Challenges Before the ECP

Mr. Naseen Sadiq, in his article  “Challenges Before the ECP”

 (“The News” August 3^rd, 2012 ) has brilliantly enumerated the challenges that the ECP has to face in making the elections Free and Fair and has posed a number of questions to the CEC starting with, “Will the next elections replicate the ECP’s dismal performance of the past?”.  The learned writer has drawn our attention to the farcical absolute majority obtained by a candidate out of the hypothetical four contestants in a constituency by securing only 13 percent votes while the 87 percent either voted against him or did not vote at all ! He has very rightly suggested ‘run off’ polling in such cases to determine the real winner of a constituency.

The learned writer answers his own questions by saying, “Unless the ECP has the courage and conscience to break away from its apathetic past and act  proactively, it is likely to allow the same aberrations to reappear as our second generation of lawbreakers”.  

My two cents:  I don’t think courage has a chance. The discouragers are too strong for the genteel Justice(Retd)FakhruddinG.Ebrahim .

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)