Controversy In Upcoming Pakistani Elections
182 candidates submitted their forms to contest for the 52 open seats in the Pakistani National Senate last Tuesday. Of these 182 nominations, 144 candidates were accepted while 37 were rejected. The fiercest competition for seats will be for those representing the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which constitute Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan. This year’s elections will be a measure of Pakistani national sentiment after two opposition parties blockaded Islamabad and unsuccessfully demanded the resignation of the Prime Minister.
Breakdown of Pakistan’s Legislature
The Parliament of Pakistan, officially termed the Majlis-e-Shoora, is the federal legislative body that governs the country. Parliament is divided between a lower and an upper house, the National Assembly and Senate respectively. The Senate has a total of 104 members and holds elections every three years with members serving six year terms. Like many countries across the world, the Senate has seats reserved specifically for women, ethnic minorities, and technocrats.
Of the 52 open seats, 21 belong to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). The PPP, regarded as the center-left and progressive party in Pakistan, currently controls the majority in the Senate. However, due to the high number of contested seats, the PPP may lose its majority to its main opposition, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML). The PML, the center-right party and conservative party of Pakistan, controls a majority of seats in the National Assembly. In these upcoming elections, the PML will be seeking overtake the PPP in the Senate to achieve a majority in both houses. As such, the nomination process for candidates will be crucial for both parties as they seek control of the Senate.
Election Controversy
The majority of the 37 rejected candidates contested for seats in the FATA. Recently, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has made news by rejecting nearly two dozen candidates for tax evasion. Most of the rejected candidates faced charges of tax evasion while others were rejected because they had pending criminal cases. This is the first time in Pakistan’s history that tax evasion has been a major issue in elections. Those who had their applications rejected on these grounds argued that the FATA were a tax-free zone, and thus, they had no obligation to pay taxes. However, officials from Pakistan’s government have insisted that all candidates must file their taxes even if they earned less the minimal income or lived in a tax-free area. The strict following of these rules has made several of Pakistan’s newspapers applaud the ECP for “good housekeeping”.
Another issue that has been dogging the upcoming elections is the involvement of outside funding groups. Specifically, there have been rumors that a property tycoon will be seeking to “invest” in several Senate candidates. The possibility of external funding in the elections has made one particular legislator remark that “money rather than political ideology and morals seem to become an overriding factor” in the upcoming Senate elections.
National Mood in Pakistan
In the past few months, Pakistan has experienced crisis after crisis. From August 2014 to December 2014, mass protests organized by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party (PTI) against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, known as the Azadi March, took place. The protesters argued that the Prime Minister had rigged the elections in 2013 and demanded his resignation. The movement only ended when PTI called for a period of unity after the Taliban attacked a public school, killing over a hundred children. The recent terrorist attack in December sparked additional protests, which were unrelated to PTI’s opposition to Prime Minister Sharif. This time the protesters, led by civil society activists and progressives, called the government out for not taking meaningful action against the Taliban.
The rise of protests across the country signals that these upcoming Senate elections will be highly contested. As Pakistan seeks a way to respond to the recent protests and terrorist attacks, the elections will be an excellent indicator of how the Pakistani people feel their government has handled the situation. With tax evasion eliminating a wide swath of candidates and outside spending rumored to be involved in the election, the upcoming Pakistani elections may be building up to be one of the most heated and controversial elections in Pakistan’s history.