The Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, has said that a proposed law related to the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) code of conduct has been sent to the cabinet for approval. According to him, after approval of the law, the Ministers and parliamentarians would be able to attend public gatherings during the election season and run election campaign of their party’s candidates. According to Fawad, the reservations have been raised from both sides of the aisle in the Parliament over the code of conduct of the ECP, while after the amendment, the ECP law would allow parliamentarians to run an election campaign.
Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is an autonomous institution which is responsible for the conduct of a free, fair, and transparent election in the country and for that purpose widely approved electoral laws had been in place during the past. While ECP routinely devises the code of conduct for political parties, candidate as well as public office holders and parliamentarians to ensure transparency and neutrality ahead of election and informs them prior to the run. During the local bodies election in KP and earlier in by polls in several constituencies during the year, the government accused the ECP’s officials of partiality despite using all tactics, techniques, and coercive measures during the contest.
During the local bodies elections in KP, the ECP disqualified the PTI leader, Umar Amin Gandapur, brother of Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs Ali Amin Gandapur, from contesting local body election for violating the Code of Conduct announced by the commission for the elections in the province. Ali Amin Gandapur was fined by the ECP and also barred to enter Dera Ismail Khan during election days, similarly a JUI-F parliamentarian was fined by the Commission for violation of the rule. It is also pertinent to mention that the ECP also warned the Prime Minister Imran Khan not to announce any development project during his visit to Peshawar ahead of local bodies election, but the Premier did not give any importance to such warnings and announced health insurance program for 7.5 million families of the province during that visit. According to experts, the ECP adopts these measures in accordance with Section-233 (code of conduct) and Section-234 (monitoring of election campaign) of the Election Act-2017. The ECP code of conduct is equally binding for the treasury as well as the opposition, but the PTI office holders wanted free hand for using all government resources for party politics as they did despite ECP’s restrictions.
Like the recent electoral reforms, the government has moved an ordinance in the cabinet to limit ECP’s jurisdiction, while stating it, a desire of all parliamentarians including opposition. Hence, the best option was to move the bill in the parliament while taking all stakeholders on board, so a consensus rule could be introduced on the issue. Although, the law will provide an equal opportunity to all parties and their MPs to play role in the electoral process, but the sitting government can manipulate the things in the favor of its candidate through initiation of development projects by using public office and resources. It is to ask the learned Minister that what would be his group’s opinion after a year when the condition of the match will be altered.
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