it actually appeared to confirm what he was quoted to have said in the report. The clarification, sent to a news agency and not to The News or its correspondent, claimed that the ISI did nothing on Election Day, but admitted that the agency played a role in "political management prior to the election." It claimed that the agency had been involved in such political management since 1975 under the directions of the government. The former Agency officer also bemoaned that his personal views had been played up by The News as if it was a confessional statement of wrong doing. He may have been right in complaining, as he did, that his personal views had been played up, by The News, but that did not alter the reality that the agency had been engaged in what he called political management before the polls, which is nothing but election rigging. Former Democratic majority leader in the US Senate, Tom Daschle, visited Pakistan in October last year at the head of an international delegation. Addressing a press conference on Oct 21 he said that the delegation had reasons to believe that attempts were made by the ISI and other security forces to manipulate the electoral process. These attempts, he said, included, "efforts to influence local officials responsible for elections administration and to convince certain individuals not to seek their parties' nomination or to switch allegiances." Isn't it "political management prior to the elections"? Daschle raised the matter with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, but nothing came out of it. A former head of the same agency has publicly stated how he helped bring together some political parties on one platform and carved out the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) in 1988 to prevent the PPP from forming a government on its own. When asked about the agency's role in the elections he admitted in an interview with a Karachi-based monthly magazine that "only conditions were created that were favourable to certain results (in the elections)." If this is not election manipulation and rigging, what else it is? For a long time he insisted that he did no wrong. To his credit, however, he recently admitted that what he did was a mistake. Yet another former head of the same agency submitted a sworn affidavit that he distributed 140 million rupees taken from a private banker among politicians and political parties. That affidavit is on the record of the Supreme Court, where the case is pending since 1997. No one knows who authorised the executive to draw from the bank's public money and donate it to the agency. The Army chief at the time later claimed that he had directed the agency to ensure proper audit and disbursement of the amount placed at its disposal. Surprisingly, he did not ask the agency as to who authorised collection of the funds and for what purpose it had been given to the agency. When political parties are cheated and the people's mandate is stolen by the intelligence agencies, when the manipulators in these agencies themselves confess to stealing the mandate and when independent foreign observes question the "faulty framework" of elections, it is time that reforms are undertaken and the agencies are stopped from meddling in politics and elections. Indeed, without the reformation of the agencies no election reforms would be meaningful. For the reformation of the agencies the political wing of the ISI should be disbanded. It has been claimed that the wing was set up through an executive order in the mid-Seventies. If that indeed is true, it would take no more than another executive order to disband it. The MI, ISI and IB should be barred from meddling in elections and putting together political parties. Such meddling should be made a criminal offence by a civil court for any military official or intelligence official found so involved. The chain of command of the intelligence agencies should be clearly defined and enforced. The position taken by the government before the Supreme Court in the missing persons' case on April 27 last year that in their operations the ISI was not under the control of the defence or Interior Ministries is absurd. Those who have any interest in fair and free elections must demand that the covert and overt involvement of our agencies in manipulating elections must be exposed and finally terminated. Select Committees of the parliament must be allowed to question the agencies. This attitude that patriotism and safeguarding national interest is the sole prerogative of the agencies and that criticising them gives comfort to the enemy is most hypocritical and has only undermined the security of the country. Elected representatives in the parliamentary committees are no less patriotic and no less guardians of national interest. The explanation generally offered, that the agencies allowed themselves to be involved in political activities because the government of the day asked them to do so, is spurious and most naïve. Every member of the armed forces is under oath not to engage in any political activity. To say that they violated their oath on the instructions of the government is a poor reflection on the officers too readily agreeing to violate their solemn oath and cannot be accepted. The writer is a former PPP senator and served on the Senate's human rights committee. Email: drkhshan@isb.comsats.net.pk