The Supreme Court of Pakistan issued an order that mandates the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to address complaints related to the fairness and freedom of the upcoming election process.
The forthcoming Pakistan general election, slated for February 8, 2024, aims to elect members of the 16th National Assembly. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), a key political party in Pakistan, filed a constitutional petition claiming its members have been arrested unjustly and harassed, and their nomination papers confiscated. The PTI alleges these actions are direct infringements of fair and free elections.
As a result, PTI has requested the ECP, established on March 23, 1956, as a permanent constitutional body with complete financial independence and autonomy from all government control, to even the playing field for its leaders and workers to ensure fairness in the election process.
However, PTI alleges that the ECP has not addressed their complaints, hence obstructing the constitutional responsibility bound by Article 218(3) of the Pakistan Constitution and the Elections Act, 2017.
The Supreme Court underscored ECP’s critical role in the democratic electoral process, stressing that the ECP should ensure elections are unbiased and free of persuasion, coercion, and corruption.
Simultaneously, the ECP decided to strip PTI of its election symbol – the cricket bat – due to a failure to hold an intra-party election in accordance with the PTI Constitution 2019, the Election Act, 2017, and the Election Rules, 2017. This is significant as the election symbol is crucial for voter consciousness, especially considering Pakistan’s literacy rate remains far lower than South Asia’s average, according to World Bank statistics.
PTI’s Raoof Hasan referred to ECP’s decision as excessively biased and criminally partisan. Moreover, PTI’s Taimur Khan Jhagra remarked that the bat would indeed make a return.
The complete report of this issue can be accessed here.