LAHORE: While being at the helm of affairs, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has demanded that the Election Commission should be disbanded over its failure to conduct the recent Senate elections in a transparent manner.
The PTI has not come up with a demand such as this for the first time. After the 2013 ballot exercise, which had seen Nawaz Sharif coming into power for the third time, the loudest voice in the opposition, Imran Khan, had repeatedly accused Nawaz of rigging the polls.
In August 2015, he had announced to hold a sit-in in front of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) offices in Islamabad if its members did not tender their resignations by October 4 of the same year. “The ECP officials have no legal or moral standing left and they should immediately resign,” Imran had publicly asserted.
Imran had also demanded resignation of the-then National Database and Registration Authority chairman, alleging he was part of the covering-up cartel too. On August 31, 2015, it was widely reported in local media that the members of the Election Commission had decided not to submit their resignations under pressure from opposition parties of the country.
Imran was quoted as saying: “Malpractices and illegalities, while conducting elections, are a criminal offence. Hence, we demand that ECP take action against those who stole the people’s mandate.”
But it is not just the PTI leadership that has been critical of the election watchdog in Pakistan. On July 27, 2018, Pakistan People’s Party chairperson, Bilawal Bhutto, had rejected the July 25 elections were not free and fair.
While addressing a press conference, Bilawal had demanded the chief election commissioner to resign over failure to conduct transparent polls, adding that the electoral body had failed to do the task assigned to it.
The latest demand of the PTI government functionaries is not surprising or outlandish at all because numerous election commissioners and other high-ranking officials of bodies overseeing polling exercises in both troubled and established democracies have either opted to resign due to administrative issues in not-so-distant past or were shown the door to be consequently convicted on allegations of widespread rigging.
Research conducted by the “Jang Group and Geo Television Network” shows that such incidents have been more common in fragile, budding or sham global democracies with fragmented political structures.
In October 2018, Claire Bassett, the head of the British Electoral Commission had quit following a series of claims that the body had been biased against BREXIT (the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union).
In January 2018, Chairman of Maldives’ Elections Commission, Ahmed Sulaiman, had called it a day amid an ongoing dispute over the controversial removal of 12 parliamentarians and his failure to hold by-elections within the legally mandated time frame. In October 2017, a top Kenyan electoral official had resigned, casting shadows over the presidential vote, which was just eight days away.
Roselyn Akombe had quit as a commissioner of Kenya’s electoral board by issuing a statement from New York saying the rerun of the presidential election scheduled for October 26, 2017 could not be free and fair.
In July 2006, three of Thailand’s election commissioners were jailed by the Bangkok Criminal Court for four years on charges of mishandling the country’s elections as there were widespread concerns over the poll’s legitimacy.
The verdict was a blow to the-then incumbent Thai Premier, Thaksin Shinawatra, as the Election Commission had been seen as his ally.
In India, which is deemed to organise the biggest electoral exercise in the world with minimum fuss and complaints, a Maharashtra state Chief Electoral Officer, Nand Lal, was sentenced in March 2008 to two-day custody for alleged breach of privilege.
On August 18, 2020, Indian Election Commissioner, Ashok Lavasa, resigned from his post, and submitted his resignation to President Ram Nath Kovind.
In August 2013, an election commissioner in the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission had left job over doubts about the integrity of results showing a big win for President Robert Mugabe’s political party.
In October 2011, according to the Voice of America, the chairman of Liberia’s Electoral Commission, James Fromayan, had hung his boots because of threats by the country’s leading opposition party to boycott November’s presidential runoff.
In September 2012, Louceny Camara, the President of Guinea’s National Independent Election Commission had announced his resignation on state television following accusations that he was using his office to delay the elections.
In June 2015, Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhail, the chief of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission has resigned amid accusations that he had rigged vote results to favour Ashraf Ghani, one of the candidates in the country’s Presidential election.
In January 2007, Bangladesh’s Chief Election Commissioner, Justice M.A. Aziz, had resigned from the post, citing a major political alliance’s lack of confidence in him and to avert further political unrest in the country.
In 2014, the entire board of Iraq’s electoral commission tendered its resignation in protest against political interference, casting doubt on a future nationwide voting exercise.
On July 31, 2013, Pakistan’s CEC Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim had resigned from his post, a week after the Supreme Court had ordered the Commission to hold presidential polls on July 30, ahead of its original schedule of August 6. It is a rarity but some Election Commissioners like Caroline Hunter, a Republican commissioner on the American Federal Election Commission, had also left job after they had failed to co-exist with colleagues.
