August 10; PILDAT has released the third quarterly Citizens Monitoring Report on State of Electoral Reforms in Pakistan: Implementation of the ECP 5-Year Strategic Plan.

The report concludes that the Election Commission of Pakistan only achieved 54.20% progress on its stated objectives during the preceding quarter, ending on June 30, 2012.

President Zardari�s dual office and its implications for the coming General Election are becoming more and more serious with each passing day. On June 27, 2012, a full bench of the Lahore High Court called upon the President of Pakistan to give up his political activities by September 5 in accordance with a May 12, 2011 judgment given by a larger bench against the holding of the office of PPP co-chairman also by him. On April 17, 2012 a newspaper had alleged that the President of Pakistan, Mr. Asif Zardari had violated the code of conduct issued by the ECP when he visited Multan on April 14, 2012 and met Mr. Usman Bhatti, the PPP candidate just two days after the ECP had issued the election code for the by-election in PP-194, Multan I.

This quarter has also been significant for the verdict of the Supreme Court on the Constitution Petition No. 87 of 2011 (Workers Party Pakistan v. Federation of Pakistan, etc.) that was issued on June 8, 2012. Where on the one hand the judgement upheld the legal provision of expense limit for candidates for the National and Provincial Assemblies elections, it also ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan to put in place mechanisms to ensure election expense limits are not violated by the candidates. Apparently going beyond its remit, however, the Supreme Court also ventured into what constitutes policy areas best left to the Government and the Parliament as well as political parties of Pakistan to take, such as first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, compulsory voting, run-off election, and none of the above (NOTA) options in the ballot paper, etc.

The ECP once again missed the deadline of May 27, 2012 of producing Final Electoral Rolls (FERs). This was the deadline that the ECP had set for itself despite the direction of the Supreme Court to complete the process by February 23, 2012. The original deadline set for itself for completing final electoral rolls was December 2011. It is, therefore, after a delay of 7 months, that the ECP has announced completion of the Final Electoral Rolls on July 31, 2012.

It remains to be seen that to what extent the ECP has been able to rectify the mistakes and update the electoral rolls. This is an extremely serious matter as all past efforts to prepare credible electoral rolls have failed in Pakistan despite spending huge sums of money.

From April to June 2012, delay by the Parliamentary Committee on Appointment of Chief Election Commissioner and Members of the Election Commission of Pakistan remained another cause of concern in agreeing on the appointment of the new Chief Election Commissioner. The committee finally agreed on the name of Justice (Retd.) Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim as the Chief Election Commissioner of Pakistan on July 9, 2012. Notification for the appointment of the CEC was issued by the President on July 13, 2012 and it is only after an inexplicable delay of 10 days that the CEC was finally administered oath by the Chief Justice of Pakistan on July 23, 2012. It is worth noting that the outgoing Chief Election Commissioner completed his term on March 23, 2012. Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan, occupied the office of the Acting CEC in the interim period of about 4 months.

Based on the Supreme Court verdict, the Election Commission of Pakistan issued a detailed directive for bye-election in Multan (NA-151), the seat vacated by Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani after his disqualification, putting in place hitherto untested mechanism essentially of constituency monitors teams by the ECP, mandatory opening of election expense accounts by candidates and providing weekly statements to the ECP and ban on provision of transport to the voters by the candidates on the election day, among other things.

While most of these directives are very welcome initiatives to improve the compliance of electoral laws and rules by the candidates and political parties, the decision to provide transport to voters from distant polling stations at state expense and arranged by the ECP is rather questionable on more than one count. Apparently, establishing more polling stations closer to the population centres would have been a much better option.

Openness and Transparency at the ECP which had seen a very welcome improvement during the past 2 years appeared to have shrunk lately after the departure of the CEC Justice (Retired) Hamid Ali Mirza and Secretary Mr. Ishtiak Ahmad Khan in quick succession. The ECP could not hold any consultation with the Political Parties, Civil Society Organizations and Media during this quarter and the two forums established by the ECP for such consultations, the Civil Society Consultative Forum and the Political Parties Consultative Forum remained dormant during this time.

A high degree of dynamism and activity was witnessed on the part of the Acting CEC during the quarter. He spent long hours in his office after discharging his routine daily duties as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He toured the country extensively and took some important decisions such as the directive of June 27 issued following the Supreme Court judgement on election expenses case.

The ECP and the Supreme Court have moved to enforce the Constitutional bar on dual nationality holders to be members of national and provincial legislatures. The steps taken by the ECP and the Supreme Court in enforcing these constitutional provisions will go a long way in strengthening the rule of law in the country. In the Senate Election, the ECP included a declaration in the nomination forms about the status of nationality of each candidate. The Supreme Court suspended the membership of 3 PPPP legislators on the basis of holding dual nationality during the reporting period. On June 6, the Supreme Court also ruled that the federal and provincial legislators who processed dual citizenship at the time of filing their nomination papers and did not validly renounce it then were disqualified to hold office.

The Provincial Governments continued to defy their duty to hold Local Government Elections. The Judiciary, however, moved to ensure holding of Local Government Elections. On April 12, 2012, Supreme Court of Pakistan asked the Provincial Governments to immediately announce the schedule of local government elections. By May 2, only the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) had announced that it would hold Local Government election in October-November 2012 after the passage of Local Government legislation in the KP Assembly.

In a significant departure from the usual practice, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs approved a package of electoral reforms proposing 50 amendments to electoral laws on May 28. It is, however, not clear whether Government will initiate a bill to amend the electoral laws or it will be moved by members of the standing committee as a private member�s bill. Despite the hard work of the sub-committee, the ruling coalition is very slow in initiating the formal legislative process to amend the electoral laws and give effect to the proposed electoral reforms.

Looking at the implementation of the ECP 5 year Strategic Plan in this backdrop, PILDAT assesses that the Election Commission has only managed to make 40% progress on seventy nine (79) objectives which were scheduled to be achieved by the Election Commission of Pakistan by June 30, 2012^[1] and 14% progress on 44 objectives, whose realization is due after June 30, 2012. The overall progress on the Strategic Plan is estimated to be 54% (40% + 14%) as of June 30, 2012.

Overall progress for all the 15 Goals was assessed to be 53% as of March 31, 2012.

The progress made on Strategic Plan goals from April 1, 2012 to June 30, 2012 is as follows:

Goal # 2: Electoral Rolls

Goal # 2 is the most important goal of the Strategic Plan pertaining to Improvement in the Registration of Credible, Accurate, Up-to-date and Accessible Electoral Rolls. During this period, the ECP was unable to print and make available the Final Electoral Rolls (FERs). The electoral rolls are not even available for the Political Parties to view. The ECP had committed a date of May 27, 2012 for the Electoral Rolls to be ready, however, the ECP could not complete the Electoral Rolls by the committed date. According to the Strategic Plan, this goal was originally planned to be achieved by December 31, 2011. There is, therefore, a delay of nearly 6 months in achieving this goal.

It is estimated that this Goal has achieved 90% progress so far, an increase of 1% point since March 31, 2012 when the progress on this Goal was estimated to be 89%.

Goal # 3: Election Operations

Goal # 3 of the Strategic Plan also made some progress. The Recruitment and Hiring system of temporary staff advanced from 10% progress as on March 31, 2012 to 25 % on June 30, 2012.

It is estimated that the overall progress of the Goal has increased to 30% as of June 30, 2012 compared to 29% progress on March 31, 2012.

Goal # 6: Logistics, Infrastructure and Equipment for ECP

Another Goal that witnessed progress during the Quarter was Goal 6: Logistics, Infrastructure and Equipment for ECP. The purchase of computers, Scanners and Printers etc. advanced from 10%% progress as of March 31, 2012 to 65% on June 30th, 2012 and another objective Adopt a policy for engaging private vehicles for elections has secured 25%.

It is estimated that the overall progress of the Goal has advanced to 38% as of June 30, 2012 compared to 30% progress on March 31, 2012.

Goal # 7: Human Resources � Staffing and Compensation

The Objective �Prepare the ECP officials for the roles of DROs, ROs� witnessed increase in progress from 10%% as on March 31, 2012 to 65% on June 30, 2012.

It is estimated that overall progress goal has advanced to 10%% on June 30, 2012 from 48% as on March 31, 2012.

Goal # 9: Training, Research & Evaluation

Goal #9 of the Strategic plan witnessed an increase of 3% as compared to last Quarter. Its overall progress is estimated to be 63% on June 30, 2012 as compared to 60% on March 31, 2012.

Goal # 11: Public Outreach and Interaction

Goal 11 of the Strategic Plan: Public Outreach and Interaction also witnessed some progress. Development and Implementation of Media Outreach Policy and Strategy made some progress which is assessed to be 45% as of June 30, 2012.

Overall progress on Goal 11 has increased to 48% on June 30, 2012 from 39% on March 31, 2012.

Goal # 12: Political Parties and Candidates:

Under Goal 12: Political Parties and Candidates, strengthening of Code of Conduct for Parties and Candidates progressed from 50% on March 31, 2011 to 60% on June 30, 2012.

Overall Progress on this Goal has been assessed to be 29% as of June 30, 2012 compared to 24 % on March 31, 2012.

The Citizens Report has been prepared by PILDAT under the project Supporting Monitoring of Democracy, Electoral Reforms and Development of Youth in Pakistan which is supported by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Government of Denmark.