‘Economic, social structures need basic changes’
By Haroon Ishaq for The Daily Times September 21, 2014#KARACHI: #Electoral #reforms alone would not be effective, as economic and social structures also need rudimentary changes for sustainable and true #democracy. Parliament should be representative body of masses not the elite class, said speakers at a #seminar on electoral reforms organised by Joint Action Committee (#JAC) at Pakistan Medical Association (#PMA) house, Karachi.
‘Electoral Reforms: Issues, Opportunities and Challenges’, the seminar was among the chain of events being organised by the civil society to debate and extract recommendations in regard to assist Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms.
Karamat Ali Executive Director Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) discussing historical background of the political and electoral system of the country said the elite class who were using it against the masses has hijacked it. The current electoral and political system in the country is running on the lines of British Raj, which aimed to strengthen the position of upper class.
He said it was good break through we were discussing about reforms. In our political system the democratic norm do not exists, it is a fact election from National to local level are being raged by different means using force, taking advantage of leaks in the electoral system as well as exploiting the state institutions to change the results of the pools.
Somehow election inside the parties and unions are also raged which shows we lack the democratic mindset at primary level, although it is a phase of development of democracy but now the time has come we should move towards the change by implying effective reforms.
He called the current assemblies elected but not representative where the minor elite class who were exploiting power against the whole population captured 85 percent of seats. Only the representatives who stand up from within the victimised and less privileged social classes can represent and depend their collective rights in the parliament. He said the whole process of election needs changes, from within party election to the functioning of the election commission there are plenty of gapes in the process, which needs to be fixed.
Dr Riaz Ahmed Shaikh head of Social Sciences Department at Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology University said current faults in the electoral process were not just binding to the government of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz but the system was lacking the basic structure, which could promote free and fare elections.
The process of census should complete on priority basis without which the process of electoral rolls can never be fair. Population of Federally Administered Tribal Areas constitutes a decisive number but was deprived of basic right to be a part of electoral process.
Faheem Zaman of Dawn Elections Cell presented a multimedia presentation on the statistics of election in the country and said the government institutions lacked sufficient data to prove the voter trends.
He said, “Both the government and the opposition parties are not acting on an ideal electoral process within, they are violating the sanctity of the elections to protect the political interests.”
He said in many cases the running off parties put allegations of raging, but they were not able to fulfil the basic legal formalities, which showed lack of awareness and non-seriousness towards the real reforms in the electoral process.
Electoral process is system of learning, reforms are not expected overnight we have to learn from the weaknesses of the system and move towards strengthening the institutions. The civil society and trade unions are not strong enough and the parliament should be strengthened to defend the rights of less privileged classes.
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